Just like here, they place enormous billboards on buses that are used for local transportation in Russia, too. The citizens of former Leningrad, now Saint Petersburg are also used to the ads on buses. But I'm guessing no one has ever seen one with a Stalin ad on it. Well, now they have. They first saw it in May 2010. Actually the night of the first day, someone or ones covered it up by painting it all white but the following day, bus number 187 was on the road again with the huge Joseph Stalin ad on it. That's when I started to wonder. Was this the case in certain districts, or was a much more widespread inclination in question? The data was rather odd: Not only in Saint Petersburg, but also in Moscow. Not only in Russia, but also in Ukraine, and Yakutia. Not only in former Soviet region, but also in United States, in Bedford city of Virginia State, was Stalin in demand. What had happened? How did Stalin get in the list of people whose statues are to be erected? Who was erecting these statues, putting up these pictures? I was curious, look what I've found. Those of you who are thinking, 'I'm bored of this country's weird agenda', are welcome to our little trip. Here we go.

Let's start from the beginning. This is the first question: Why has there been a Stalinmania in May? The answer is simple: May 9, the final day of World War II, is celebrated in Russia as 'Victory Day'. Remember? This time, for the first time, the NATO forces also joined the celebrations at Red Square. Again, there were lots of Stalin posters. The Soviet Union was dissolved and replaced with Russian Federation and a number of states, but Russia keeps celebrating the Soviet holidays the way it used to. The 'Soviet Victory Day' has become 'Russian Victory Day'. This is how life operates. Not everything is dismissed with separation; some traditions go on, anyway.

But it seemed the 'Stalin enthusiasm' was more intense, this holiday. What is the source? At first glance, the answer of course, is the Communist Party. All these Stalin posters, busts and statues are the work of the Communist Party. At this point you might say, 'Oh, now it's clear, it was obvious something was not right'. But you shouldn't. Not before you've read the complete story. The surveys prove me right, too: According to the surveys, while 47% of the Russians thought Stalin to be a positive impact on Russian history in 2006, this figure reaches 61% in 2009 in surveys carried out by the same firm. Something suspicious seems to be going on, right? This is the same Joseph Stalin we know. The cruel man who has got blood on his hands, the one who invented 'judgment according to hoyle', which is still popular in some countries, not naming any names. The same Stalin who drove the opponents crazy, by saying, 'In a labor state, while already in power, one should be nuts to still oppose'. But he is, at the same time, the one and only general officer of the Great War, in the eyes of the Russian people.

The mastermind of the idea 'the bus number 187', is the internet blog sites. Nowadays, it is the internet that pioneers lots of events everywhere. The idea of blog writer Victor Loginov was applauded and the money raised from the campaign, let the bus number 187 be able to cross the Nevski Boulevard for two weeks. It has a giant photograph of Stalin on it along with a quote by him from 1945: 'I raise my glass to the Soviet people and especially to the Russian people'. It won't be long before they use this quote and photos of Stalin in vodka ads. Why not use Stalin in an ad after having made Che Guevera into a disco song? The quote is good too, it embodies Russian nationalism. So it's possible.

I, actually, have never heard of this quote before and found it useless, after having heard. Where did he say this? In what kind of an environment? What was he thinking? I don't know. But see, nowadays, hearing the name 'Stalin' makes me think of one thing: his famous line; '(the party) staff are our wealth'. In November, 1937, when Georgi Dimitrov from the Bulgarian Communist Party stood up and said, "The international labor class is very lucky to have a leader such as Stalin", Stalin said "I disagree. He expressed himself in a non-Marxist manner...It is the medium-level staff that is significant". What does he really mean? He means something very simple. He never seems to forget how he came to power, how he took over the party after Lenin. "How did we succeed in overpowering Trocki and the others? It was well-known that Trocki was the second most famous person in our country, following Lenin. ...however, we have the support of medium-level staff and they told the masses how we perceived things... Trocki never attributed importance to those."

This is what I remember about Stalin. An unknown General Secretary setting the carrier path of a set of medium-level staff inside the party, bringing relief to those who worry 'what will I be?' and strengthening his power by doing so. After the stroke that left him powerless, in 1922, Lenin asks Stalin to poison him but Stalin says no, probably because not enough party bureaucrats' carrier paths were under control yet. Such is life.

But what is the source of Stalin's increasing popularity? I'm guessing the environment that the post-communist countries live in, has an impact on this process. Since the fall of the wall in 1989, interesting progressions have been taking place on the other side of it. In his book 'Living in the End Times', Slavoj Zizek tells there are three different reactions in post-communist countries after the fall of the wall: The first is the nostalgia for the communism era. The second is rightist nationalist populism. And the third, the fear of communism. It seems what the three have in common is the astonishment, 'Now that we're free, why isn't life picture-perfect?'

Is this increasing Stalinmania, the rise of communism? If communism only means social security and having an ensured future, maybe it is.

What's good, what's bad, it's all mixed up.

The world is going through an interesting phase.

What did Mao Zedong say? "There is great disorder under heaven, the situation is excellent."

I don't know about you, but I, for one, am not in favor of this situation.

This commentary was published in Referans daily on 12.06.2010