Stalin rehabilitated, Nato ‘fragmented’: what today’s Russian papers are saying.

(MOSCOW) – Russian media outlets have devoted significant coverage to the rehabilitation of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin and expressed a mix of apprehension and schadenfreude over perceived fragmentation within the NATO alliance.

The government publication Rossiyskaya Gazeta reported in its weekly supplement, Nedelya, that a four part miniseries is currently being filmed about Stalin. The report omits any mention of Stalin’s crimes against his own people, the Great Terror, or the Gulag system.

Director Vladimir Bodkco was quoted as saying the primary artistic and political aim of the series is to dispel what he called the myth about Comrade Stalin that developed after the 20th Congress of the Soviet Communist Party. “We want to show Stalin not as someone good or bad, but as I believe he really was. This is very important, not just for me, but for people,” Bodkco stated. He added, “Stalin was someone who had influence over the world. He built the state pretty much from scratch and ended his rule by creating the atom bomb. Space exploration began under Stalin, not Khrushchev, who took all the credit.”

Komsomolskaya Pravda furthered this nostalgic narrative by reprinting an edition from August 1943, reporting on gains in what Russia calls the Great Patriotic War. The paper’s television listings also advertised part four of the drama “Smersh: Death to Spies,” concerning the notorious counterintelligence unit created by Stalin. The paper claims the series is one of the most popular war dramas of modern times.

The front cover of Argumenty i Fakty featured another relic of the Soviet past, noting the Worker and Collective Farm Woman monument will mark its 90th anniversary next year. The edition also included an article on a less iconic communist era creation, Soviet jeans, which first appeared 50 years ago. The article noted they never became a fashion icon because after two or three washes, the jeans would turn into rags.

Turning to international affairs, Moscow is observing closely to determine the extent of pressure the Trump administration will exert on NATO. The government paper Izvestia reported that Trump has signalled a readiness to pull the United States out of the alliance or expel members he dislikes.

The report noted that people are already questioning whether the alliance’s foundation stone, the Article 5 principle of collective security, will function effectively. However, the outlet Moskovskij Komsomolets suggested Russia should not welcome a potential US withdrawal. The newspaper warned, “Without the US, NATO will probably become more aggressive. We shouldn’t get excited about predictions of the possible death of NATO in its current form. Moscow may not like at all what may replace NATO in its current form.”