From Stalin to Putin: Persistence of Soviet Institutions in Today’s Russia

At a meeting co-hosted by the Russia and Eurasia Program and the Human Rights and Security Initiative at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), Maxim Trudolyubov presented conclusions from his work on Stalin’s institutional legacy in Russia. Sarah Mendelson, Director of the Human Rights and Security Initiative provided commentary, and Andrew Kuchins, Director of the Russia & Eurasia Program, moderated. 

Trudolyubov discussed how the political and economic elite in modern Russia operate within the same institutional culture as had the Soviet generations who preceded them. Corruption and apathy, legacies of the Soviet Union’s atomized society, remain major obstacles to reform in Russia today. To listen to this podcast in full please visit our website.

The talk is based on Stalin’s Project, a series of articles, co-authored with the historian Pavel Aptekar and published in the daily Vedomosti in 2008-2009. The series' most recent article (Russian language) is available.