The Westernization Of Comrade Stalin

I do not mean Comrade Stalin is becoming more Westernized. That is obvious. Rather, I mean the West is learning some tricks from  дед сталин, Grandpa Stalin.

Democracies? Where Are Democracies?
16:37 18.12.2016 (updated 16:41 18.12.2016)
Dmitry Babich
https://sputniknews.com/columnists/201612181048710977-where-are-democracies/

...In the 1930s, Stalin gave an unofficial order to locate and punish (sometimes by death) all people who had ever had contact abroad with Leo Trotsky or his son, Vladimir Sedov, after their exile from the USSR in 1929. The mere instance of a talk, let alone a dinner, with Leo or Vladimir was seen as a "license to execution."

Nobody Expects the White House Inquisition! WH Claims Trump Aides Bankrolled by Kremlin
So, when I read articles in The Washington Post denouncing Michael Flynn for having attended a gala dinner with Putin in 2015, you can understand the historical parallels. And when senator Marco Rubio of Florida tweeted about Tillerson that "being a 'friend of Vladimir' is not an attribute I am hoping for a secretary of state," how is that different from the prohibition on unsanctioned encounters with foreigners the one the Soviet Union had for many years?

History seems to have come full circle. The dark pages of the USSR's past reveal themselves to be a lesson even more useful to modern Westerners than to modern Russians.

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