It was a little over a week ago that Joseph Stalin led the polls in ‘The Name of Russia‘, a TV show where viewers vote in the most notable person in Russian history:
From the Telegraph:
While the poll, conducted by the state run Rossiya channel, has been criticised for allowing multiple voting, there is little doubt that Stalin has undergone a remarkable renaissance in recent years.
Opinion polls regularly name him Russia’s greatest post-revolution leader after Vladimir Putin, the prime minister.
The wartime leader’s resurgence owes much to the Kremlin, which under Mr Putin’s presidency appeared to support a campaign to rehabilitate Stalin, with television documentaries, films and books released in recent years eulogising him.
A newly published history text book, approved by the Kremlin for use in all schools, glossed over the more unappealing parts of Stalin’s rule and ultimately concluded that he was the Soviet Union’s most successful leader.
The Communist party in St Petersburg has petitioned the Orthodox Church to canonise Josef Stalin if he wins a television poll to nominate the greatest Russian in history.