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Editor:
There’s been a great deal of comment on the RuNet about V I Stalin, I V Stalin’s son. Often, where one falls on this issue depends on one’s social position. Those who fancy themselves “intellectuals” or intelligentsia declare him evil, just as they do his father. Those who suck up to Westerners (those who act like Anglo “conservatives”, labelled “liberals” in Russian discourse) take a similar stand. However, most working-class and lower-middle Russians stand up for Vasili Iosifovich. The internet gives them a voice… a voice that the state doesn’t censor. As one of my friends at the Centre put it:
Unlike the Americans, we don’t censor the internet… for good reason. You see, we can find out where public opinion is heading, and take proper action. There’s no need to arrest people or bully them as they do in America.
Ordinary Russians RESPECT “The Vozhd*”. ALL OF THEM. Note that I didn’t say that they “love” him. No one loves I V Stalin. NO ONE. As one friend put it in an email (he’s an engine-driver on the yeliktrichka trains, a communist, and an Orthodox believer):
- Vozhd: “The Leader”, the most-common name for Stalin amongst working-class and lower-middle Russians (and their counterparts in the post-Soviet Near Abroad)… if an ordinary Russian uses “The Vozhd”, they mean I V Stalin, and no one else.
He was a hard man in a hard time. He made life better for little people, like us, and he made the bosses toe the line. No… he wasn’t a good man… but he was a great man, like Pyotr Veliki. Sometimes, harsh times call for harsh measures. Didn’t FDR trample on the bosses in your country, too?
Don’t get me wrong… I’m not sweeping I V Stalin’s actions under the rug. However, I AM saying:
Take all of his actions together… the good and the bad… weigh them in the balance. Take collectivisation and the repressions on the one hand and the victory in the VOV, the country’s industrialisation, and the mass literacy and health programmes on the other. I think that you’d come to the realisation that great men in history may not be “good” men. Think on that… think on it hard.
As for V I Stalin, I agree with most ordinary Russians. He was an honourable man who refused to malign his father and the dishonourable attacked him for that. There’s no other possible conclusion. Therefore, like most ordinary Russians, I think that V I Stalin’s refusal to cast mud at his father covers many sins… unlike his sister, who maligned her father and family at the behest of the Amerikantsy pigs.
Bright and eternal memory to Vasili Iosifovich… he refused to dishonour his father… and paid the price for doing so.
What follows is a representative selection of some of the writings of ordinary Russians on V I Stalin.
BMD
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Vasili Iosifovich Stalin (1921-62) , Lieutenant-General of Aviation, veteran of the Great Patriotic War. He went from being a pilot-instructor in an aviation regiment to being commander of the 3 Guards Aviation and 286 Fighter Aviation Divisions. Postwar, he headed the aviation units of the Moscow Military District (1948-52)! HE KEPT IN MIND THE HONOURABLE WORD OF A SOLDIER OF OUR FATHERLAND… like his late father, unlike Khrushchyov’s renegade gang of bastards and traitors.
16 March 2016
Yevgeny Spitsyn
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They chose the Motherland as their highest ideal
Eternal memory and glory to heroes!
No one is forgotten; nothing is forgotten!
VASILI IOSIFOVICH STALIN
Soviet military leader, Lieutenant-General of Aviation, son of I V Stalin
21 March 1921-19 March 1962
Vasili Iosifovich Stalin, son of Iosif Stalin, son of Joseph Stalin and Nadezhda Alliuyeva, born on 21 March 1921 in the Kremlin. He went to a regular Moscow school, taking an ordinary tram without a security detail. Like many other children of the Soviet nomenklatura, Vasili Iosifovich became a pilot. Aged 20, he went to the front as a captain. During the war, he flew 27 combat missions; he shot down one enemy plane; he received three Orders of the Red Banner, the Order of Suvorov (II Class), and the Order of Aleksandr Nevsky. In 1942, he became a Colonel, in 1946, he was as Major-General, and in 1947, he was a Lieutenant-General. V I Stalin was one of the youngest generals of the Soviet Army. At the end of the Great Patriotic War, he commanded a Fighter Aviation Division.
18 March 2016
СССР. Прекрасная страна, в которой мы жили
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ON THE MEMOIRS OF V I STALIN
Soon after his father’s death, Vasili Iosifovich Stalin, who had already been sacked, asked the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China for political asylum. The son of the Vozhd had good reason to make such a request. He felt the clouds gathering above his head. He understood that the people he’d openly accused of killing his father wouldn’t leave him alone. V I Stalin’s fears weren’t groundless. On 28 April 1953, Stalin’s successors arrested him on charges of anti-Soviet propaganda and abuse of office. After an “investigation” that lasted for more than two years, they sentenced him to eight years in prison. He could’ve copped out, with a full removal of the charges and with restoration of his former status if only he’d repudiate his father and publicly condemn him. However, Vasili Iosifovich refused to do it. As a son, he couldn’t betray his father’s memory. As a communist, he couldn’t betray a leader who did great deeds or abuse his ideals.
29 February 2016
Nikolai Shirshov
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On 21 March, a legendary man was born! Vasili Iosifovich was a good fighter pilot who piloted all kinds of aircraft that were in VVS service! He didn’t sell out or betray his great father… Comrade Stalin! He never dishonoured his father’s name or that of the Stalin family! Eternal Memory to Vasili Iosifovich Stalin!
21 March 2017
Aleksandr Kharchikov
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Vasili Iosifovich Stalin (1921-62) was a Soviet military pilot, Lieutenant-General of Aviation (1949), Commander of the Moscow Military District aviation units in 1948, and the youngest son of I V Stalin. Under Khrushchyov, V I Stalin served eight years in prison, and his accusers threw all manner of accusations against him. They called him an alcoholic, a womaniser, immoral, a mediocrity, a scoundrel, a low-life, a bastard, and a spoiled son. Of course, Vasili Iosifovich wasn’t an angel; he was a drinker and married three times, so that gave his enemies many opportunities to fix on him many pejorative labels.
During the war, V I Stalin flew without a parachute, for he knew that in the event of failure, it’d be better to die than to be captured and to give the Germans a bargaining card like having another son of Stalin in captivity. He flew 26 combat missions and shot down two enemy aircraft. He wasn’t in combat long, because I V Stalin himself banned his flights when he found out that the Germans were actively hunting for his son. I V Stalin himself made him to resign as commander of the Moscow Military District aviation units, when Vasili Iosifovich showed up at a government reception drunk. Stalin’s son pulled other gaffes… his father sent him to study at the Frunze Academy, but Vasili Iosifovich defiantly didn’t attend classes and showed no interest in studying. The following year, I V Stalin died (or was killed). Vasili Iosifovich believed that his close entourage murdered his father, so he tried to pass this information to the Chinese, but state security arrested him.
Unlike his sister Svetlana, Vasili Iosifovich refused to cast aspersions at his father. Outside of official life, V I Stalin was a great promoter of sport. He formed all sorts of sport teams in the air force. V I Stalin’s son A V Burdonsky became a People’s Artist of the Russian Federation in 1996 for his activities as a theatre director.
21 March 2017
Rafik Timirgaliev
Voices from Russia 
Many of Those Condemned in the Trials of the 1930s WERE Guilty
Tags: 1917 October Revolution, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, Christian, Christianity, Eastern Orthodox Church, Federal Security Service, Federal Security Service (Russia), FSB, Great Purges, Iosif Stalin, Josef Stalin, Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Moscow Patriarchate, Orthodox, Orthodoxy, political commentary, politics, repression, Russia, Russian, Russian history, Russian Revolution, Soviet Union, Stalin, Stalinism, Stalinist repressions, Trotsky, USSR, Vsevolod Chaplin
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Some of the “best people”, that is, our intelligentsia, turned on the FSB’s director because he pointed up that some of the people convicted in the trials of the 1930s were actually guilty, as they wish to do nothing more than condemn what they call the “crimes” of the Bolshevik authorities. What he said was:
Are you telling me that all the repressed Old Bolsheviks were innocent? On the other hand, is it just because a part of the intelligentsia sees these people as their historical predecessors, and is afraid of a similar verdict by the court of history and in the verdict of the people? In fact, the only true innocents were those few people who didn’t betray the tsar and their faith, who suffered for their allegiance to them. Many of the New Martyrs were amongst them. However, the collective sins of many Russian classes are obvious to me… as is the justice of the punishment that struck them. By the way, only Protestant rationalists, contrary to Scripture and Tradition, believe that sins can only be personal.
Was the peasantry, who seized land from the manors, perfectly innocent? Who was innocent amongst the clergy, who only protested when it affected their corporate interests… or, the aristocracy, many of whom donned red cockades… or, the Duma Deputies, industrialists, and party leaders who plotted against the tsar in wartime… or, the Red commanders who shot down their own people? The Lord God isn’t mocked. True is His justice. He metes out according to our just desserts. This isn’t just about the past.
24 December 2017
Vsevolod Chaplin
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