Stalin was one of the socialist leaders of the USSR that was present to be the leader when the Nazis were trying to slaughter them for their race and their way of life. Stalin acted as a leader and the people emerged victorious, which helped Stalin act as an avatar representing Socialism on earth. This cult of personality was not encouraged, but the effect remained. Stalin in Russia is the human meme representation of socialism.
I won’t say that all socialist projects need to look like what Stalin created. However spreading lies about what Stalin did as a socialist leader is undermining the socialist project as a whole in Russia. Putin is an anti-communist that seeks to undermine socialism in Russia, thus he lies about Stalin.
Putin does praise Stalin in implicit like in Valdai conference of 2016 , he said if USSR didn’t centralize resources, education, military industrial complex then Russia as a nation wouldn’t have survived. Also Putin has banned comparing Stalin to Hitler. No doubt Putin dislikes communists but he is not pro Hitler or equates USSR to fascism. Although Putin and entourage are not communists hates progressive ideological standpoint. But don’t worry 71 percent of Russians love Stalin. Actually to know Stalin you have to talk to old Russians who were under Stalin rule and most of them loved the time.
