Stalin is dead, long live Stalin? Testing socialization, structural, ideological, nationalist, and...
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This article was downloaded by: [Thammasat University Libraries]On: 09 October 2014, At: 03:32Publisher: RoutledgeInforma Ltd Registered in England and Wales Registered Number: 1072954 Registeredoffice: Mortimer House, 37-41 Mortimer Street, London W1T 3JH, UK
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Stalin is dead, long live Stalin? Testingsocialization, structural, ideological,nationalist, and gender hypothesesAlexi Gugushviliab & Peter Kabachnikc
a Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences(BIGSSS), University of Bremen, Wiener Straße/Celsiusstraße,D-28334 Bremen, Germanyb Center for Social Sciences, Tbilisi, Georgiac College of Staten Island – The City University of New York(CUNY), New York, NY, USAPublished online: 05 Aug 2014.
To cite this article: Alexi Gugushvili & Peter Kabachnik (2014): Stalin is dead, long live Stalin?Testing socialization, structural, ideological, nationalist, and gender hypotheses, Post-SovietAffairs, DOI: 10.1080/1060586X.2014.940697
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2014.940697
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Stalin is dead, long live Stalin? Testing socialization, structural,ideological, nationalist, and gender hypotheses
Alexi Gugushvilia,b* and Peter Kabachnikc
aBremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS), University ofBremen, Wiener Straße/Celsiusstraße, D-28334 Bremen, Germany; bCenter for SocialSciences, Tbilisi, Georgia; cCollege of Staten Island – The City University of New York
(CUNY), New York, NY, USA
(Received 19 May 2014; accepted 19 June 2014)
Recently, there has been a renewed focus on analyzing post-Soviet memory,including the rekindling of debate on contemporary perspectives of JosefStalin. Most notably, the publication of The Stalin Puzzle has helped bringattention to the persistence of positive accounts and admiration, along withambivalent and contested images, of the former dictator of the Soviet Union.Using survey data and multivariate statistical methods, we test five broadhypotheses – socialization, structural, ideological, nationalist, and gender – toascertain what factors might shape people’s attitudes toward Stalin in Georgia.Our analysis reveals that elderly, poor men from rural areas have the mostpositive associations of Stalin, whereas young, wealthier women from cities,those who are open to privatization, and perceive Russia as Georgia’s biggestthreat judge Stalin negatively. Counterintuitively, non-Georgian minoritiesshow higher esteem for Stalin than Georgians. We envision that the effects ofcohort replacement, economic development, and urbanization will decreasepositive perceptions of Stalin in years to come.
Keywords: Stalin; post-Soviet memory; Georgia; socialization; nationalism
Introduction
Scholars have identified the phenomena of nostalgia for the Soviet Union and the
Soviet era as a particularly salient feature of modern post-communist societies
(Boym 2001; Mendelson and Gerber 2005, 2006; Munro 2006; Popov 2008; Lee
2011; Khinkulova 2012; Sullivan 2013; Vegso 2013). Symbols of the Soviet era
manifest themselves in a variety of discourses, be it discussing the communist past
nostalgically, military parades that allude to the glory days of the Soviet empire
and its former superpower status, or the reproduction of the cult of the Great
Patriotic War.1 The symbols of the Soviet era also materialize in various places
like monuments (Forest and Johnson 2002), billboards and advertisements
(Danilova 2005; Kara-Murza 2013), or else in literature (Medvedev 2005;
Yasmann 2006; Marsh 2007) and television (Khinkulova 2012). In this article, we
q 2014 Taylor & Francis
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
Post-Soviet Affairs, 2014
http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1060586X.2014.940697
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turn our attention to another such symbol – Josef Stalin – and the narratives and
opinions people have about him.
In the twenty-first century, Stalin is making his presence felt yet again. Surveys
have demonstrated that Stalin’s popularity remained high or has in fact risen in
recent years in the successor states to the Soviet Union (Mendelson and Gerber
2006). For instance, in Russia, Stalin repeatedly polls as one of the most celebrated
figures in Russian history (Slysz 2010), his image adorns a variety of products,
Volgograd has already reverted to its previous toponym – Stalingrad – 6 days a
year, and there are renewed discussions for a referendum that could put this name
back on the map (Taylor 2014). Meanwhile, new Stalin monuments have appeared
in several parts of Georgia, the Stalin Museum in Gori still idealizes the hometown
hero, and it is not unusual to hear toasts dedicated to the man of steel.
Beyond symbolic manifestations and anecdotal evidence, a recent study has
drawn attention to, and spurred considerable debate about, people’s attitudes toward
Josef Stalin throughout contemporary post-Soviet space (de Waal 2013a). Survey
results have revealed high levels of admiration for a person considered to be one of
the most notorious dictators in history. For some commentators, this became proof
that the people surveyed had failed the “Stalin test” (Mendelson andGerber 2006) or
else that these results indicated that there is a “Stalin puzzle” that needed solving
(deWaal 2013a). Questions undoubtedly arise: How to approach Stalin’s continued
presence into the twenty-first century, over 60 years after his death? How shall we
digest this information? How do we contend with this phenomenon? In this article,
we attempt to explain attitudes toward Stalin in his birthplace, Georgia, where
respondents to the aforementioned surveys demonstrated by far the highest support
for him. Therefore, in addition to the mainstream explanations of political attitudes
– socialization, social structural, ideological, and gender theories – we also look at
the ethno-nationalistic dimension of how Stalin is perceived in Georgia.
We utilize the survey data commissioned by the 2012 Carnegie survey and
administered by the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC 2012). Although
the descriptive results have been made public, in order to better situate the survey
responses, one needs to go beyond the surface results as captured in the charts
detailing the percentage of respondents answering each question (see de Waal
2013a, 7–11).While this is certainly a necessary and important starting point, to get
a sense ofwhat factors are informing people’s attitudes, onemust dig deeper into the
survey data. To this end, we use bivariate and multivariate statistical methods to
analyze the data, search for valid explanations of attitudes about Stalin, and draw
conclusions for existing and future studies.Our objectives in this article are twofold.
First, we wish to move past descriptive data in the search for determinants using
advanced statistical methods. Second, we test the applicability of the general
theories of public attitudes as well as nationalist sentiments that might shape
people’s attitudes toward Stalin in Georgia. This article is structured as follows: in
the following section, we provide an overview of the main issues relating to
contemporary understandings of Stalin in post-Soviet space and in Georgia. Next,
we detail our major hypotheses about why people hold the particular political
attitudes they do. Then, we provide an overview of our data and methods, followed
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by the bulk of the article, the analysis of the empirical data, along with our
predictions about what will happen with attitudes about Stalin in the future. We
close with a summary and discuss the possible implications of our findings.
Understanding Stalin today
Before elaborating the specific hypotheses of our study, we consider it essential to
describe what Stalin means today for people in the former Soviet Union. Many
scholars examine the issue of cultural memory in post-Soviet space, deeming it a
topic necessitating further research (Etkind 2013). These studies focus on how
Russia, in the first two decades after the collapse of the USSR, has not gone
through a process of de-Stalinization, failing to both properly reassess its past and
adequately commemorate and acknowledge the victims of the Soviet regime.
However, much of the research that does not only focus on this topic theoretically,
draws upon the experience of former dissidents, the intelligentsia, former
prisoners, and writers and artists (Etkind 2013). When everyday perspectives are
considered, or current understandings of the past explored, it is often done
anecdotally (Hochschild 1995; Smith 1996; Satter 2012; for a non-Russia
example, see Rosenberg 1996). By contrast, we systematically analyze survey data
about people’s attitudes towards Stalin in order to augment the rich, though often
methodologically less rigorous,2 qualitative data already available in the literature.
This serves two functions. First, it helps us better verify whether certain discourses
and claims being made about what opinions of Stalin signify are isolated themes or
are more broadly representative of the general public. Second, we can identify
what factors contribute to heightened levels of appreciation of Stalin or more
critical views about the Soviet dictator.
There has been some exploration of popular attitudes and analysis of survey
data on sensitive topics such as violence and conflicts in the North and South
Caucasus (Kolossov and Toal 2007; O’Loughlin, Toal, and Kolossov 2008; Bakke,
O’Loughlin, and Ward 2009; O’Loughlin, Kolossov, and Toal 2011; Toal and
Grono 2011; Toal and O’Loughlin 2013), as well as research analyzing popular
understandings of the Soviet era in Russia (Rose and Carnaghan 1995; Mendelson
and Gerber 2005, 2006, 2008; Sullivan 2013). Other related research has examined
a wide range of topics, frommeasuring the power of nostalgia for the Soviet Union
(Munro 2006; Popov 2008; Lee 2011; Sullivan 2013) to documenting the attitudes
of Russian youth toward the United States (Mendelson and Gerber 2008).
Within this literature, the analysis of attitudes towards Stalin has been
explored. However, few studies have consulted the broader literature on attitude
formation and persistence and employed rigorous statistical analysis to uncover
variables pertaining to people’s perceptions of Stalin (Reisinger et al. 1994; Munro
2006; Mendelson and Gerber 2008; Sullivan 2013). Furthermore, to date there has
been no attempt at multivariate analysis of survey data about attitudes toward
Stalin in Georgia. Bakradze (2013) provides the only analysis thus far of the
survey results in Georgia. He offers a general summary of the factors influencing
attitudes toward Stalin. Counterintuitively, he states that “a more precise
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breakdown of Georgian attitudes by age and social group does not reveal
significant differences across society” (Bakradze 2013, 52). Age in particular is
often offered as a component that correlates with positive or negative feelings
toward Stalin, namely that older people are more likely to be proud of Stalin. He
goes on to say that education plays little role, residents of Tbilisi tend to be more
critical of Stalin, and attitudes toward Russia only provide a small level of
indication of support for Stalin. In this article, we will test these pronouncements
and other proffered explanations.
In the next section, we propose five broad hypotheses to test against the survey
data results. The development and selection of the five hypotheses – socialization,
structural, ideological, nationalist, and gender – was shaped by the Carnegie
report’s analyses (de Waal 2013a), the broader literature on attitudes about Stalin
in Russia (as discussed above), the prevailing “conventional wisdom” in Georgia,
and our own experiences speaking with people in Georgia about Stalin. The five
hypotheses encapsulate a variety of indices, including ethnicity, religiosity,
education level, age, gender, political and economic ideology, socioeconomic
status, and settlement type. These hypotheses will be considered and either
validated or challenged based on the results of various statistical methods.
Hypotheses
In order to explain attitudes toward Stalin in Georgia, we refer to major theories on
the micro-foundations of political attitudes – socialization, social structural, and
ideological perspectives. We also consider the role of Georgian nationalism in
explaining why respondents in this country are more likely to express approval of
Stalin than respondents in neighboring Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia (de Waal
2013a). In addition, we hypothesize that gender has specific implications in
relation to the Soviet dictator and that the outlined factors also manifest differently
within consecutive birth cohorts.
Socialization theory
We propose that socialization theory is the main framework for understanding
attitudes toward Stalin in Georgia. Each individual born in a society acquires
values and beliefs from the distinctive development of her or his birth cohort
through peer-group socialization, the content of formal education, and
idiosyncratic historical experiences such as war, revolution, or technological
change (Ryder 1965). Political attitudes are shaped at a relatively young age when
individuals are entering adulthood (Jennings andMarkus 1984). More specifically,
the impressionable years hypothesis implies that during late adolescence and early
adulthood, individuals are highly susceptible to attitude change and their
susceptibility significantly declines thereafter (Krosnick and Alwin 1989).
According to the aging-stability hypothesis, stable attitudes emerge soon after
early adult experiences, and differences between cohorts are quite durable in the
face of social change (Alwin and Krosnick 1991). Probably the main reason why
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attitudes adopted during childhood tend to persist over the life course is that
individuals in their adulthood are more likely to believe in the importance and
certainly of their convictions, while their perceived quantity of attitude-relevant
knowledge is greater than during their late adolescence or early adulthood (Visser
and Krosnick 1998).
Generational differences in social and structural conditions are one of the main
explanations why most social change progresses slowly. Many scholars of post-
socialist democratic transition have reached a consensus that a cohort replacement
over a long period of time would be necessary to create a civil society free of the
communist indoctrination (e.g., Finkel, Humphries, and Opp 2001; Pop-Eleches
and Tucker 2014). Individual studies in post-Soviet space also show that the
youngest generation is more favorably disposed toward popular participation
in decision-making, while the older generation exhibits admiration for a “strong
leader” (Hahn and Logvinenko 2008). Although the most appealing political
system for Russians, regardless of age, is a Soviet system, nearly half of
respondents born before the 1930s preferred an unreformed Soviet political regime,
whereas among those born after the 1960s that proportion was only 10% (Colton
and McFaul 2002). We know that cohorts born in the first half of the twentieth
century in Soviet Georgia were brought up in an environment whereby people were
indoctrinated to communist ideas and exposed to idealized representations of Stalin
(Kitaevich 2014), at least before Khrushchev’s “Secret Speech” and de-
Stalinization measures after 1956 (Kemp-Welch 1996).
The youngest generations are least influenced by socialization that glorified
Stalin and communist achievements in general, as they grew up during the less
authoritative 1960s and 1970s and in Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroyka and
glasnost’ periods. In one of the few studies that analyzed multivariate framework
attitudes toward Stalin, Reisinger et al. (1994) inquired into how strongly
respondents agreed with the following statement: “These days, Stalin is not given
adequate credit for his accomplishments.” Their findings suggest that positive
attitudes toward Stalin indeed are highest for those born before 1925 and lowest
among individuals born after 1966. However, the same survey in Ukraine and
Lithuania suggests that the oldest cohorts have less positive perceptions of Stalin
than those born in 1926–1935. The most likely explanation for this trend is that
Lithuania was independent before World War II, and therefore, those born earlier
than 1926were not indoctrinated by the Soviet regime during their formative years,
whereas in Ukraine the oldest survey respondents might remember the famine of
1932–1933 and place blame for it on the late Soviet ruler (Bilinsky 1999). Since
Georgia was annexed by Soviet Russia in 1921, in our survey, we do not have
respondents with living memory of the first Georgian republic (1918–1921).
Following from the preceding review of the theoretical and empirical literature, we
therefore expect that the older cohorts will be most supportive of Stalin in Georgia.
Hypothesis 1: Positive attitudes toward Stalin are strongest among the oldest
birth cohorts and rapidly decline among those born in the second
half of the twentieth century.
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Social structural theory
Our first hypothesis assumes that individuals have different attitudes about Stalin
because of their generational affiliation and socialization. The levels of
indoctrination markedly differed in the first half of the twentieth century from the
period when Georgia became an independent country. However, it would be
naıve to completely explain attitudes of a certain individual toward the Soviet
system and Stalin based on her or his birth date (Ekman and Linde 2005). The
level of education is a good example to illustrate this point because it might have
implications for both socialization and social structural theories. If we assume
that an individual’s education has an effect on attitudes toward Stalin, then
expanding educational opportunities might be responsible for variance of
attitudes among different generations. Here, we are not talking about the content
of the curriculum at different historical times, which itself would be a
generational effect, but rather about the share of people with primary, secondary,
and tertiary educational attainment across time. Education is only one example,
other areas of social and economic change included urbanization, labor market
structure, material welfare, and other developments related to transition from a
more traditional, agrarian society to the more industrialized and urbanized
Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic (Rose and Carnaghan 1995). Social structural
theory assumes that values and beliefs can change throughout the life course,
and attitudes are shaped by the current structural conditions in which individuals
find themselves.
There is a scarcity of literature on how social and structural conditions are
associated with attitudes toward Stalin or other dictators, but perceptions of
democracy and authoritarianism seem to be related to a complex interplay of
institutional, cultural, and economic factors (Inglehart 1988). Leaving institutional
determinants aside, better educated individuals are expected to have more critical
attitudes toward strict norms and authoritative leaders because education equips
people with the skills that are necessary to understand political processes and to
communicate preferences to those who make decisions even in authoritative
states. Hahn (1991), analyzing attitudes in Russia just before the collapse of the
Soviet Union, concludes that educational attainment had the most important effect
on political attitudes. It seems that individuals with limited education are different
political actors than those with higher academic attainment. We should expect that
more educated individuals, controlling for their birth date, are less likely to
support Stalin because they are more aware of the mass executions and other
atrocities committed by the Soviet regime under Stalin’s leadership. A highly
educated public is less likely to tolerate the old Stalinist system’s heavy-handed
terror and controls (Bahry 1993).
Another important social structural explanation of attitudes toward Stalin can
be rural-urban differences. The increased complexity of social structure that
accompanies urban residence could be more difficult to accommodate within the
framework of an authoritarian state system. In urban areas, people are better
informed about actions implemented by governments. It was argued that in Russia
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during the early 1990s, a salient urban-rural split in the distribution of political
attitudes existed, and that rural residents were generally less supportive of political
reforms (Wegren 1994) and were more collectivist and egalitarian than urban
Russians (Reisinger, Miller, and Hesli 1995). Studies which analyze democratic
satisfaction in a number of post-socialist countries also show that in big cities and
national capitals people have been more critical of the quality of the existing
democracy than in small and medium-sized towns and rural communities
(Neundorf 2010; Pop-Eleches and Tucker 2014). When asked if “these days Stalin
is not given adequate credit for his accomplishments,” urban residents are less
likely to view Stalin favorably (Reisinger et al. 1994). The same can apply to
differences of support for Stalin between rural and urban settlements in Georgia. It
is expected that in rural areas Stalin is more popular than in the capital city and
other urban settlements. It has been shown that in consecutive national elections
since independence, Tbilisi residents were more likely to cast votes for opposition
parties and presidential candidates (George 2014).
In addition to education and urbanization, what might also shape attitudes
toward Stalin in Georgia is respondents’ socioeconomic status. It has been argued
that it was not the progress of modernization but its discontinuities that prompted
social and political change in the Soviet Union (Ruble 1987). For instance, higher
education had expanded far more rapidly than the existing occupational structure
could accommodate, which led to substantial underemployment of the educated
labor force. Similar trends were also observed in Georgia’s educational and
occupational expansion (Gugushvili 2013). In this article, we make an
assumption that Stalin is perceived as a symbol of the individual’s attitude
toward various aspects of the Soviet political and economic system (Cohen 1982).
In this regard, many of those who are dissatisfied with their current position in the
post-socialist socioeconomic hierarchy might evince positive attitudes toward
the Soviet system and Josef Stalin. For instance, using data for 16 post-socialist
societies, it was shown that an individual’s income is strongly and positively
related to support for a democratic political order, and it tends to have its
strongest effect if economic development is high (Andersen 2012). Studies on
nostalgia for the USSR also reveal that the poor are more likely to harbor positive
feelings about the Soviet past (Sullivan 2013). Munro (2006) shows that an
individual’s evaluation of the current economic system has a weak negative
influence on nostalgia, but more importantly the family economic situation in
the past has the strongest effect on attitudes toward the former system.
Individuals’ socioeconomic conditions could be even more important for attitudes
toward Stalin in Georgia, as the country experienced dramatic economic decline
in the 1990s and the poverty level has remained consistently high thereafter
(Gugushvili 2011).
Hypothesis 2: Attitudes toward Stalin are stratified based on an individual’s
current socioeconomic conditions – more educated, urban, and
wealthier individuals are against Stalin, while less educated,
rural, and poor individuals are pro-Stalin.
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Ideological preferences
The next theoretical approach assumes that the perception of the Soviet dictator is
linked to other sets of attitudes. Individuals view Stalin as part of a larger belief
system (Brooks and Bolzendahl 2004). People as a rule are not knowledgeable
about most issues at a given point of time, yet they are able to express preferences
when necessary or if asked to. Rational individuals sort their preferences by
answering two questions: Who am I? andWhat should I do? Their cultural identity
helps individuals to know what kind of preferences they are expected to have as
well as their desirability in comparison to others’ beliefs (Wildavsky 1987). We
can assume that democratic values in socialist and post-socialist societies stem
from a breakdown in confidence in the authoritarian regime. This trend was further
fueled by the diffusion of Western ideas about the democratic political system,
which was perceived as a powerful alternative political model (Gibson 1996). It is
likely that the residual authoritarian values and beliefs in post-socialist societies
stem from system-internal experiences, whereas the democratic elements stem
from system-external experiences (Roller 1994).
After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the disillusionment with
communism, ideas of a freemarket economy and democratic political system began
to take hold. Like other Western practices, ideas, and items such as religion, Levis,
and Snickers, democracy became fashionable in post-socialist societies (Gibson
1996). In 1992, in one of the first nationally representative surveys conducted in
independent Georgia, 63% of respondents agreed that the creation of a market
economy largely free from state control was right for the country’s future. In the
same survey, more than half of the respondents expressed satisfaction with the
development of democracy (Reif and Cunningham 1993). In 2012, after 20 years of
post-socialist transition, most people in Georgia (83%) agree that democracy is
preferable to any other form of political system (CRRC 2012). The gradual spread
of ideas about the fundamental characteristics of the politico-economic system is
obvious in Stalin’s home country. The reason why we expect that these ideological
preferences will be reflected in views toward the Soviet dictator is that the
fundamental principles of a market economy and democracy are incompatible with
Stalinism. Individuals who perceive democracy and a market economy as the
preferred politico-economic system should not exhibit strong positive attitudes
toward Stalin and his policies.
Hypothesis 3: Support of an ideology that is not compatible with Stalinism –
democracy and a market economy – leads to a negative
perception of Stalin.
Nationalism theory
As outlined earlier in this article, one of the major findings of The Stalin Puzzle (de
Waal 2013a) is that attitudes toward the late Soviet dictator are significantly and
systematically more positive in Georgia than in Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Russia.
Beyond socialization, social structural, and ideological factors, we speculate that
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Stalin’s ethnicity might be one of the major covariates that shapes his positive
perception (Zedania 2011). Many scholars have identified high levels of
nationalism in the country, even during the Soviet period (Jones 1992; Nodia
1995; Chinn and Kaiser 1996; Slider 1997; Kaufman 2001). It is also argued that
virulent ultranationalism dominated for a time in the 1990s (Suny 2006). There are
reasons to believe that many Georgians still identify with and are proud of their
ethnic kinsman – Ioseb Jugashvili (Bakradze 2013) – who is arguably the most
well-known Georgian in world history. Showing pride in Stalin, or displaying a
portrait of him in one’s home, could be a nationalist practice that reproduces
Georgian national identity. As nationalism scholars relate, narratives and symbols,
such as the image of Stalin and the stories told about him, help to embody
everyday performative nationalism (Bhabha 1990). Stalin’s role as a national
symbol can reproduce national identity both in explicit and ritualistic (Hobsbawm
1983) and banal ways (Billig 1995). If Stalin is understood as a particularly
Georgian symbol, and thus a key aspect of Georgia identity and history, then
attitudes toward Stalin can be seen as a measure of Georgian nationalism.
Furthermore, the unique role of Stalin in Georgian nationalism could be
affected by the 1956 demonstrations to mark the third anniversary of Stalin’s death
and consequently by the “9 March Massacre” unleashed by the Soviet military in
Tbilisi. There is evidence of strong nationalist sentiment present during these
protests in Georgia (Suny 1994). Though the degree to which Stalin was
imbricated in the nationalist fervor is difficult to quantify and is debated (Kozlov
1999; Blauvelt 2009), there was clearly a connection. It is argued that along with
the demands for the rehabilitation of Stalin, protestors raised the issues of self-
determination and the independence of Georgia. Some commentators also draw
parallels between the 1956 events and the 1989 independence movement massacre
for the formation of Georgian national identity (Vashakidze 2013). In spite of
Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization campaign, Stalin remained, perhaps more than in
other Soviet republics, a presence in domestic (photographs and portraits hanging
in homes and workplaces) and public space (monuments) in Georgia throughout
the Soviet period and still to this day. This indicates that Stalin remained a central
element of Georgian identity and the inability to limit his presence in the
landscape could be explained by Georgian nationalism.
Nationalism, especially its ethnic component, is often expressed through
religious nationalism and indeed one prominent feature of national identity in the
Georgian case is religion. Zedania (2012) highlights the role of religious
nationalism in the country and notes the central role of the Orthodox Church for
Georgian identity, as for many being Georgian “lies in ‘being Orthodox’” (125). It
is also argued that religious-nationalistic views and value orientations in Georgian
society prevail over civil and liberal ones (Chelidze 2014). Furthermore, there are
some direct links between religious nationalism and the Stalin cult in Georgia, as
many clergy are grateful for Stalin’s re-institution of the Church during World
War II. This narrative also implies that the death of Stalin in 1953 prompted the
new repressions of the Church, often ignoring the fact that Stalin’s regime was an
atheist dictatorship that was responsible for the destruction of numerous churches
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in Georgia and elsewhere in the Soviet Union. Probably the most vivid
manifestation of the position of the Georgian Church is an interview with its
leader, Ilia II, who polls repeatedly indicate is the most trusted figure in Georgia,
who stated that “Stalin is an exceptional person, people like him are rarely born”
(Metskhvarishvili 2013).
However, an additional dimension to be considered here are alternative forms
of nationalism in Georgia, which particularly intensified after the Rose Revolution
(Vachridze 2012). These features of national identity emphasize civic nationalism
as well as anti-Russian rhetoric heard from the ruling elites. Indeed, the pride in
Stalin in Georgia is arguably linked to ethnic nationalism as opposed to its civic
form (Zedania 2011). On 25 June 2010, the monument to Stalin in his birthplace
that withstood the process of de-Stalinization in 1956 and Georgian independence
after 1989 was removed from the main square of the town of Gori. If people view
Stalin as more Soviet or Russian, rather than Georgian, or as someone who harmed
Georgian society, then their nationalism would manifest itself differently. If Stalin
is primarily equated with Russia, and Russia is seen as a colonizer both before and
during the Soviet period, then those people who perceive Russia to be Georgia’s
biggest threat will judge Stalin more harshly than those who do not.
Hypothesis 4: Ethnic and civil national identity, respectively, will positively
and negatively shape attitudes toward the Soviet dictator, as
Stalin is viewed by Georgians through the lens of nationalism.
Gender gap and within-cohort effects
One additional vector that might matter for attitudes toward Stalin is gender. There
is a scarcity of studies that show how males differ from females in their attitudes
toward authoritarian leaders, although the available scholarship highlights an
existing “gender gap” in a broad array of attitudes related to the use of force and
violence (Shapiro and Mahajan 1986). Smith (1984), by compiling six different
sources of survey data in the USA, shows that gender differences usually result
from males choosing pro-force options such as capital punishment, military
intervention, and weak gun control laws, while females either have no opinion or
select anti-force response choices. There is no conclusive agreement why females
differ in their political ideas, but researchers across disciplines have advanced
several possible interpretations. It has been suggested that women biologically
have stronger compassion, moral strength, and maternal instincts (Togeby 1994).
In the social psychology literature, these gender differences have been attributed
to social dominance orientation (SDO), which is linked to an individual’s gender.
SDO implies general preference for group inequality, and has been shown to be
more prevalent among men (Pratto, Stallworth, and Sidanius 1997).
We do not find any studies that investigate specifically the role of gender in
attitudes toward Stalin or other dictators in the post-Soviet space, but some
empirical evidence also supports the idea that males are more likely to be in favor
of the Soviet system and consequently Stalin and Stalinism. For instance, in one of
the rare studies of the gender gap in political attitudes, Carnaghan and Bahry
A. Gugushvili and P. Kabachnik10
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(1990) show that females in the Soviet Union on average tended to oppose higher
spending on defense (although no gender-based differences were revealed in
support for the Soviet use of force). Munro (2006) showed that females in Russia
were less likely than males to express a desire to see the return of the communist
system. Males in Russia also have been shown to exhibit more anti-American
views than females in Russia (Mendelson and Gerber 2008). Furthermore, in
Georgia, the Caucasus Barometer (CRRC 2012) demonstrates that males are
marginally more likely to declare that in some circumstances authoritarianism is a
better political regime than democracy (11.0% vs. 8.8%). Therefore, gender can be
a significant covariate of attitudes toward Stalin.
Hypothesis 5: Controlling for other factors, males in Georgia are expected to
express more positive attitudes toward Stalin than females.
After reviewing what we expect from different birth cohorts, social and
structural conditions, ideological preferences, Georgian nationalism, and gender in
terms of attitudes toward Stalin, we also outline how these characteristics might
have different effects according to age. There are reasons to believe that the
hypothesized factors have different manifestations across different generations.
Perhaps the major achievement of Stalin, for which he is credited by many in
post-Soviet societies, is the victory in World War II. This might also imply that
males as direct participants in military activities would be closer to Stalin than
females, whose involvement in the war was less directly combat related. If so,
gender differences might be more intense among the older generations rather
than recent cohorts without living memory or first-hand accounts of the war from
their parents. We also expect that differences between social and structural
characteristics are more salient in post-Soviet times and therefore among the
youngest generations. Inequality levels in terms of rural-urban differences and
income distribution were much less pronounced before the dissolution of the
Soviet Union (e.g., see Fuchs and Demko 1979). The gap between urban and rural
lifestyles and socioeconomic conditions of poorer and wealthier individuals was
not markedly salient. In recent years, these differences are more intensively
manifested (World Bank 2009). In addition, we also speculate that ideological
convictions are more relevant for elderly individuals because in the era when Stalin
and the socialist system were idealized, having positive attitudes toward a free
market economy and democracy also would imply a negative perception of the
Soviet regime and Stalin.
Data and variables
In 2012, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace commissioned the
Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC 2012) to include several questions
designed to elicit people’s perceptions of Stalin in the South Caucasus. This was
the first time a nationally representative survey on this topic had been undertaken
in the birthplace of the Soviet dictator. The questions about Stalin were integrated
into the annual Caucasus Barometer survey, conducted every fall since 2006,
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which allows for the testing of links between the perceptions of Stalin on the one
hand and individuals’ various demographic, economic, and attitudinal
characteristics. The Caucasus Barometer respondents answer face-to-face survey
questions, participation in the survey is voluntary and anonymous, and the results
are representative for the adult (18 þ) population of Georgia. In total, 2502
respondents in Georgia completed the survey in 2012.3 Below, we describe four
questions on attitudes toward Stalin that serve as the dependent variables in our
study, followed by an overview of independent variables that are used to explain
the perceptions of Stalin in Georgia.
Dependent variables
We employ four dependent variables from the survey that inquire into how
strongly respondents agree with the following statements: (1) “Stalin was a wise
leader who brought power and prosperity to the Soviet Union.” This question
intends to understand respondents’ attitudes toward Stalin as a political leader and
a manager who created one of the strongest states in world history. (2) “For all
Stalin’s mistakes and misdeeds, the most important thing is that under his
leadership the Soviet people won the Great Patriotic War.” This statement implies
that the victory in World War II can be considered more important than Stalin’s
misdeeds. (3) “Stalin was a cruel, inhuman tyrant, responsible for the deaths of
millions of innocent people.” The third question allows insight into whether
respondents know and acknowledge Stalin’s responsibility in the Soviet terror. (4)
“Our people will always have need of a leader like Stalin, who will come and
restore order.” The last statement relates Stalin’s legacy to the contemporary and
future needs of people to have a dictator who can remedy a dysfunctional political
and economic system. Answer options for each question consist of “completely
disagree,” “mostly disagree,” “mostly agree,” “completely agree,” “don’t know,”
and “refuse to answer.”
Interestingly, 4.4% of the survey respondents declared that they did not know
who Stalin was. Our analysis suggests that the individuals who are unaware of
Stalin are overrepresented among rural residents, ethnic Azerbaijanis, and cohorts
born after 1975, but surprisingly level of education is not related to awareness of
Stalin. Among those who have heard about Stalin, roughly 2% of respondents
refused to answer the questions, while respectively 13.9%, 11.9%, 20.6%, and
22.9% of respondents chose the option “don’t know” for the described four
statements. It is telling that more than one-tenth of respondents would not provide
their opinion about whether Stalin was a wise leader or whether the victory in
World War II is more important than his mistakes. But even more intriguing is that
about one in five respondents do not know if Stalin was responsible for the deaths
of millions of innocent people and whether people will always have need of a
leader like Stalin. This suggests that either the awareness of Stalin and Stalinism in
Georgia is low or that people are reticent to reveal their real attitudes toward
Stalin. The analysis of respondents who did not know what to answer suggests that
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females, non-Tbilisi residents, less educated, Azerbaijanis, and cohorts born after
1975 were more likely to choose this response.
In our empirical study, we leave aside those individuals who do not know who
Stalin is, who refuse to answer the questions asked, or do not know what to think
about the statements. The responses of the remaining individuals in our sample are
presented in Figure 1. It is clear that the majority of respondents in the CRRC
survey agree with the first two statements. Only less than 20% of respondents who
answered the question disagree that Stalin was a wise leader, bringing power and
prosperity to the Soviet Union, while 41.1% completely agree with this statement.
The consensus is even higher that under Stalin’s leadership the Soviet people won
the Great Patriotic War, which is more important than his shortcomings, as about
90% of respondents agree with the statement (49.5% completely agree and 40.0%
mostly agree in Figure 1(b)). More diverse are respondents’ answers about
Stalin’s responsibility for the deaths of millions of innocent people and the need
for a leader like Stalin. The Soviet leader is perceived as a cruel and inhuman
tyrant by about 65.9% of respondents (32.2% completely agree and 33.7% mostly
agree in Figure 1(c)), while 10.3% completely disagree with the statement. For the
last variable (Figure 1(d)), the majority of respondents disavow the idea that
people will always need a leader like Stalin (about 62%), but more than one-third
of respondents (37.4%) believe that it will always be necessary for such a leader to
come and restore order (14.0% completely agree and 23.4% mostly agree). We
can infer from the descriptive statistics that many individuals acknowledge Stalin
as a wise leader and that the defeat of Germany in World War II is more important
Figure 1. Descriptive statistics of the dependent variables. Notes: The answer option “donot know” is excluded from the sample.Source: Authors’ calculations based on data from Caucasus Barometer (CRRC 2012).
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than his mistakes, but at the same time the same people think that Stalin was a
cruel, inhuman tyrant, and that people will never have need of a leader like Stalin.
The share of individuals with these simultaneously positive and negative attitudes
toward Stalin is about 26.6% in our sample.
Independent variables
To test our hypotheses we employ 14 independent variables. Following the work
of Breslauer (1978), Rose and Carnaghan (1995), and Munro (2006), we derive
seven distinct birth cohorts or generations: (1) World War II (born before 1935,
5.0% of the sample); (2) the Stalinist (1935–1944, 10.0%); (3) the post-Stalinist
(1945–1954, 13.4%); (4) the social contract (1955–1964, 19.1%); (5) the glasnost
(1965–1974, 17.2%); (6) the transition (1975–1984, 18.4%); and (7) the
independence (1985–1994, 17.0%, reference category) generations. The older
cohorts are hypothesized to be most supportive of Stalin in Georgia. We employ
several variables to test hypothesis 2 (H2). The years of education vary from 0 to
25, with mean value of 12.7 (SD ¼ 3.2). The elaborated hypothesis suggests that
the higher the respondent’s education, the lower his/her positive perception of
Stalin. Two variables that are related to an individual’s education are their
comprehension of foreign languages – Russian and English [from no basic
knowledge ¼ 1 to advanced knowledge ¼ 4, with mean values 2.9 (SD ¼ 0.89),
and 1.5 (SD ¼ 0.86), respectively]. It is assumed that a higher proficiency in either
language – but especially in English, which is much less prevalent in Georgia
(Blauvelt 2013) – would be associated with negative attitudes toward Stalin. For
settlement type [Tbilisi – 21.8%, other urban areas – 39.4% (reference category),
rural areas – 38.8%], we expect that Tbilisi residents hold the most critical views,
while rural residents will have the least negative perceptions of Stalin.
The social structural hypothesis is further tested with individuals’ socio-
economic conditions, which are operationalized in three variables: labor market
position, number of household’s material items, and respondents’ subjective
perception of their households’ socioeconomic status. The unemployed, who
constitute one-fourth of our sample (23.9%), are expected to express positive
attitudes about Stalin. In order to derive households’ objective socioeconomic
conditions, we use information on whether the respondents have a number of items
and services in their households.4 The seven items retained after factor analysis are
summed to derive a cumulative index with values ranging from 0 (no listed items
in the household) to 7 (all listed items are available in the household), with a mean
value of 2.7 (SD ¼ 1.95). For the perception of the subjective socioeconomic
situation, we use information from the survey question about respondent
households’ placement on a subjective income rung – from the lowest possible
economic position in society (1) to the highest possible position (10), with a mean
value of 4.2 (SD ¼ 1.7).
H3, on ideological preferences, is tested with two questions related to the
political and economic systems. Respondents are asked to choose from the
following three statements: “democracy is preferable to any other kind of
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government” (82.7%); “in some circumstances, a non-democratic government can
be preferable” (9.7%); and “for someone like me, it doesn’t matter what kind of
government we have” [7.7% (reference category)]. We expect that those who
prefer democracy would exhibit negative attitudes toward Stalin, while
authoritarian preferences would increase support for the Soviet dictator.
Respondents’ economic ideology is measured by their subjective placement on
the following scale – “government ownership of business and industry should be
increased” (1) to “private ownership of business and industry should be increased”
(10). This variable has mean value of 4.6 (SD ¼ 3.0). We expect that supporters
of government ownership will sympathize with Stalin, whereas the opposite
attitudes should be observed among supporters of private property and
privatization.
H4, on the links between Georgian nationalism and attitudes toward Stalin, is
tested with independent variables on respondents’ ethnicity, religiosity, and their
perception of the biggest enemy of Georgia. We expect that ethnic Georgians
(88.1%, reference category) would exhibit stronger support for Stalin than
Armenians (4.6%), Azerbaijanis (4.7%), and other ethnicities living in Georgia
(2.7%). Religiosity is measured based on respondents’ answers to how religious
they are from “not at all religious” (1) to “very religious” (10), with a mean value
of 6.3 (SD ¼ 2.3). It is difficult to hypothesize how religiosity could affect
attitudes toward Stalin because, on the one hand, religious people might oppose
communist ideology and the atheism associated with it, but, at the same time, due
to close links between ethnic nationalism and the Georgian Orthodox Church, we
expect that religiosity has a positive effect on attitudes toward Stalin. Respondents
were also asked which country is currently the biggest enemy of Georgia. We code
dummy variable 1 if respondents answer Russia (32.9%). Those who say Russia is
the biggest enemy are expected to manifest negative attitudes toward Stalin.
Lastly, we test H5 on the importance of gender with a dummy variable for males.
Similar to other surveys in Georgia, females are overrepresented in our sample
(62.5%), but we hypothesize that males are the ones who will express more
positive attitudes toward Stalin.
Results
Multivariate analysis
Our univariate analysis of variances tentatively suggests that generational
belonging, education, foreign language proficiency, the type of settlement,
objective and subjective socioeconomic status, attitudes towards private property,
and perception of Russia might indeed affect attitudes toward Stalin (please see
the results of the ANOVA tests in Table B1). The goal of the multivariate analysis
in Table 1 is to identify the net effect of specific factors by simultaneously
controlling for all independent variables in generalized ordered logit models.
Before proceeding with the description of findings, it is important to clarify how to
interpret the presented regression output. The first panel indicates coefficients of
covariates which differentiate between the answer “completely disagree” in the
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Table
1.
Covariatesofattitudes
towardStalinin
Georgia:log-oddsfrom
generalized
logisticregressions.
Model
1Model
2Model
3Model
4
“Stalinwas
awiseleader
whobroughtpower
and
prosperityto
theSoviet
Union”
“Themostim
portantthing
isthat
under
Stalin’s
leadership
theSoviet
people
wonWWII”
“Stalinwas
acruel,inhuman
tyrant,responsiblefor
thedeathsofmillionsof
innocentpeople”
“Ourpeople
willalways
haveneedofaleader
like
Stalin,whowillcomeand
restore
order”
Coef.(robuststd.err.)
Coef.(robuststd.err.)
Coef.(robuststd.err.)
Coef.(robuststd.err.)
1.Completely
disagreevs.mostly
disagree,mostly
agree,completely
agree
Cohort1925–1934
1.64(0.78)**
13.2
(1.38)***
22.26(0.52)***
2.23(0.54)***
Cohort1935–1944
1.60(0.66)***
20.96(1.28)
21.78(0.49)***
1.43(0.30)***
Cohort1945–1954
1.39(0.48)***
0.55(0.84)
21.04(0.49)**
1.08(0.26)***
Cohort1955–1964
0.77(0.36)**
20.70(0.78)
20.95(0.48)**
0.66(0.22)***
Cohort1965–1974
0.37(0.31)
0.17(0.66)
20.34(0.51)
0.48(0.22)**
Cohort1975–1984
0.38(0.33)
0.15(0.67)
0.02(0.53)
0.42(0.21)**
Years
ofeducation
20.06(0.04)
20.16(0.08)**
0.01(0.04)
20.02(0.03)
Proficiency
inRussian
20.40(0.18)**
20.49(0.35)
0.02(0.14)
20.21(0.09)**
Proficiency
inEnglish
0.02(0.14)
0.72(0.26)***
0.06(0.15)
20.00(0.08)
Tbilisiresidence
0.30(0.27)
1.18(0.59)**
20.32(0.29)
20.48(0.15)***
Ruralresidence
0.84(0.38)**
1.64(0.55)***
20.68(0.24)***
0.07(0.16)
Unem
ployed
0.21(0.26)
20.69(0.52)
20.16(0.26)
20.05(0.15)
Materialitem
s20.04(0.07)
0.11(0.11)
20.07(0.06)
20.02(0.04)
Subjectiveincomerung
20.07(0.10)
20.79(0.16)***
0.06(0.06)
20.00(0.04)
Dem
ocracyispreferable
1.06(0.43)**
0.52(1.13)
0.57(0.33)*
20.41(0.29)
Authoritarian
ispreferable
0.84(0.53)*
21.39(1.01)
0.64(0.46)*
20.14(0.35)
Privatization
20.05(0.05)
20.19(0.08)***
0.10(0.03)***
20.10(0.02)***
Arm
enianethnicity
0.70(0.87)
21.02(1.54)
2.42(1.05)**
0.92(0.36)**
Azerbaijaniethnicity
20.47(0.96)
0.00(0.00)
15.2
(0.44)***
218.1
(0.62)***
Other
ethnicity
20.34(0.74)
1.04(0.84)
20.45(0.48)
0.43(0.40)
Religiosity
0.06(0.07)
0.12(0.14)
0.03(0.05)
0.02(0.03)
Russia
isthebiggestenem
y20.67(0.23)***
20.67(0.38)*
0.24(0.21)
0.03(0.13)
Gender
(male¼
1)
0.85(0.25)***
0.63(0.41)
20.17(0.20)
0.26(0.13)*
Constant
2.88(0.88)***
9.34(1.96)***
1.85(0.88)**
1.85(0.56)***
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2.Completely
disagree,mostly
disagreevs.mostly
agree,completely
agree
Cohort1925–1934
1.90(0.54)***
0.64(0.50)
22.29(0.36)***
1.85(0.37)***
Cohort1935–1944
1.79(0.36)***
1.32(0.40)***
21.81(0.29)***
1.75(0.29)***
Cohort1945–1954
1.08(0.29)***
0.93(0.34)**
21.35(0.27)***
0.91(0.26)***
Cohort1955–1964
0.54(0.25)**
0.93(0.30)***
21.21(0.26)***
0.62(0.25)**
Cohort1965–1974
0.36(0.24)
0.44(0.28)
20.85(0.26)***
0.47(0.25)*
Cohort1975–1984
0.45(0.23)*
0.18(0.26)
20.70(0.26)***
0.22(0.25)
Years
ofeducation
20.04(0.03)
0.07(0.03)**
20.00(0.02)
20.02(0.02)
Proficiency
inRussian
20.15(0.11)
20.25(0.11)*
0.24(0.09)***
20.19(0.09)*
Proficiency
inEnglish
20.00(0.09)
0.11(0.11)
20.08(0.09)
20.05(0.10)
Tbilisiresidence
0.30(0.17)
20.19(0.22)
20.06(0.17)
0.10(0.17)
Ruralresidence
1.01(0.19)***
0.42(0.22)*
20.34(0.14)***
0.42(0.15)***
Unem
ployed
0.24(0.17)*
0.26(0.21)
0.04(0.16)
0.08(0.16)
Materialitem
s20.04(0.04)
0.03(0.05)
0.06(0.04)
20.08(0.04)*
Subjectiveincomerung
20.15(0.05)***
20.35(0.06)***
0.05(0.04)
20.08(0.04)**
Dem
ocracyispreferable
0.42(0.31)
20.78(0.44)*
20.06(0.26)
20.07(0.27)
Authoritarian
ispreferable
0.62(0.38)*
20.45(0.51)
20.53(0.31)*
0.30(0.33)
Privatization
20.10(0.03)***
0.00(0.03)
0.07(0.02)***
20.08(0.02)***
Arm
enianethnicity
20.45(0.31)
0.88(0.60)
0.06(0.30)
0.35(0.28)
Azerbaijaniethnicity
0.00(0.73)
0.00(0.00)
1.43(0.66)**
16.9
(0.43)***
Other
ethnicity
20.00(0.43)
20.12(0.49)
20.04(0.37)
0.42(0.37)
Religiosity
0.00(0.03)
20.03(0.04)
0.01(0.03)
20.00(0.03)
Russia
isthebiggestenem
y20.34(0.14)**
20.33(0.17)**
0.13(0.13)
20.20(0.14)
Gender
(male¼
1)
0.55(0.15)***
0.17(0.17)
20.30(0.13)**
0.24(0.13)*
Constant
2.25(0.57)***
3.40(0.74)***
0.59(0.51)
0.33(0.52)
3.Completely
disagree,mostly
disagree,
mostly
agreevs.completely
agree
Cohort1925–1934
1.17(0.32)***
0.86(0.32)***
22.25(0.48)***
1.42(0.46)***
Cohort1935–1944
1.43(0.26)***
1.16(0.25)***
21.35(0.29)***
1.33(0.43)***
Cohort1945–1954
1.10(0.25)***
0.74(0.23)***
21.09(0.25)***
0.61(0.40)*
Cohort1955–1964
0.57(0.24)**
0.59(0.22)***
20.74(0.22)***
0.12(0.40)
Cohort1965–1974
0.54(0.23)**
0.51(0.21)***
20.48(0.22)**
20.10(0.44)
(Continued
)
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Table
1–continued
Model
1Model
2Model
3Model
4
“Stalinwas
awiseleader
whobroughtpower
and
prosperityto
theSoviet
Union”
“Themostim
portantthing
isthat
under
Stalin’s
leadership
theSoviet
people
wonWWII”
“Stalinwas
acruel,inhuman
tyrant,responsiblefor
thedeathsofmillionsof
innocentpeople”
“Ourpeople
willalways
haveneedofaleader
like
Stalin,whowillcomeand
restore
order”
Coef.(robuststd.err.)
Coef.(robuststd.err.)
Coef.(robuststd.err.)
Coef.(robuststd.err.)
Cohort1975–1984
0.37(0.23)
0.19(0.21)
20.39(0.21)*
0.04(0.41)
Years
ofeducation
0.03(0.02)
0.05(0.02)**
0.01(0.02)
0.03(0.03)
Proficiency
inRussian
20.02(0.08)
20.04(0.08)
0.21(0.09)**
20.05(0.12)
Proficiency
inEnglish
20.07(0.08)
0.01(0.08)
20.10(0.08)
20.12(0.16)
Tbilisiresidence
0.18(0.15)
0.13(0.14)
0.33(0.15)**
0.42(0.27)
Ruralresidence
0.41(0.14)***
0.20(0.14)
20.10(0.15)
0.89(0.22)***
Unem
ployed
0.24(0.14)*
0.14(0.13)
0.01(0.15)
20.09(0.24)
Materialitem
s20.03(0.04)
20.04(0.03)
20.01(0.04)
20.07(0.06)
Subjectiveincomerung
20.08(0.04)**
20.12(0.04)***
0.09(0.04)**
20.12(0.06)**
Dem
ocracyispreferable
0.36(0.25)
0.16(0.23)
0.09(0.27)
0.30(0.38)
Authoritarian
ispreferable
0.18(0.31)
0.28(0.29)
20.60(0.35)
20.24(0.51)
Privatization
20.07(0.02)***
20.03(0.02)*
0.04(0.02)*
20.10(0.03)***
Arm
enianethnicity
20.29(0.29)
20.12(0.28)
20.41(0.33)
20.13(0.43)
Azerbaijaniethnicity
1.11(0.59)**
15.8
(0.33)***
20.79(0.61)
1.53(0.63)***
Other
ethnicity
20.36(0.38)
20.28(0.35)
20.32(0.36)
0.90(0.46)**
Religiosity
20.02(0.03)
20.07(0.03)***
20.03(0.03)
20.04(0.04)
Russia
isthebiggestenem
y20.32(0.12)**
20.19(0.12)
0.26(0.12)*
20.19(0.19)
Gender
(male¼
1)
0.14(0.12)
0.11(0.11)
20.18(0.12)
0.29(0.20)
Constant
20.92(0.48)**
20.18(0.46)
21.04(0.50)**
21.79(0.76)***
Statistics
N1497
1511
1390
1367
AIC
3412
3035
3492
3402
McFadden’s
pseudoR
20.09
0.09
0.08
0.11
Notes:***,**,and*denote
statisticalsignificance
atthe0.01,0.05,and0.10levels,respectively.
Source:
Authors’calculationsbased
ondatafrom
CaucasusBarometer
(CRRC2012).
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corresponding dependent variable on the one hand and the categories “mostly
disagree,” “mostly agree,” and “completely agree,” on the other. These
coefficients show the impact of independent variables in getting a respondent
up from the first step of the four-step ladder in our dependent variable. The second
panel of the table contrasts “completely disagree”/“mostly disagree” on the one
hand with “mostly agree”/“completely agree” on the other, differentiating
respondents on the third and fourth steps of the ladder from those on the first two
steps. The same logic applies to the third and the final panel of the table. The
positive sign of predictors across three panels would suggest that independent
variables have a positive association with attitudes toward Stalin; by contrast, if
coefficients have a negative sign, then independent variables are negatively
associated with perceptions of Stalin.5
Starting with the analysis of H1 on socialization in Table 1, respondents’
generational belonging appears to be the strongest explanation of support for
Stalin. When compared to those born in 1985–1994, all earlier-born cohorts have
more positive attitudes toward Stalin. Expectedly, World War II (born in 1925–
1934) and immediate post-war Stalinist (1935–1944) generations are Stalin’s
strongest supporters, while attitudes among respondents born later in time trend
downward. World War II generation is especially against the statement that Stalin
was a cruel, inhuman tyrant, responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent
people (b ¼ 22.12, p , 0.01, in panel 2). It is also interesting that individuals
born in 1975–1984 (b ¼ 20.68, p , 0.01) still have more positive ideas about
Stalin than the independent Georgia generation. In H2, we assumed that education
would be negatively associated with attitudes toward Stalin, but years of education
exhibit only weak, if any, links with our dependent variables. Furthermore, better
educated people counterintuitively tend to agree that the more important thing
than the crimes committed by Stalin is that under his leadership the Soviet people
won World War II. Respondents’ self-reported proficiency in Russian has a
negative association with attitudes toward Stalin. In all three panels of Table 1,
log-odd coefficients have negative values, which clearly suggest that people with
advanced knowledge of the Russian language are more likely to completely
disagree or mostly disagree that Stalin was a wise leader who brought power and
prosperity to the Soviet Union.
As expected, rural residents are much more likely to express positive attitudes
toward Stalin. Most obviously this can be seen in the second panel of the table,
which contrasts “completely disagree”/“mostly disagree” versus “mostly
agree”/“completely agree” answer options. Panel 3 of the regression output also
suggests that Tbilisi residents are more likely than others to completely agree with
the statement that Stalin was a cruel, inhuman tyrant, responsible for the deaths of
millions of innocent people. Contrary to H2, objective socioeconomic conditions
operationalized with a dummy variable for unemployment and the number of
household items exhibits virtually no association with attitudes toward Stalin. The
unemployed are more likely to perceive that Stalin brought power and prosperity
to the Soviet Union, but this association only holds at the 10% significance level.
The subjective perception of socioeconomic status of respondents’ families
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appears to be more important for our dependent variables, which can be seen in all
coefficients of the second and third panels in Table 1 that have negative signs and
are statistically significant.
When testing H3, we do not find that perceptions of democracy and
authoritarianism are linked with attitudes toward the Soviet dictator; however,
those who believe that democracy is the preferable political system are more likely
to choose answer options “mostly disagree,” “mostly agree,” and “completely
agree” than “completely disagree” when asked if Stalin was a wise leader. On the
other hand, in line with our hypothesis, a respondent’s views toward privatization
appear to be the significant predictor of attitudes toward the Soviet dictator. Those
who think that private ownership of business and industry should be increased are
much more likely to disagree that Stalin brought power and prosperity to the
Soviet Union and that people will always have need of a leader like Stalin.
Respondents who think that government ownership of business and industry
should be increased are likely to disagree that Stalin was responsible for the deaths
of millions of innocent people.
H4, on nationalism, is tested with the ethnicity variable, in which Armenian
and Azerbaijani respondents are compared with Georgians in their attitudes
toward Stalin. Unexpectedly, we find that non-Georgian ethnic groups are more
likely to express positive attitudes toward Stalin than do Georgians. It is also
interesting that Azerbaijani residents of Georgia, on the one hand, think that Stalin
was a cruel, inhuman tyrant, responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent
people, but, on the other hand, they are more likely to agree that people will always
have need of a leader like Stalin, who will come and restore order. Azeri
respondents are also more likely to think that Stalin was a wise leader and that the
victory in World War II is more important than all his shortcomings. Although
religious people are less likely to choose the answer option “completely agree” in
Model 2, the effect is not statistically significant for any other panel or dependent
variable. In line with our hypothesis, the perception that Russia is the biggest
enemy of Georgia is negatively associated with the perception that Stalin was a
wise leader. These same people also disagree that under Stalin’s leadership the
Soviet people won World War II. Ending with the analysis of H5, on gender, the
first and the second panels of Table 1 suggest that males are more likely to express
positive attitudes toward Stain, which is indicated with positive and statistically
significant values of coefficients from generalized ordered logit regressions in
Models 1, 3, and 4.
Overall, the results partially or fully confirm our hypotheses and suggest that
representatives of older generations, rural residents, people with poor Russian
language skills, subjectively deprived individuals, ethnic Azerbaijanis, those who
think Russia is not Georgia’s biggest enemy, those who support government
ownership of business and industry, and males exhibit stronger support for Stalin.
To understand the scale of the effect of these variables, we utilize the aggregated
index of positive perceptions of Stalin. As we describe in Appendix A, 0 points on
this variable means that for the four questions about Stalin, respondents hold
extremely negative ideas, while those who score 12 points respond completely
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positively on all four questions. This form of the dependent variable allows us to
see clearly how each independent variable is associated with attitudes towards the
Soviet dictator. Figure 2 provides a clear illustration of the specific effect of
independent variables.
As hypothesized, age provides the strongest explanation of the cumulative
index of attitudes toward Stalin. Respondents born before 1934 and between 1935
and 1944 score 8.6 (SD ¼ 0.18) and 8.0 (SD ¼ 0.14) in our dependent variables,
while the youngest cohorts born in 1985–1994 score only 5.3 (SD ¼ 0.15) points
in our cumulative Stalin support index. In Figure 2(b), moving up by one level in
proficiency in Russian leads to a 0.35 lower score in the aggregated dependent
variable. Those who claim that they know Russian at an advanced level score 6.4
(SD ¼ 0.12) in the index of Stalin support. Salient differences are also observed
between individuals living in rural and urban settlements. If rural residents score
on average 7.1 (SD ¼ 0.12) points, residents both in Tbilisi and other urban areas
score 6.3 and 6.7, respectively (SD ¼ 0.14 and 0.07). Subjective perception of
respondents’ household socioeconomic status is also an important predictor of
attitudes toward Stalin, as shown in Figure 2(d). Moving up one rung of the ladder
on this scale is associated with a 0.38 point reduction in the dependent variable.
Those who classify their families in the lowest two income rungs score 7.3
(SD ¼ 0.16) points, while those perceiving themselves on the seventh or eighth
rung score only 5.7 (SD ¼ 0.27) points in the aggregated Stalin index.
For H3, those who completely support the idea that private ownership of
business and industry should be increased (scoring 9 or 10 on this indicator) are
Figure 2. Linear predictions of covariates of attitudes toward Stalin (0 ¼ oppose Stalin;12 ¼ support Stalin). Notes: Bars represent 95% confidence intervals. Coefficients showthe effect when controlling for all other variables.Source: Authors’ calculations based on data from Caucasus Barometer (CRRC 2012).
Post-Soviet Affairs 21
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much less likely to express positive perceptions of Stalin (6.3, SD ¼ 0.12) than
those who think that government ownership of business and industry should be
increased (7.3, SD ¼ 0.15). Unlike the previous results for H4 on the ethnic
differences in terms of perceptions of Stalin in Georgia, for the cumulative index
of four dependent variables in Figure 2(f) we do not observe statistically
significant differences between Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanis, and other
ethnicities living in Georgia. However, non-Georgian ethnicities score higher in
their support of Stalin, but the low number of observations for them produces large
standard errors, which prevents us from making any definitive conclusions.
Believing that Russia is the biggest enemy of Georgia is also associated with our
dependent variable. Those who consider that Georgia’s northern neighbor is the
biggest foreign threat to the country score 6.4 points (SD ¼ 0.12), which is about
0.5 points lower than the score of those individuals who do not perceive Russia as
Georgia’s biggest enemy. Finally, in Figure 2(h) we once again confirm the effect
of gender, as males express 0.45 points higher support for Stalin than females.
Cleavages within generations
The multivariate analysis presented above suggests that birth year and
generational attachment are the strongest explanations of variance in our
dependent variables. However, in addition settlement type, subjective income
rung, belief in private ownership, the perception of Russia as the biggest enemy
of Georgia, and gender are the key explanatory variables that are linked with
attitudes toward Stalin in Georgia. It is not clear if any cleavages exist within the
defined generations. This is a substantively and statistically important question
because it will allow one to see what important covariates, if any, make some
elderly respondents exhibit negative attitudes toward Stalin when most of the age
peers in their demographic group judge Stalin positively. More importantly, this
analysis allows us to observe why some individuals in the youngest demographic
group are positive about Stalin, when they are expected to be indifferent or
express negative attitudes toward the late Soviet leader. To answer this question,
we interact the key explanatory factors with respondents’ birth years, starting
from the 1920s and ending in the 1990s. The interpretation of Figure 3 is
straightforward: The main lines in the diagrams show the marginal effects of
covariates, while dashed lines give 95% confidence intervals. The effect is
statistically significant when confidence intervals do not cross the horizontal zero
reference line.6 Although we are not able to follow the developments in time
because attitudes might change across an individual’s life course, the analysis in
this section is helpful in understanding what to expect in the long run in terms of
attitudes toward Stalin.
Figure 3(a) shows marginal effects of settlement in rural areas according to the
respondent’s birth year. Our main analysis suggests that much more positive
attitudes toward Stalin are held in rural areas than in Tbilisi and other urban
settlements, but interaction effects showed that the within-generational gap
between rural and urban residents intensifies, especially for those born in the 1960s
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or later. Among individuals born in 1935–1944, urban-rural differences are
virtually non-existent (as shown in the 95% confidence interval crossing the zero
reference line), but for the cohorts born after the 1970s, rural residents score on
average 1 point higher than urban residents in our cumulative index of attitudes
toward Stalin. The reason why the rural-urban divide is more intense among
the recent generations is not entirely clear, but we can speculate that differences in
access to electronicmedia, levels of social capital, and other areas of socioeconomic
development are much more pronounced between rural and urban youth than is the
case for rural and urban elderly.
Next, we analyze generational differences in terms of the subjective
socioeconomic status of respondents’ households. Figure 3(b) indicates that for
individuals born after the 1970s, moving up one subjective income rung is
associated with about 0.3 points decrease in support of Stalin in our cumulative
dependent variable. In general, we know that those individuals who classify
themselves at the highest rung in terms of socioeconomic status hold negative
perceptions of Stalin, but the differences are especially apparent among the
Figure 3. The marginal effect of settlement, subjective income rung, attitudes towardprivatization, non-Georgian ethnicity, the perception of Russia, and gender on cumulativeindex of perception of Stalin across respondents’ birth years. Notes: Interaction effectsderive from models with the same specification as in Table 1. Dashed lines give 95%confidence interval.Source: Authors’ calculations based on data from Caucasus Barometer (CRRC 2012).
Post-Soviet Affairs 23
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youngest generations, who were born after the 1970s. In fact the group which is
subjectively richest in Georgian society exhibits the lowest support of Stalin among
all other demographic and socioeconomic groups (b ¼ 3.7, SD ¼ 0.38). Our
explanation for this trend is that the youngest generations, who feel socially and
economically excluded from society, might think of Stalin in association with
the old communist regime and the relative prosperity of the Soviet Union. This
finding suggests that socioeconomic status might be one of the few important
vectors that explain the differences in perception of Stalin among the youngest
residents in Georgia.
We analyze the interactions between the respondents’ birth year and their
ideologies and nationalist variables in terms of attitudes toward private ownership
of business and industry and perceived international threat. Interestingly the
interaction effect in Figure 3(e) suggests that attitudes about Russia do make a
difference for perceptions of Stalin among the elderly. More specifically, those
who were born before the 1970s and believe that Russia is the biggest enemy of
Georgia exhibit 0.5–1 point lower support for the Soviet dictator. For instance, in
the 1945–1954 generation, those who answer “Russia” when asked which country
is the biggest enemy of Georgia score 6.5 (SD ¼ 0.32) in the support of Stalin
index, while for those who feel otherwise this score reaches 7.9 points
(SD ¼ 0.23). The perception of Russia is only important in understanding
attitudes toward Stalin in the generations that exhibited the highest support for the
Soviet dictator. This category of respondents is probably ideologically close to
Soviet dissidents who opposed the Soviet regime and its most notorious leader.
This speculation is also supported by Figure 3(c), which shows the interaction
effect between birth year and attitudes about private property. Again, moving one
step up in support for private ownership of business and industry reduces positive
perceptions of Stalin by 0.1 to 0.2 points for cohorts born before 1970. It appears
that among the elderly ideological differences are the most salient factor that
differentiates the supporters and opponents of Stalin in Georgia.
To analyze within-generational cleavages in ethnicity, we combine all non-
Georgians in our sample as a distinct category.7 Figure 3(d) suggests that
differences between Georgians and other ethnicities in their attitudes toward Stalin
become statistically significant for those born after 1970. However, the few cases
of non-Georgians produce large standard errors and do not reveal the real effect of
the ethnic vector in perceptions of Stalin. However, if anything, Georgians exhibit
weaker support for Stalin, and this ethnic divide is likely to be higher for the recent
generations than among the elderly. Finally, the results in Figure 3(f) suggest that
the higher support of Stalin among men is primarily derived from individuals born
before 1970. Males and females of the two latest generations are not statistically
different from each other. For instance, among those born before 1934, males
express 1.77 (p , 0.01) points higher support for Stalin than did females, while
for the generation that grew up in an independent Georgia this difference is not
statistically significant. Stronger attachment of elderly men to Stalin can be related
to his military leadership during World War II, which becomes a less relevant
factor among the younger generations.
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Predicting attitudes toward Stalin
After presenting across- and within-generational analysis of socialization, social
structural, ideological, nationalist, and gender hypotheses, we can tentatively
speculate upon how attitudes toward Stalin will evolve over time. Georgia’s fourth
president, Georgi Margvelashvili, stated that in the future Stalin will be perceived
as a great politician and military leader (Netgazeti 2013). We are unaware of the
kind of evidence on which his statement was based, but our findings allow us to
speculate about how public attitudes can evolve alongside changes in covariates
previously identified as important factors in explaining the perception of Stalin.
We assert with a high level of certainty that positive attitudes toward Stalin
should gradually decline in Georgia. First and foremost, this trend will be
determined by the reproduction of demographic cohorts. We know that
consecutive generations in twentieth-century Georgia substantially differ in
their childhood experiences, and attitudes toward Stalin adopted during their
formative years persist across the life course of these individuals. Because the
major cleavages in Stalin’s perception come from cohort differences, the
replacement of the older cohorts with the younger ones should lead to a sizable
decline in positive perceptions of Stalin. The results of our analysis suggest that
the most positive attitudes toward Stalin are held by individuals born before the
1950s. Considering the current average life expectancy, 73.3 years, and its slow
rise in Georgia, individuals born in 1920s–1940s (scoring more than eight points
in our cumulative dependent variable) will be replaced by younger cohorts
(scoring seven points in the same index) by the end of the 2020s. At the same time,
the relative share of the cohorts born in independent Georgia will increase, and
these are demographic cohorts that express the lowest sympathies toward Stalin
(about 5.5 in the aggregated Stalin support index) among all other groups with
various characteristics.
One of the most important factors of changing attitudes toward Stalin could be
economic development and further urbanization in Georgia. We have seen that
rural residents express significantly higher sympathies toward Stalin and therefore
the gradual reallocation of population toward urban areas will affect attitudes
toward the Soviet dictator. Although during the period 1985–2010, the level of
urbanization remained virtually unchanged or even declined, the United Nations
predicts urbanization levels in Georgia will rise to 66.4% by 2050, from 52.7% in
2010 (United Nations 2012). More importantly, our results also suggest that
subjective perception of socioeconomic status is negatively associated with
positive attitudes toward Stalin. The strongest determinant of subjective economic
perceptions is objective economic development (Evans and Kelley 2004). In
1995–2010, the Georgian economy grew by 6% on average (World Bank 2012),
and if this trend continues and Georgia becomes more prosperous,8 this may
impact attitudes toward the Soviet era and Stalin. The main channel through which
economic growth is expected to affect perceptions of Stalin is that people will less
likely be nostalgic for the relative prosperity and economic security of the Soviet
Union and its main architect – Josef Stalin. Time-series analysis in 2008–2013
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suggests that the share of those households who define themselves as being at the
lowest (1–4) rungs on the 10-step ladder decreased from 66% to 47%, while the
share of the highest four rungs increased from 4% to 12% (CRRC 2013).
Some influence on attitudes toward Stalin will probably stem from the
geopolitical situation in Georgia and its foreign relations with Russia. The overall
perception of Stalin can deteriorate if animosity between these countries remains
high. However, this effect may be primarily due to those born before the 1980s
because the perception of Russia does not make much difference for the youngest
generations. Gradual movement toward establishing the rule of law, respect for
private property, and the dominance of private ownership which were observed in
the last decade (Gwartney, Lawson, and Hall 2013) could also undermine the
admiration of the Soviet leader, who was the architect of policies that are
incompatible with a free market economy. Nonetheless, the 2011–2013 Caucasus
Barometer analysis suggests that the share of those who think that private
ownership of business and industry should increase declined from 56% to 42%,
while the share of those who support government ownership increased from 23%
to 30%. We nonetheless expect that the joint effect of cohort replacement,
structural changes (primarily through economic growth and urbanization), and the
prevalence of liberal views on the economy and politics will decrease positive
perceptions of Stalin in Georgian society.
Conclusion
Examining Stalin is not (only) a historical exploration, as Stalin is not (only) a part
of the past, but “is still a figure of the present” (de Waal 2013b, 5). Ironically, after
more than half a century after the British press described Nikita Khrushchev
becoming the new Soviet leader as “Stalin Is Dead, Long Live Stalin” (The New
London Evening Day 1955), this metaphor is still relevant in reference to
contemporary public sentiments about Stalin in post-Soviet space in general and in
Russia and Georgia in particular. Stalin remains a dominant figure, symbol, and
presence in contemporary post-Soviet space. Despite suggestions otherwise
(Lipman 2013), one can still readily encounter reminders, representations, and
images of Stalin in many parts of the former Soviet Union, such as in Moscow or
Tbilisi. Stalin’s persistent popularity and his increasing presence in public space,
which can be encountered in a wide variety of formats – whether on a wine label,
in a biography, on a poster, or in a monument – has been dubbed by Eugenie
Ikhlov as the phenomenon of Stalinshchina, or Stalin nostalgia (Anders 2005).
Furthermore, this issue “goes to the heart of contemporary questions about
politics, the relationship between society and state, democratization, and
education in the former Soviet Union” (de Waal 2013b, 3).
This analysis has served to provide evidence from the survey data that both
validates and challenges typically invoked reasons that seek to explain people’s
admiration of Stalin, as well as introducing novel explanations that have
heretofore not been entertained. Not only do we contribute to the emerging
academic debate on the role of Stalin in contemporary post-Soviet sociopolitical
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life, but we also connect the broader theories on political attitudes with the
idiosyncratic characteristics of Stalin’s legacy in Georgia. Several hypotheses that
had been viewed as conventional wisdom, but previously only had anecdotal
evidence to support them, are now confirmed through sustained statistical
methods. This includes the idea that older generations and those who think that
they are poorer view Stalin more positively, and that pejorative associations
abound in those who consider Russia to be the biggest threat to Georgia and among
those who value private ownership. This study also rejects other well-trodden
assumptions, like education level and religiosity, and shows that these factors have
little to no effect on how people judge Stalin. We also are able to offer up an
intriguing twist in regards to ethnicity, as non-Georgian minorities in Georgia, if
anything, show even higher esteem for Stalin than do Georgians, although more
research needs to be conducted to better validate this finding due to the low
numbers of non-Georgian respondents in our sample.
Our analysis reveals that the continuing persistence of Stalin in Georgia is
mitigated by a number of factors. The eight main variables that influence attitudes
on Stalin are depicted in Figure 2. Elderly, poor men from rural areas have the
most positive associations with Stalin, while young, wealthier women from cities
judge Stalin negatively. Those with an advanced level of Russian language ability,
who perceive Russia as Georgia’s biggest threat, and who are open to privatization
also view Stalin more harshly. Overall, age is the most significant factor as an
explanatory variable for attitudes toward Stalin, with older generations having the
highest levels of support and the youngest age cohort having the lowest. The
analysis of cleavages within generations also reveals differences in covariates of
the perception of Stalin among the youngest and the oldest residents of Georgia. If
gender, the perception of Russia as the biggest threat for Georgia, and attitudes
toward private ownership of business and industry are the most important factors
that affect support for Stalin among the elderly, subjective income rung, rural-
urban inequalities, and ethnicity are the major explanations why some younger
people still maintain a positive image of Stalin. Our findings do indicate a clear
downward trend in the positive perception of Stalin, and as time progresses,
demographic shifts and economic development will eliminate those who were
socialized within Stalin’s personality cult or have nostalgia for Soviet economic
security, thus reducing a large portion of Stalin admirers from Georgian society.
Although we do not find strong links between attitudes toward democracy,
authoritarianism, and the perception of Stalin, thoughts about Ioseb Jugashvili still
can be proxies for the type of regime and political leader Georgian society is willing
to accept. Thus, what people think about the Soviet dictator can have political
consequences today and can affect the future development of the region. We must
remain cautious about the growing gap in pride in Stalin between the elderly and the
young. Various public awareness campaigns are unlikely to have a dramatic effect
on attitudes toward Stalin among those already socialized, but they might generate
the formation of more extreme perceptions of Stalin in the new generations. While
admiration for Stalin may be weaker among the youth, so too is the amount of
knowledge they have about Stalin. This latter point, coupled with higher levels of
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ambiguity toward Stalin, leaves room for the possibility that the meaning of Stalin
can change once again. If de-Stalinization is not undertaken in Georgia in school
curricula and in the media, then it is entirely possible for Stalin to become a
renewed symbol of national pride, and be (re)invoked as a political tool, which can
shape a new generation and produce young Stalin admirers, just as studies of youth
in Russia have shown (Mendelson and Gerber 2005, 2006). This will be an
important issue to follow, and it remains to be seen how the current “Georgian
Dream” coalition and consecutive, hopefully democratically elected, governments
will deploy the image of Stalin for their own political agenda (Dixon Klump 2013).
Acknowledgements
This work was supported, in part, by a Dean’s Research Scholarship and a PSC-CUNYAward, jointly funded by The Professional Staff Congress and The City University of NewYork. Earlier versions of this article were presented at the “Europe in Georgia”International Conference (Center for Social Sciences, Tbilisi State University, Tbilisi,Georgia) and the Association for the Study of Nationalities World Convention (New York,NY, USA). We would like to thank Jesse Driscoll, who served as discussant on our ASNpanel, and everyone else who offered comments and questions. We would also like tothank George Breslauer and the anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments. Anyerrors or oversights are our own.
Notes
1. For example, see the special issue of The Soviet and Post-Soviet Review (Volume 38,2011) dedicated to the World War II cult in post-Soviet space.
2. We do not mean to imply that such data are not useful or that qualitative data ingeneral are less rigorous than quantitative data. However, qualitative data aretypically employed in this literature in an ad hoc, limited, and/or anecdotal fashion,rather than in a systematic way (with clearly documented methods and rationale forchoosing the survey sample, interview subjects, etc.).
3. For more details on the survey, see http://www.crrccenters.org.4. These items are: (1) color television; (2) digital photo camera; (3) automatic washing
machine; (4) DVD player; (5) refrigerator; (6) air conditioner; (7) car; (8) land linephone; (9) cell phone; (10) activated internet access from your personal cell phone;(11) personal computer, including laptop; and (12) Internet access from homecomputer or laptop.
5. The obvious exception is Model 3, in which respondents’ agreement with the surveyquestion reflects negative attitudes toward Stalin.
6. We do not report interactions of birth year with education, objective socioeconomicstatus, and religiosity because these variables proved to be insignificant in explainingattitudes toward Stalin across and within generations.
7. This is done because the low number of observations for non-Georgian ethnicity doesnot permit making statistically significant tests across consecutive birth cohorts.
8. In fact, 6% annual growth is sufficient to double the nominal GDP every 12 years.
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Appendix A. Overview of employed statistical methods
We employ two regression specifications in the multivariate analysis. In the ordinalform, the dependent variables permit the estimation of simple ordered logisticregressions, but the parallel regression assumption in these models is often violated. Inthis case, the coefficients that describe the relationship between, for instance,“completely disagree vs. mostly disagree, mostly agree, completely agree”’ should beidentical to the coefficients that describe the relationship between “completely disagree,mostly disagree vs. mostly agree, completely agree.” Indeed, the conducted Brant Test ofthe parallel regression assumption indicates that in each fitted model, the parallel-linesmodel assumption was violated for several independent variables such as gender, type ofsettlement, education, and ethnicity. Among several alternatives to the ordered logitmodel such as multinomial logit and linear probability models (for the created binaryanswer option), we employ the maximum-likelihood generalized ordered logit model,which relaxes the proportional odds assumption and allows the effects of the independentvariables to vary across ordered categories of the dependent variable (Williams 2006).Moreover, the output of generalized ordered logit regressions is relatively straightfor-ward to interpret, which is explained in detail in the Results section. We also calculaterobust standard errors.
Ordered variables on attitudes toward Stalini ¼ b0 i þ gGenerationi þ x Social
structural variablesi þ w3 Ideologyi þ uNationalismi þ lGenderi þ 1i:ð1Þ
In Model 1, b0i and 1i represent the intercept and error terms, respectively. Thedescribed ordered dependent variables and generalized ordered logit models are lesshelpful for identifying the scale of impact of independent variables on attitudes towardStalin. To address this problem, we derive the cumulative index of perception of the Sovietdictator by the survey respondents. This is done by combining answers on the dependentvariables from completely disagree ¼ 1 to completely agree ¼ 4 into a single index ofattitudes toward Stalin. We reversed answer options for question 3 because higher scoresindicated negative attitudes toward Stalin in contrast to the other dependent variables.Both the factor loading of these variables, all above 0.40 with an eigenvalue of Factor1 ¼ 1.58, and their scale reliability coefficient, 0.72, suggest that the derived index is arelevant aggregate measure of attitudes toward Stalin. In order to make the results easier tointerpret, we rescaled answer options to completely disagree ¼ 0 to completely agree ¼ 3.
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Therefore, 0 points (4 £ 0) in the cumulative index means that for all four questions therespondent holds extremely negative ideas about Stalin (2.1% of the sample), while thosewho score 12 points (4 £ 3) have extremely positive attitudes toward the Soviet dictator(4.7% of the sample). Because the derived dependent variable varies from 0 to 12,calculating linear predictions from ordinary least squares (OLS) models presents itself asthe most convenient option.
Attitudes towards Stalini ¼ þbn Birth yeari þ bn Birth year £ Social structural
variablesþ bn Birth year £ Ideologyi þ bn Birth year £ Nationalismi
þ bn Birth year* Genderi:
ð2Þ
Finally, to understand how social structural, ideological, nationalism, and gendervariables differ in their effect on attitudes toward Stalin within consecutive generations,we investigate the effect of those factors across respondents’ birth cohort. We use the samespecifications as in Model 1, with the index of attitudes toward Stalin as the dependentvariable, but this time with the addition of interaction terms of generations and otherhypothesized independent variables that proved to be statistically significant in the earlierbivariate and multivariate analyses. Furthermore, we substitute the dummy variables forthe seven generations with a more precise year-of-birth variable that allows us to linearlyfollow change in attitudes along with individual years, conditioned by other independentvariables. We include in Model 2 all constitutive terms of interaction effects, whichincreases the size of standard errors and makes it less likely that the coefficient on theinteraction term will be significant (Brambor, Clark, and Golder 2006). Because theinterpretation of interaction terms in regression models is often misleading, we employ asimple figure that succinctly illustrates the marginal effect of hypothesized variables andthe corresponding standard errors across a substantively meaningful range of themodifying variable, respondents’ birth year, ranging from the 1920s to the 1990s. We usethe command GRINTER to visualize interaction effects and corresponding standard errors(Boehmke 2008).
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Table
B1.
Univariate
analysisofvariance
(ANOVA)testsforattitudes
aboutStalin.
Dependentvariables
Dependentvariable
1Dependentvariable
2Dependentvariable
3Dependentvariable
4
“Stalinwas
awise
leader
whobrought
power
andprosperity
totheSoviet
Union”
“Themostim
portant
thingisthat
under
Stalin’s
leadership
the
Sovietpeople
won
WWII”
“Stalinwas
acruel,
inhuman
tyrant,
responsible
forthe
deathsofmillionsof
innocentpeople”
“Ourpeople
will
alwayshaveneedofa
leader
likeStalin,who
willcomeandrestore
order”
Independentvariables
F-ratio
(h2)
F-ratio
(h2)
F-ratio
(h2)
F-ratio
(h2)
Birth
cohorts
25.4
(0.07)***
16.8
(0.05)***
29.0
(0.09)***
38.6
(0.11)***
Years
ofeducation
3.62(0.03)***
2.22(0.01)***
3.41(0.02)***
4.75(0.04)***
Proficiency
inRussian
9.96(0.01)***
6.93(0.01)***
10.9
(0.02)***
18.5
(0.03)***
Proficiency
inEnglish
35.1
(0.05)***
8.62(0.02)***
20.9
(0.03)***
42.1
(0.07)***
Settlem
ent
41.5
(0.03)***
21.5
(0.02)***
35.8
(0.04)***
53.5
(0.06)***
Unem
ployment
0.04(2
0.00)
0.88(2
0.00)
6.37(0.00)**
5.78(0.00)**
Number
ofhouseholdsitem
s16.1
(0.05)***
10.4
(0.03)***
11.4
(0.04)***
17.0
(0.06)***
Subjectiveincomerung
8.73(0.03)***
14.4
(0.05)***
5.62(0.02)***
6.95(0.03)***
Attitudes
towarddem
ocracy
0.84(2
0.00)
2.54(0.00)*
8.20(0.01)***
5.92(0.01)***
Attitudes
towardprivatization
6.77(0.01)***
7.57(0.00)***
5.32(0.01)***
9.21(0.02)***
Ethnicity
0.61(2
0.00)
13.1
(0.01)***
1.24(2
0.00)
10.6
(0.01)***
Religiosity
1.42(0.00)
6.59(0.01)***
2.88(0.01)***
3.11(0.01)***
Russia
isthebiggestenem
y21.9
(0.01)***
11.2
(0.01)***
19.0
(0.01)***
10.9
(0.01)***
Gender
7.04(0.00)***
1.23(0.00)
2.21(0.00)
3.34(0.00)*
Notes:***,**,and*denote
statisticalsignificance
atthe0.01,0.05,and0.10levels,respectively.
Source:
Authors’calculationsbased
ondatafrom
CaucasusBarometer
(CRRC2012).
Appendix
B
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