page_title: Neo-Stalinism
section_title: Definitions
hierarchical_section_title: Neo-Stalinism / Definitions
caption_attribution_description: Banner of Stalin in London May 1, 2010 in Clerkenwell, London, GB.
context_page_description: Neo-Stalinism is the promotion of positive views of Joseph Stalin's role in history, the partial re-establishing of Stalin's policies on certain issues and nostalgia for the Stalin period. Neo-Stalinism overlaps significantly with neo-Sovietism and Soviet nostalgia. Various definitions of the term have been given over the years.
context_section_description: According to historian Roy Medvedev, the term describes the rehabilitation of Joseph Stalin, identification with him and the associated political system, nostalgia for the Stalinist period in Russia's history, restoration of Stalinist policies and a return to the administrative terror of the Stalinist period while avoiding some of the worst excesses.
  According to former General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, the term refers to a moderated Stalinist state without large-scale repressions, but with persecution of political opponents and total control of all political activities in the country.
  The American Trotskyist Hal Draper used "neo-Stalinism" in 1948 to refer to a new political ideology—new development in Soviet policy, which he defined as a reactionary trend whose beginning was associated with the Popular front period of the mid-1930s, writing: "The ideologists of neo-Stalinism are merely the tendrils shot ahead by the phenomena – fascism and Stalinism – which outline the social and political form of a neo-barbarism".
  Philosopher Frederick Copleston portrays neo-Stalinism as a "Slavophile emphasis on Russia and her history", saying that "what is called neo-Stalinism is not exclusively an expression of a desire to control, dominate, repress and dragoon; it is also the expression of a desire that Russia, while making use of western science and technology, should avoid contamination by western 'degenerate' attitudes and pursue her own path".
  Political geographer Denis J. B. Shaw considers the Soviet Union as neo-Stalinist until the post-1985 period of transition to capitalism. He identified neo-Stalinism as a political system with planned economy and highly developed military–industrial complex.
  During the 1960s, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) distinguished between Stalinism and neo-Stalinism in that "[t]he Soviet leaders have not reverted to two extremes of Stalin's rule – one-man dictatorship and mass terror. For this reason, their policy deserves the label 'neo-Stalinist' rather than -Stalinist".
  Katerina Clark, describing an anti-Khrushchev, pro-Stalin current in Soviet literary world during the 1960s, described the work of "neo-Stalinist" writers as harking back to "the Stalin era and its leaders [...] as a time of unity, strong rule and national honor".
caption: May Day procession with Joseph Stalin's portrait in London, 2010
exif: {"Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D60", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image XResolution": "300", "Image YResolution": "300", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Ver.1.01", "Image DateTime": "2010:05:01 13:16:33", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "216", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "300", "Thumbnail YResolution": "300", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "28728", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "9308", "Thumbnail YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/320", "EXIF FNumber": "9", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Program Normal", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "200", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0221", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2010:05:01 13:16:33", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2010:05:01 13:16:33", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "2", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "-1/3", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "5", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "55", "EXIF SubSecTime": "50", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "50", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "50", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "sRGB", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "1936", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1296", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R98", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "28590", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 1, 2, 0, 1]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Auto Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Auto", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "82", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "None", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Hard", "EXIF Sharpness": "Hard", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0"}