Caucasus Survey
ISSN: 2376-1199 (Print) 2376-1202 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/rcau20
Unconditional love? Exploring hometown effect in
Stalin's birthplace
Peter Kabachnik & Alexi Gugushvili
To cite this article: Peter Kabachnik & Alexi Gugushvili (2015) Unconditional love?
Exploring hometown effect in Stalin's birthplace, Caucasus Survey, 3:2, 101-123, DOI:
10.1080/23761199.2015.1044305
To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23761199.2015.1044305
Published online: 29 May 2015.
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Date: 17 November 2015, At: 03:28
Caucasus Survey, 2015
Vol. 3, No. 2, 101–123, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23761199.2015.1044305
Unconditional love? Exploring hometown effect in Stalin’s birthplace
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Peter Kabachnik* and Alexi Gugushvili
Department of Political Science and Global Affairs, College of Staten Island, The City University of
New York (CUNY), New York, NY, USA; Russian and Eurasian Studies Centre, St. Antony’s College,
University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
(Received 21 January 2015; accepted 25 February 2015)
This article explores the impact of spatial location – place – on people’s attitudes by examining
whether support for Stalin is concentrated in his birthplace: Gori, Georgia. Using a variety of
multivariate statistical methods, including propensity score-matching, we examine a recent
survey indicating high levels of admiration for Stalin in his home country. We explore two
main questions: First, is there a “hometown effect” – do people in Gori love Stalin
unconditionally because they came from the same place? Second, is Gori so exceptional
from the rest of Georgia? We conclude that there is indeed a stronger level of support for
Stalin in Gori, but when shifting scales and looking within the category, we find that the
highest admiration stems from the town’s rural outskirts.
Keywords: Stalin; Gori; hometown effect; Georgia; propensity score-matching; spatial
location
Introduction
Does being from the same place impact one’s feelings when judging an individual? This topic
remains ripe for exploration and can be approached from various angles in different countries,
settings, and regions. For instance, in the Japanese Professional Baseball League, a starting
pitcher who comes from a team’s hometown is associated with higher attendance for that game
than that of one born elsewhere (Yamamura 2010). One common refrain in American politics
is that attention needs to be paid to the regional backgrounds of presidential and vice-presidential
candidates, in order to properly consider geographic factors that will be crucial for gaining enough
voter support and electoral victory. Political scientists have examined the impact of whether the
places candidates hail from translates to local and regional advantages in US presidential elections, with Garand (1988) confirming small but consistent home state advantages (see also
Silver 2012). When analyzing mass political behavior in East Asian societies such as Japan
(Hirano 2011) and South Korea (Kwon 2008), the hometown of individuals matters more than
their current region of residence. Furthermore, the evidence suggests that in elections in post-communist Poland, prominent political leaders magnified political support of the parties in towns they
came from (Millard 2010).
Another trajectory of this phenomenon, what we term “hometown effect,” would be to
measure contemporary support for historical political figures, such as Mao, Ataturk, or Stepan
*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]
© 2015 International Association for the Study of the Caucasus
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P. Kabachnik and A. Gugushvili
Bandera, and to identify and analyze regional variations and concentrations in their levels of
support in China, Turkey, or Ukraine, respectively.1 For example, what do people in Kumrovec,
Croatia, think of Tito or Shaoshan, China, think of Mao? There is a wide variety of responses from
both the local population and governments in the birthplaces of dictators, from creating sites of
pilgrimage for tourists (Shaoshan), to having official state museums (Gori, Kumrovec), or
wishing to erase the building Hitler was born in from the landscape (Branau am Inn). The narratives in the landscape, as well as the rituals and practices associated with them, can help shape
popular opinion regarding these historical figures.
This type of study can provide data on how people understand their past, the meaning attributed to certain historical figures and narratives, and gauge current political attitudes on a number
of issues. An interesting test case for this has recently generated considerable attention: Joseph
Stalin. As de Waal (2013a) notes, Stalin is still making his presence felt throughout postSoviet space, particularly in Russia and Georgia.
Ioseb (Joseph) Jughashvili, who later, as Stalin, led the Soviet Union for nearly 30 years, was
born in the small town of Gori, Georgia in 1879. The conventional wisdom suggests that the
people of Gori remain enamored with their “local boy made good,” much to the dismay of the
rest of the world, and arguably, even the rest of Georgia (e.g. Antelava 2003). Gori, we are
told, is “a place associated by many – both Georgians and outsiders – with Stalin” (Gotfredsen
2014, 248) and “is best known as the birthplace of Joseph Stalin” (Dunbar 2014). Anecdotal evidence indicates that Georgians in other parts of the country typically roll their eyes at the mention
of Stalin and Gori, dismissing the pride Gorians feel as a rather odd and isolated feature of a small
town in which one of their own became world renowned.
Gori, predictably, became a sacred place for Stalin during his lifetime, with a Stalin monument in the main square, his preserved childhood home, a main street named Stalin Avenue,
and a Stalin Museum dedicated to the local boy made good. Yet, over the past 60 years,
despite Khrushchev’s de-Stalinization efforts, the fall of the Soviet Union, and Georgian independence, Gori’s landscape devoted to Stalin did not change much. One key difference today is
that the Stalin monument no longer dominates the central square, as it was removed in 2010 –
but debate still reigns over the plans to put the monument back up on the grounds of the Stalin
Museum. Though there has been discussion to change the Stalin Museum to the Museum of
Stalinism, very little has changed in the exhibits and in the narratives the tour guides offer.2
Survey results reveal that the highest levels of support for Stalin are found in his ethnic homeland, Georgia, when compared with other post-Soviet republics (de Waal 2013b). This leads us to
wonder: Is the appreciation for Stalin, as captured in survey data, primarily dictated by Gori residents’ exceptional pride in Stalin? Does living in a place where its most famous son helped
control a global superpower really lead to heightened levels of support?
By focusing on the impact of being from Gori, we are documenting the role that spatial
location – place – plays in individuals’ assessments of Stalin. We explore this issue by examining
two related lines of inquiry: (1) Do Gori residents unconditionally love Stalin? To what degree? Is
this evidence of (what we term) a “hometown effect”? (2) Do people in the rest of Georgia have
starkly different attitudes toward Stalin? Is people’s love of Stalin in Gori evidence of the
phenomenon of Stalin exceptionalism taking place there? To contend with these questions, we
examine a number of questions from a recent survey about people’s perceptions of Stalin in
Georgia (de Waal 2013b; Gugushvili and Kabachnik 2015). We rigorously test the main hypothesis of this paper – that individuals in Gori exhibit systematically and significantly more positive
attitudes toward Stalin than respondents in other parts of Georgia – using various statistical
methods.
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Exploring the role of spatial location
Scholars typically focus on social – rather than spatial – location in their analyses of what impacts
people’s beliefs, political attitudes, and other choices. While social location – and the variety of
demographic variables this term encompasses – is important to analyze, one must not overlook the
power of place. Many studies do feature spatial analysis and demonstrate the role that place and
location play in shaping identities, perceptions, and decision-making in a variety of different cases
and issues (e.g. Dahl and Sorenson 2010; Han 2011; Gravelle 2014). Research shows the impact
of spatial location on people’s attitudes, the variability of regional differences (Weakliem and
Biggert 1999), the concentration of popular opinion in certain regional nodes, and of the
effects of distance decay on political support (Garand 1988; Silver 2012). Divergent patterns
in people’s political attitudes can be quite influential. Regional patterns of political support
have been shown to be vital to oppositional politics and regime change, as made evident in the
Color Revolutions (Beissinger 2007; Ó Beacháin 2009; Goode 2010). However, there has been
scant research done on the “hometown effect” or “local hero effect” on regional attitudes
toward historical figures.
One notable exception has been the exploration of attitudes toward controversial Ukrainian
nationalist Stepan Bandera and the various political/military movements of Ukrainian nationalists in the 1940s (Marples 2006, 2010; Katchanovski 2010a, 2010b). Scholars have demonstrated the often volatile battles over memory through the use of certain symbols and
individuals to help retrench or revise identities and/or national histories (Marples 2006,
2010; Blacker 2014). While not testing for hometown effect per se, several studies have
explored the fractured regional divisions in Ukraine, which have been recently overtly manifested with the alleged rise of certain Ukrainian ultra nationalist movements and culminating
in Russian separatism in eastern Ukraine. Katchanovski (2010a, 2010b) shows clear regional
patterns of nationalism and support for certain groups and political positions in Ukraine.
Not only is the conventional wisdom of an east–west split in Ukraine confirmed, but he identifies the Galicia region in western Ukraine as the strongest cluster of support of Ukrainian
nationalist organizations and Stepan Bandera, thus locating the hotbed of Ukrainian nationalism. Katchanovski explores a variety of demographic characteristics via statistical analyses
and concludes that place plays one of the strongest roles in determining higher levels of
support for symbols of Ukrainian nationalism.3
We too will explore the role place plays by deploying four locational categories in our analysis
in order to test whether there are specific concentrations of Stalin love in Georgia, while at the
same time accounting for other (non-geographic) significant factors in explaining people’s
opinions on Stalin. Furthermore, while there has been some exploration of popular attitudes
toward Stalin in Russia (Mendelson and Gerber 2005, 2006, 2008; Munro 2006; Sullivan
2013), until recently the situation in Georgia has remained underexplored (Bakradze 2013;
Gugushvili and Kabachnik 2015; Kabachnik et. al. forthcoming).
Research into contemporary attitudes toward Stalin in Georgia has wider relevance. It highlights the narratives that circulate within the cultural memory of Georgia and illuminates various
attitudes toward historical events and historical figures that are integral for Georgian identities and
histories. Not only does it reveal the legacy of the Soviet period and the power of nationalist discourses, but it also connects with other current political attitudes and practices. For instance, we
have found that both votes given for the United National Movement and the Labor Party of
Georgia in the 2012 parliamentary elections are statistically significant covariates of positive perceptions of Stalin (Kabachnik and Gugushvili 2014). This points to the fact that attitudes toward
historical leaders, like Stalin, can be illustrative of other political preferences and beliefs and have
broader significance.
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Only in Gori: exceptionalism and the hometown effect
“This little town gave birth to the greatest leader of the Soviet Union, and I’ll always be proud of
it” (Antelava 2003).
There is a story about the 2008 Russia–Georgia war, in which a Russian general proceeds not to
cause any further destruction in Gori due to his respect for Stalin, buttressed by the looming presence of the Stalin monument (Kikodze 2012). This apocryphal anecdote captures the strong link
between Stalin and Gori – as well as the indebtedness Georgians should feel about Stalin’s continuing protection (Nodia 2012). In addition, it is commonplace to hear about Stalin, and the Stalin
Museum which glorifies its namesake, as a source of “great pride for locals” (Demytrie 2014). It
has also been argued that this pride does not extend to the rest of Georgia:
But while Gori is still full of people who agree with Irina’s father, increasingly few Georgians outside
Stalin’s hometown take pride in their connection with Soviet Union’s greatest dictator. (Antelava
2003)
Visitors to Georgia repeatedly cite the exceptionalism of Gori. They explain how Gori, due to the
residents’ love of Stalin, is distinctive from the rest of Georgia, where the Soviet dictator is judged
pejoratively (e.g. Jennifer 2012; Pervez 2014). Journalists also regularly represent Gori in this
manner, a typical example of which follows:
The world may know him as a bloodthirsty Soviet dictator responsible for millions of deaths, but to
many people in his hometown of Gori, eastern Georgia, Joseph Stalin was simply a local boy made
good. (Bennetts 2012)
According to this view, everywhere else people know Stalin “as a bloodthirsty Soviet dictator
responsible for millions of deaths,” except in Gori. The framing of Gori within this discursive
trope obfuscates the more general trend, effectively deflecting attention away of potential high
levels of admiration for Stalin in other parts of Georgia, and elsewhere in post-Soviet space. It
is a judgment that presumes a priori that outside of Gori positive appraisals of Stalin are minimal.
However, it is a possibility that Stalin admiration in other parts of Georgia is equally high.
First of all, Stalin in all parts of the country could be viewed as a national, rather than local,
hero and the most famous Georgian who belongs to the entire country rather than just to his hometown (see also Gotfredsen 2014). If this is true, then local affection in Gori would be matched with
equally strong love in other areas of Georgia.
These persistent high levels of admiration for Stalin are indicative of the failure of any sustained
de-Stalinization efforts in Georgia. There has been a lack of political will to contend with and fully
reassess the Soviet past, both in Russia and in Georgia, though sustained scholarly engagement with
these processes in Georgia has been lacking. De-Stalinization impacted different areas of the Soviet
Union and its satellite states in distinctive ways. In 1956 in Georgia, the reaction to de-Stalinization
in the form of Khrushchev’s Secret Speech led to the March 9 demonstrations and expressions of
nationalism (Suny 1994; Jones 2010). Ramishvili and Chergoleishvili (2014, 183) argue that “in
Georgia, de-Stalinization was perceived as an attack on Georgian identity (and its prestige), and
sparked protest in 1956.” Here we see Stalin as a symbol of Georgian identity (see also Zedania
2011, 254), imbricated with nationalist sentiment. As Polly Jones states:
Though this protest may have intertwined pro-Stalinist sentiment with proto-nationalist concerns, the
insult to Stalin provided a powerful initial impulse for the demonstration (which called, partly successfully, for republican wide mourning of the dead leader), and undoubtedly helped to sustain its momentum. (Jones 2013, 44)
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While it is difficult to ascertain how significant a role Stalin played for the majority of the protesters in 1956 (Blauvelt 2009), it certainly was a factor for some and the symbolism of the
event provided the spark and opportunity for resistance and the resurgence of Georgian
nationalism.
Later, de-Stalinization under Gorbachev also served as an outlet for Georgian nationalism and
spurred calls for independence, rather than acting as an opportunity for Georgians to reappraise
Stalinism. Wars, violence, and state collapse prevented any de-Stalinization efforts during the
1990s, and while the post-Rose Revolution discourses that predominated were openly hostile
to Stalin and the Soviet period, they were more about demonizing Russia and the Soviet past
rather than creating a careful dialog about the past in Georgia.4 President Saakashvili and the
United National Movement proceeded to destroy a World War II Soviet memorial in Kutaisi,
removed the Stalin monument from the center of Gori (under the cover of night), opened the
Museum of Soviet Occupation in Tbilisi, suggested the changing of the Stalin Museum to the
Museum of Stalinism, and passed the Freedom Charter, effectively banning all Soviet (and
fascist) symbols from public space, to name a few developments. The lack of a sustained
effort to properly deal with the Soviet past and the legacy of Stalin and Stalinism in Georgia is
manifested in these half-measures, false starts, and the various contradictions in the landscape
that simultaneously demonize, glorify, and ignore Stalin and the Soviet era. Ultimately, as the
high levels of support for Stalin in the survey results indicate, de-Stalinization has not been successful in Georgia (de Waal 2013b).
One of the possible reasons why admiration for Stalin may not be detected as saliently beyond
Gori is that journalists, commentators, and scholars do not actually ask the same questions about
Stalin in other parts of Georgia. If researchers visit the Stalin Museum in Gori and talk to people
nearby, they might be under a biased impression that Gori is significantly different in its attachment to the Soviet dictator, especially if the only other place they visit in Georgia is its capital
where people are usually disproportionally skeptical about political elites (George 2014).
Stalin could be equally admired in other urban settlements, some of which, such as Rustavi
and Zestaponi, were industrialized under Stalin’s leadership (Komarov 1981). Towns established
during the Stalinist period could carry a popular legacy of Stalin more saliently than other
locations. It can be argued that acquiring the status of a town in and of itself is not the major mechanism which generates admiration of a dictator, but rather becoming an urban center is related to
substantive developments in terms of infrastructure, economy, and culture which would be a
primary channel affecting attitudes toward Stalin (Kabachnik and Gugushvili 2014). Residents
in rural areas in turn might hold positive attitudes toward Stalin as a proxy for their nostalgia
for Soviet Georgia and its highly developed agriculture. Therefore, available anecdotal evidence
on Gori’s exceptionalism regarding its famous son could be exaggerated after all.
Another mechanism through which Gori residents might appear to have higher support of
Stalin could be the confounding factors affecting preferences toward Stalin. Gugushvili and
Kabachnik (2015) show how adolescent socialization, social structural, ideological, and gender
dimensions shape attitudes toward the Soviet dictator in his home country. It is possible that
due to high outmigration rates, demographic aging, scarce employment opportunities, and
harsh socioeconomic conditions, attitudes toward Stalin in Gori are different from the capital
city and other parts of Georgia. Indeed, the Shida Kartli region, in which Gori is located, has
been identified as one of the poorest regions in the country (Working Group on Poverty Reduction
and Employment 2009). Gori is also the closest major town to Tskhinvali, the capital of South
Ossetia, and also was adversely affected by the Ossetian–Georgian conflict since the beginning
of 1990s. In fact, Gori was briefly occupied by Russian forces during the August 2008 war.5
All of these characteristics and events might have an impact on the expressed attitudes toward
Stalin in his hometown, which is why it is important to test individuals’ perceptions of Stalin
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P. Kabachnik and A. Gugushvili
with reliable data in multivariate statistical settings controlling for a wide array of demographic
and attitudinal characteristics.
Though we challenge the exceptionalism of Gori, the residents of the city may still love Stalin
more than other parts of Georgia. Gori residents may feel more pride to be from Stalin’s hometown, and relish the notoriety that their local hero has bestowed upon them and their city.
However, rather than relying on anecdotal evidence that is repeatedly reproduced in traveler
accounts and media reporting, we aim to analyze survey data to substantiate, reposition, or contradict this claim. We want to test whether there is a “hometown effect” in Gori resulting in a disproportionately elevated number of people who hold Stalin in high esteem. We will identify
whether the hometown effect exists, and if so, to what degree.
Data
Surprisingly, the first survey of people’s attitudes toward Stalin to be conducted in the birthplace
of the Soviet dictator did not take place until October 2012, when the Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace commissioned the Caucasus Research Resource Centers (CRRC 2012) to
include several questions about Stalin in the annual Caucasus Barometer (CB) survey. As
time-series data from Russia demonstrate, the perceptions of Stalin and other past leaders are sensitive to the specific time period when the surveys are conducted (Gudkov 2013); therefore, the
2502 interviews in our data set are only representative of public attitudes of the adult population
of Georgia at the end of 2012, immediately after President Saakashvili’s political party conceded
power to the Georgian Dream Coalition. The most important characteristic of the CB survey for
the purposes of this article is that it includes 96 interviews with individuals in the district of Gori.
This allows for testing the hometown effect – on perceptions of Stalin in his birthplace against
attitudes in other parts of the country.6
Operationalizing perceptions of Stalin
In order to provide a comprehensive analysis of the hometown effect, we employ eight dependent
variables, each of which inquire into various aspects of people’s perceptions toward Stalin in
Georgia. The following statement was read to all respondents of the CRRC survey: “People in
Georgia have different opinions about the past, and about the leaders of the past. Let me ask you
a few questions about Joseph Stalin.” This text was followed by the question about the word
which best describes their attitudes toward Stalin. The answer options included “admiration” –
3.6% of responses, “respect” – 28.9%, “sympathy” – 15.8%, “indifference” – 14.7%, “antipathy/irritation” – 8.2%, “fear” – 7.2%, “disgust/hatred” – 3.5%, “I don’t know who Stalin is” –
4.4%, and “don’t know” – 12.2%.7 In addition, 40 respondents (1.6% of the sample) refused to
provide an answer. As the descriptive statistics suggest, about half of respondents selected
words with positive connotations when asked to describe Stalin; however, it is also telling that
about one-fifth of individuals could not or did not want to express their feelings about him.
Concerning the merits and deeds of Stalin, the CRRC respondents were asked to what extent
they would completely disagree = 1, disagree = 2, agree = 3, or completely agree = 4 with the following four statements:
(a) “Stalin was a wise leader who brought power and prosperity to the Soviet Union” – mean
= 3.2, SD = .88;
(b) “For all Stalin’s mistakes and misdeeds, the most important thing is that under his leadership the Soviet people won the Great Patriotic War” – mean = 3.4, SD = .75;
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(c) “Stalin was a cruel, inhuman tyrant, responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent
people” – mean = 2.9, SD = .98;
(d) “Our people will always have need of a leader like Stalin, who will come and restore
order” – mean = 2.2, SD = .98.
It is noticeable that for the first two described questions, respondents exhibit strong positive
attitudes toward Stalin, while they are significantly more critical toward the late Soviet dictator in
the last two questions. The high shares of “don’t knows” (13.3%, 11.4%, 19.7%, and 21.9% in
questions (a), (b), (c), and (d), respectively) also suggest ambivalent and contested perceptions
of Stalin in his home country.8
The next two dependent variables are based on respondents’ knowledge and beliefs regarding
Stalinist terror and the sacrifices of the Soviet people. The first question asks which of the following opinions about Stalin’s acts of repression they would agree with most: “It was a political
crime, these acts of repression cannot be justified” – 41.4% of responses, “these repressions
were politically necessary, they were justified taking into consideration the historical circumstances” – 24.3%, “I don’t know about repressions” – 4.9%, and “don’t know” – 20.3%. The
second question reveals if respondents think that the sacrifices of the Soviet people under the
rule of Stalin can be justified by the results achieved in the short period of time: “Definitely justified” – 4.5%, justified to a certain extent – 21.7%, “definitely cannot be justified” – 42.4%, and
“don’t know” – 24.8%. In the last question pertinent to our study, the survey asked respondents if
they would like to live and work in a country ruled by a person like Stalin: “definitely yes” –
14.2%, “probably yes” – 11.2%, “probably no” – 12.8%, “definitely no” – 44.8%, and “don’t
know” – 11.3%.
To summarize, individuals in Georgia express predominantly positive feelings toward Stalin
and admire him as a political and military leader. At the same time, they mostly acknowledge
Stalin’s salient role in political crimes and the deaths of millions of innocent people, do not
feel that the Soviet people’s sacrifice was justified, and certainly do not want to live under a
ruler like Stalin. Yet, the presented results do not say much about whether these attitudes are manifested differently in Gori – the dictator’s hometown.
Comparing Gori with the rest of Georgia
The overall number of respondents in the Gori district is 96 (3.8% of the sample), 50 come from
the town of Gori, and the remaining 46 from the adjacent rural settlements of Mejvriskhevi and
Plavismani that are substantively similar to typical villages located in vicinity of urban areas in
other parts of the country.9 The CB survey does not provide a statistically representative
sample neither for the town nor for the district of Gori as stand-alone territorial units. Nonetheless,
this does not prevent us from comparing attitudes toward Stalin of the randomly selected group of
individuals in the Gori district and the town of Gori with the similar attitudes of other respondents
in our sample. We provide at least three justifications why our statistical approach makes sense.
First, the strategy to compare the Gori district with three other geographic units is partially
based on the tentative analysis in which we ranked districts across Georgia by their overall
support for Stalin. The results of these exercise were in line with our expectations – the lowest
support for Stalin was observed in districts of Tbilisi (known for negative attitudes toward political leaders), while the highest support came from districts in Kakheti (which allegedly keeps the
highest number of standing statues of Stalin; Kakheti News Center 2011) and Shida Kartli (where
Gori is located). These intuitive findings reassure us that the opinions of the randomly drawn
sample of individuals in electoral units are valid proxies of public attitudes in these districts.
Second, we do not imply that the presented results are representative of district’s attitudes but
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rather employ the robust standards errors of our estimations and corresponding confidence intervals for expressed attitudes when comparing Gori and the rest of Georgia. Finally, our approach is
by no means unique. Survey respondents’ attitudes from non-representative territorial clusters
have been extensively used by social scientists (see the following studies in a similar context –
Bakke, O’Loughlin, and Ward 2009; O’Loughlin, Toal, and Kolossov 2008).
We start our analysis with all respondents from Gori, and then proceed with a decomposition
of the effects stemming from the urban and rural areas of this district. For simplicity of presentation, we opt to compare individuals in Gori to respondents who are interviewed in three geographic clusters – Tbilisi (21.8%), other urban (apart from the capital and the town of Gori –
37.4%), and rural (36.9%) areas. This gives us four territorial units which are compared to
each other. The rationale here is that if the “hometown effect” really exists, then we would be
able to observe higher support for Stalin in Gori not only in comparison to the country’s
capital (known for its deviance), but also in comparison with other towns and cities (many of
which were similarly industrialized in Stalinist years) and rural settlements (where hardship is
more prevalent and Stalin’s myths are more difficult to shake). The bivariate associations,
depicted in Figures A1 and A2, indeed suggest that the respondents in Gori have more positive
attitudes toward Stalin. It remains to be seen how this association holds in multivariate settings
and whether the effect is driven by rural–urban differences within the Gori district.
In order to account for the confounding factors which might affect our bivariate results, in
multivariate regression models, we control for alternative explanations of attitudes toward
Stalin. The available scholarship highlights an existing “gender gap” in a broad array of attitudes
related to the use of force and violence (Shapiro and Mahajan 1986), which suggests that males
are more likely to prefer an authoritarian leader like Stalin. Since the youngest generations are
least influenced by socialization that glorified Stalin and communist achievements in general
(Kitaevich 2014), we therefore expect that age will be positively associated with support for
Stalin. We also expect better educated individuals to possess more critical attitudes toward the
Soviet dictator because education equips people with the skills necessary to understand political
processes (Bahry 1993). Support of an ideology incompatible with Stalinism – democracy and a
market economy – should lead to a negative perception of Stalin (Gibson 1996). Finally, selfreported proficiency in Russian, socioeconomic status, and believing that Russia is the biggest
enemy of Georgia all have been found to have a negative association with attitudes toward
Stalin, and therefore are also included in our models (Gugushvili and Kabachnik 2015).10
Results
Expressed feelings toward Stalin
We start the multivariate analysis by investigating if respondents in Gori are more likely to select
words with positive meaning while thinking about Stalin, net of other covariates. Since the
response option of this dependent variable is categorical, the most appropriate way to analyze
data is multinomial logistic regression. It allows us to see how the probability of selecting a
specific word with positive (admiration, respect, and sympathy) or negative (antipathy/irritation,
fear, and disgust/hatred) connotation varies across settlement clusters. The reference category is
the answer option “indifference,” which is convenient because we can compare positive and negative feelings in relation to respondents’ ambivalence. We calculate the relative risk ratios, which
show the ratio of the probability of selecting a specific word in comparison to the reference category. After (list-wise) deletion of missing data, 1637 complete observations remain. The fit of the
models can be assessed with the value of McFadden’s Pseudo R 2 (and with adjusted R 2 in the
latter models), which simply show the share of variation in the dependent variable which is
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jointly explained by independent variables. For the control variables, we can see that it is males,
elderly, poor, and those who do not perceive Russia as Georgia’s biggest threat who judge Stalin
positively.
The derived relative risk ratios in Table 1 suggest that respondents in the Gori district are
much more likely to express positive feelings toward Stalin than the remaining individuals in
our sample. Compared with urban settlers outside of Tbilisi, Gori respondents are about 6
times more likely to express admiration toward Stalin than indifference (in relation to the reference category); the same association is only 1.9 in rural settlements. Individuals in Gori are also
3.6 times more likely to select the word sympathy when asked which word best describes their
attitude toward Stalin. Rural respondents, in comparison to urban settlers, are 77% more likely
to select “respect” toward Stalin rather than “indifference”. It is also interesting that the multinomial logistic model does not reveal that people in the dictator’s hometown are significantly different from respondents in other territorial clusters in selecting words with negative connotation
when expressing their feelings toward Stalin. One of the reasons why we do not see meaningful
results is that the number of responses for those answer options is very low which generates high
standard errors in the derived relative risk ratios. Overall, we can assert that individuals in the Gori
district are more likely to have positive feelings toward Stalin than respondents from other parts of
Georgia.
Stalin’s deeds and Stalinist Terror
Next we analyze how respondents in Gori compared with others in terms of their beliefs and
knowledge of Stalin’s merits, deeds, and terror. For better illustration of the results, we recode
answers for our 6 dependent variables so that they take the value of 1 if respondents agree
with the statements; otherwise responses are coded as 0. With these binary dependent variables,
we run linear probability models and calculate predictive margins for geographical clusters. The
interpretation of the results is straightforward. The bars with 95% confidence intervals (CI95)
show probabilities of respondents agreeing with the statements according to the place where interviews were conducted.
Figure 1(a) reveals that individuals in Gori have close to a probability of 1 of agreeing that
Stalin was a wise leader who brought power and prosperity to the Soviet Union. Rural areas
also score very high, 0.87 (CI95: 0.84, 0.90), while in Tbilisi and other urban areas respondents
have about a 75% chance of agreeing with this statement. Similar trends are observed when the
dependent variable assesses how strongly respondents agree that under Stalin’s leadership the
Soviet people won the World War II. For this statement, individuals in Gori exhibit 98%
(CI95: 0.95, 1.0) probability of approval. For the question in Figure 1(c), a positive answer corresponds to the belief that Stalin was a cruel, inhuman tyrant, responsible for the deaths of
millions of innocent people. Consequently, we expect that individuals in Gori would score
lower than the residents of other areas. Indeed, the chance of thinking that Stalin was an
inhuman tyrant is only 29% there, while this probability rises to more than 0.7 in Tbilisi and
other urban settlements. These results suggest that some of the respondents in Gori who think
that Stalin brought power and prosperity to the Soviet Union also believe that he was responsible
for the death of millions of innocent people.
The likelihood of agreeing with the statement that people will always have need of a leader
like Stalin is much lower than was the case for the first two independent variables. In Gori this
chance is 58%, while in rural areas, Tbilisi, and other urban areas, it is 43%, 32%, and 31%,
respectively. Almost identical distribution of probabilities across territorial clusters is observed
when individuals are asked if Stalin’s repressions were politically necessary. There is about
60% chance of respondents agreeing with the statement in the Gori district, while in other
Feelings toward Stalin, “Indifference” is reference category.
Which of the words best describes your attitude toward Stalin?
Gori district
Tbilisi
Rural areas
Other urban areas
Male
Age
Years of education
Proficiency in
Russian
Income rung
Support for
democracy
Support for
authoritarianism
Support for
privatization
Russia is the
enemy
Intercept
Number of
observations
Pseudo R 2
Admiration
Respect
Sympathy
Antipathy,
irritation
Fear
Disgust,
hatred
5.98 (4.36)**
1.47 (0.54)
1.93 (0.65)*
Reference
1.61 (0.46)*
1.07 (0.01)***
0.98 (0.05)
1.18 (0.21)
1.97 (1.05)
1.06 (0.20)
1.77 (0.35)***
Reference
1.61 (0.26)***
1.05 (0.00)***
0.98 (0.03)
0.92 (0.09)
3.63 (2.01)**
1.04 (0.24)
2.22 (0.48)***
Reference
2.04 (0.36)***
1.05 (0.01)***
0.98 (0.03)
0.94 (0.11)
2.30 (1.37)
1.24 (0.29)
1.30 (0.34)
Reference
1.71 (0.34)***
1.01 (0.01)**
1.06 (0.04)
1.07 (0.15)
1.02 (0.77)
0.88 (0.21)
0.97 (0.27)
Reference
0.64 (0.15)*
1.01 (0.01)*
1.01 (0.04)
1.28 (0.17)*
0.60 (0.66)
0.71 (0.23)
0.73 (0.26)
Reference
1.66 (0.45)*
1.01 (0.01)
0.99 (0.05)
1.09 (0.20)
0.82 (0.08)**
0.81 (0.46)
0.91 (0.04)**
0.65 (0.23)
0.96 (0.05)
1.11 (0.49)
1.16 (0.07)**
1.11 (0.57)
0.89 (0.06)*
0.66 (0.31)
0.96 (0.09)
1.17 (0.93)
0.81 (0.57)
0.95 (0.40)
0.86 (0.45)
1.13 (0.68)
0.75 (0.42)
0.89 (0.84)
0.96 (0.04)
0.95 (0.02)**
0.97 (0.03)
1.03 (0.04)
1.03 (0.04)
1.09 (0.06)
0.49 (0.16)**
0.67 (0.11)**
0.67 (0.12)**
1.26 (0.25)
1.42 (0.29)*
1.60 (0.44)*
0.01 (0.01)***
0.88 (0.51)
0.12 (0.08)***
0.03 (0.02)***
0.23 (0.19)*
0.05 (0.06)**
1637
0.085
Source: Authors’ calculations based on data from CB (CRRC 2012).
Notes: Relative risk ratios from multinomial logit regression. Robust standard errors are given within parentheses.
*Statistical significance at the .10 level.
**Statistical significance at the .05 level.
***Statistical significance at the .01 level.
P. Kabachnik and A. Gugushvili
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110
Table 1.
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Caucasus Survey
111
Figure 1. Attitudes toward Stalin, predictive margins from linear probability models (agree = 1, disagree = 0).
Notes: Bars show CI95% of predictive margins. Models control for respondents’ age, gender, education, subjective income rung, proficiency in Russian, perception of Russia, perceptions of democracy, attitudes toward
privatization.
Source: Authors’ calculations based on data from CRRC (2012).
urban areas, excluding Tbilisi, this probability is reduced by almost double (0.32, CI95: 0.28,
0.35). The only dependent variable in Figure 1 for which we do not observe hometown effect
is when respondents are asked to agree if the sacrifices of the Soviet people under the rule of
Stalin can be justified. Although Gori again scores highest (47%), the standard error of the coefficient is large, while respondents in Tbilisi and rural areas have almost identical probability of
agreeing with the statement.
Overall, thus far our findings suggest that individuals in the Gori district are somewhat exceptional in perceiving Stalin positively, and this effect varies depending on the questions asked.
However, the described results are derived from the calculation with only those respondents
for whom we possess complete information for all dependent and independent variables. This
means that in some regressions up to 45% of observations from our original sample of 2502
had to be discarded. In Appendix 2, we present calculations with the same dependent variables
analyzed earlier, but this time we use the full sample with generated (e.g. imputed) data based
on a standard statistical procedure. After imputing information using multivariate normal
models, we re-run our analysis with the same independent and control variables. It has to be
noted that the scale of the effect of the Gori district is lower in all models with imputed data.
One of the explanations of this tendency is that the observations outside of Tbilisi are more
likely to have missing data, and simultaneously tend to view Stalin more positively. Nonetheless,
the results with imputed data, shown in Table A2, indicate that they are substantively similar to
the complete case analysis.
Living under the rule of a Stalin-type leader
After analyzing general feelings and attitudes about the late Soviet leader, we test individuals’
aspiration to live and work in a country ruled by a person like Stalin. Our hypothesis assumes
that Gori residents would express higher willingness to live under the rule of a Stalin-type
leader. The dependent variable specifically asks the following question: “would you like to
112
Table 2.
P. Kabachnik and A. Gugushvili
Attitudes on desire to live and work in a country ruled by a person like Stalin.
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“Would you like to live and work in a country ruled by a person like Stalin?”
Gori district
Tbilisi
Rural areas
Other urban areas
Male
Age
Years of education
Proficiency in
Russian
Income rung
Support for
democracy
Support for
authoritarianism
Support for
privatization
Russia is the
enemy
Intercept
Number of
observations
Pseudo R 2
“Definitely no” vs. probably
no,” “probably yes,”
“definitely yes”
“Definitely no,” probably
no,” vs. “probably yes,”
“definitely yes”
“Definitely no,” probably
no,” “probably yes,” vs.
“definitely yes”
1.86 (0.59)*
0.86 (0.13)
1.45 (0.19)***
Reference
1.21 (0.14)*
1.04 (0.00)***
0.93 (0.02)***
0.83 (0.06)**
2.18 (0.70)**
0.85 (0.14)
1.57 (0.22)***
Reference
1.47 (0.18)***
1.05 (0.00)***
0.96 (0.02)*
0.81 (0.07)**
1.01 (0.45)
1.07 (0.23)
1.40 (0.23)**
Reference
1.63 (0.24)***
1.05 (0.00)***
1.01 (0.03)
0.77 (0.08)**
0.89 (0.03)***
0.88 (0.20)
0.88 (0.03)***
0.79 (0.20)
0.85 (0.04)***
0.61 (0.17)*
1.37 (0.40)
0.84 (0.28)
0.50 (0.18)*
0.91 (0.02)***
0.90 (0.02)***
0.89 (0.02)***
0.60 (0.07)***
0.68 (0.09)***
0.76 (0.12)*
1.58 (0.69)
0.40 (0.18)**
0.11 (0.06)***
1675
0.136
Source: Authors’ calculations based on data from CB (CRRC 2012).
Notes: Relative risk ratios from generalized ordered logit models. Robust standard errors are given within parentheses.
*Statistical significance at the .10 level.
**Statistical significance at the .05 level.
***Statistical significance at the .01 level.
live and work in a country ruled by a person like Stalin?” It is important to clarify how to interpret
the presented generalized ordered logistic regression output in Table 2 (for more details about this
model, refer to Appendix 2). The first panel indicates coefficients of covariates which differentiate
between the answer “definitely no” in the corresponding dependent variable on the one hand, and
the categories “probably no,” “probably yes,” and “definitely yes,” on the other hand. These coefficients show the impact of independent variables in getting a respondent up from the first step of
the four-step ladder in our dependent variable. The same logic is applicable to panels 2 and
3. Having these clarifications in mind, unlike the results in Table 1, we see that more educated
individuals and those with stronger Russian proficiency are less likely to select “probably yes”
or “definitely yes” answer options when asked if they would like to live and work in a country
ruled by a person like Stalin.
The main results suggest that the respondents in the Gori district have stronger aspirations
than individuals interviewed elsewhere to live and work under a Stalin-type ruler, net of other
covariates. If compared with other urban areas, people in Gori are 86% more likely to select
the answer option “probably no,” “probably yes,” “definitely yes” rather than “definitely no.”
The same link is also significant for rural respondents who demonstrate 1.45 times higher propensity not to select “definitely no” option. More illustrative is the relative risk ratio when the “definitely no” and “probably no” answers are compared with the “probably yes” and “definitely yes”
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113
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answers in panel 2 of Table 2. In this regard, interviewees in Gori are about 2.2 times more likely
than other urban settlers to select (probably or definitely) “yes”. In rural areas, this association is
lower yet statistically significant. Based on the presented results, we can assert that Gori district
residents not only express positive feelings and attitudes toward Stalin, but they are also more
likely to accept life and work in a country governed by a leader like Stalin. The hometown
effect seems to take place, but we still have to see where exactly this effect stems from.
Rescaling Gori and propensity score-matching estimators
After showing that residents in the Gori district express more positive feelings toward Stalin,
appreciate his merits as a leader, and are more likely to aspire to live under the rule of Stalintype leader than the survey respondents elsewhere in Georgia, we inquire if this effect holds for
the entire Gori electoral district #32 or stems from respondents in the town of Gori or from respondents in the nearby rural areas of Mejvriskhevi and Plavismani. For this purpose, we derive the
cumulative index of perception of the Soviet dictator, ranging from 0 to 12 (see Appendix 2).
A score point 0 in the cumulative index means the respondent holds extremely negative ideas
about Stalin (2.1% of the sample), while those who score 12 points have extremely positive attitudes toward the Soviet dictator (4.7% of the sample).
Gori district respondents average an 8.6 in the Stalin support index, which is 1.8 points higher
compared with the rest of the Georgia (6.8). If we break it down by locational categories, Gori district scores 2.2 points higher than other urban areas and 2.7 points higher than Tbilisi. Rural areas
also produce high levels of support (7.9). Next, we decompose the hometown effect into two Gori
district sub-clusters and compare the results with other territorial unites. Unexpectedly, ordinary
least squares (OLS) results (not shown) reveal that a large part of the hometown effect which we
identified from pooling individuals in the Gori district comes from its rural settlements instead
of the town of Gori. The difference between respondents in rural and urban Gori is 2.1 points.
Although urban Gori residents express significantly higher support for Stalin (7.5, CI95: 6.9,
8.2) than respondents in Tbilisi (6.4, CI95: 6.1, 6.7) and other urban areas (6.4, CI95: 6.2, 6.6),
we fail to see that they are more supportive of Stalin than the respondents of rural areas outside
of the Gori district (7.3, CI95: 7.1, 7.6). It seems that using “homevillage effect” is more appropriate
than “hometown effect” when talking about individuals’ attitudes toward Stalin in his birthplace.
To further test our findings, we employ a more advanced research approach in which respondents’ residency in the Gori district, and its rural and urban parts respectively, is assumed to be a
treatment in our observational study. We consecutively analyze hometown effect as treatment of
respondents being from the Gori district, which is followed by treatment of respondents being
from its rural and urban parts. The results in Table 3 show the average treatment effect on the
treated (ATT), using propensity score-matching (PSM) technique (see Appendix 2 for further
details). ATT measures the difference in average outcomes between units assigned to the treatment (being interviewed in Gori) and units assigned to the control (being interviewed elsewhere
in Georgia).11
The first column shows the results for the entire Gori district compared with all other respondents. We see that the former has on average 1.63 points higher preferences for Stalin in our
cumulative index of the dictator’s support. This is 0.2 points lower than the difference derived
from simple bivariate comparison between the district of Gori and Georgia. Next, we look at
how respondents from within the town of Gori are compared with other respondents. The
effect for the town of Gori is substantively lower than for the entire district of Gori, 1.1 points
(CI95: 0.08, 2.1), with a lower level of statistical significance. This already implies that a large
part of the difference of the Gori district vs. the rest of Georgia stems from respondents in
rural areas of the Gori district. Indeed, column 3, in Table 3, clearly shows that respondents in
114
Table 3.
P. Kabachnik and A. Gugushvili
Cumulative index of attitudes toward Stalin and residency in Gori.
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Gori respondents vs. the rest of Georgia
Number of observations
Gori district
Urban Gori
Rural Gori
1.64 (0.31)***
1421
1.07 (0.50)**
1399
2.71 (0.45)***
1391
Source: Authors’ calculations based on data from CB (CRRC 2012).
Notes: Treatment estimators. Robust standard errors are in parentheses. Each observation in Gori is matched with five
observations from outside Gori with similar propensity scores. Treatment independent variables consist of gender,
education, proficiency in Russian, subjective income rung, perception of Russia, perceptions of democracy, attitudes
toward privatization, year of birth.
**Statistical significance at the .05 level.
***Statistical significance at the .01 level.
the villages of Mejvriskhevi and Plavismani on average score 2.7 points higher in our dependent
variable and the result is statistically highly significant (at the 99% level). Overall, we can convincingly argue that the survey respondents in 2012 viewed Stalin much more positively in the Gori
district, but most of this difference stemmed from the villages assigned to this district rather than
itself the town of Gori.
Discussion
Our goal was to highlight the potential impact of spatial location and explore the conventional
wisdom regarding the town of Gori, Georgia. It is common to hear that people from Gori,
Stalin’s hometown, are crazy about Stalin – and it is further suggested, implicitly or explicitly
– that they also have very different opinions on Stalin than the rest of Georgia. Our analysis centered on two related issues regarding attitudes toward Stalin. First, we considered whether residents of Gori unconditionally love Stalin. Can we confirm that Stalin is revered in his
hometown? Or is the notion that Gorians love Stalin another myth? Second, is this concentration
of positive connotations for Joseph Stalin a unique and isolated peculiarity? Namely, is Gori an
outlier, a rare exception of Stalin admiration amidst a sea of opinions that are indifferent or highly
critical of Stalin? While our results indicate higher levels of appreciation for Stalin in Gori, it is
problematic to say that it is an exception when compared to the rest of Georgia. There are high
levels of sympathy and admiration for Stalin throughout the country – not only in Gori.
Gorians do have more appreciation for Stalin than the rest of Georgia. However, when analyzed across a variety of demographic characteristics, the effect is not as dramatic and not consistent across all questions. This is not to say that it is a just a myth that there is a strong love
of Stalin in Gori, but that it is slightly exaggerated and serves to distract attention away from
high levels of Stalin support elsewhere in Georgia. Pride in the man of steel is not uniform,
but clearly impacted by spatial patterns. There is a variable geography of negative and positive
attitudes toward Stalin. Urban areas tend to be more critical of Stalin, while rural areas show
strong levels of admiration. Gori further complicates the picture.12
Rescaling Gori allowed us to isolate more particular place-based impacts and offer a more
nuanced assessment of the major factors influencing how people judge Stalin. Our research illustrates the impact of the choice of scale that is being used as the unit of categorical analysis. Had we
not rescaled the level of analysis, and stopped at the category of the Gori district, we would have
reached a different, and more clear-cut, conclusion regarding the power of the hometown effect.
However, by looking within the category, disentangling the urban and rural sectors from the Gori
district, an interesting pattern emerged. Much higher levels of “unconditional love” were found in
the two rural areas of the Gori district. The urban part of Gori closely resembled other rural parts
of Georgia in the level of support for Stalin. Thus, we observe more of a homevillage effect rather
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Caucasus Survey
115
than the anticipated hometown effect. The latter fits well with an assumption that rural communities are likely to be more introverted and exclusive, and tend to be oriented to tradition and to
values rooted in the past (Ramet 1996), though it must be reiterated that being near Stalin’s birthplace does have an effect on raising the level of appreciation for Stalin.
Future research can examine whether the hometown effect is present for other political figures
(e.g. Mandela, Mao, or Tito), whose sources of popular support are generated from different
mechanisms, even if they are all part of some form of personality cult. As more case studies
are developed, we can ascertain both how prevalent this phenomenon is, and explore what
factors lead to lower and higher levels of the hometown effect. Positive, negative, and/or ambivalent attitudes toward historical leaders can shed light on myriad other issues, correlating with political preferences, electoral outcomes, and other attitudes (e.g. Kabachnik and Gugushvili 2014).
These processes are greatly impacted by place-making practices and highlight the impact local
geographies have on people’s identities and attitudes. How the local hero is incorporated into
local and family lore, educational and political narratives, social practices, and specialized
rituals to a different degree than elsewhere in the country will be fascinating avenues to explore.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Laurence Broers and the anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions.
The usual disclaimer applies.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Funding
This work was supported, in part, by a Dean’s Research Scholarship and a PSC-CUNY Award,
jointly funded by The Professional Staff Congress and The City University of New York. This
work was partially supported by the Postdoctoral Fellowship of the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS) and the Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in South Caucasus Studies at the Russian and Eurasian Studies Centre of St. Antony’s College, University of
Oxford, in association with the Academic Swiss Caucasus Net (ASCN) at the University of Fribourg, Switzerland.
Notes
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
There are studies that do examine attitudes toward political figures, such as Osama bin Laden
(Jo 2012), but do not explore the hometown effect.
A “Repression Room” has been added recently, focusing more on general instances of Soviet terror and
torture (not directly linked to Stalin), as well as the 2008 War with Russia. Many visitors have encountered the room being closed for renovation.
For certain political questions, there is little regional variation, with similar patterns of response in both
eastern and western Ukraine.
There are some efforts in Georgian society to create a sustained discussion of Stalin and Soviet era, but
these attempts at de-Stalinization are rather marginal, for example, the work being done by the Soviet
Past Research Laboratory (http://sovlab.ge/en) and the TV program “Red Zone” (http://www.
tavisupleba.org/archive/geo-tv/latest/1025/1025.html).
Those who associate Stalin with Russia would undoubtedly see Stalin more negatively following the
Russian occupation of Gori. However, many still see Stalin as a symbol of Georgian nationalism, and
thus resistance to Russia, and this might increase support for Stalin. Without complementary
116
6.
7.
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8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
P. Kabachnik and A. Gugushvili
qualitative data, it is difficult to assess the relative dominance of these, as well as other, potential legitimizing discourses.
Please consult the CRRC website for detailed information about the survey: http://www.crrccenters.
org.
This and other descriptive statistics might not round up to 100% as we choose not to present the frequencies of categories such as “interviewer error” and “legal skip”.
It is interesting to see what are the factors which explain the pervasiveness of “refuse to answers” and
“don’t knows” in the described dependent variables. Our analysis of respondents who did not provide
answers about their feelings and attitudes toward Stalin suggests that non-Tbilisi residents, females,
relatively younger respondents, less educated, poor, those who support privatization, and those that
think that Russia is not the main enemy of Georgia, are more likely to choose “refuse to answer”
and “don’t know” responses (see Appendix 2 on the employed methodology for more details).
In order to answer the research question, we utilize information on primary sampling units (PSU) available in the CB data set. The design of the survey ensures that each respondent is nested within a
specific PSU, with one or several PSUs nested in a larger geographic unit – the electoral district.
For Gori, which is classified as district #32 according to the Central Election Commission, the
survey interviews respondents in four PSUs, two of which are located within the town of Gori
itself, while the other two stem from the nearby villages – Mejvriskhevi and Plavismani.
The following are the descriptive statistics of the control variables: age (min = 18, max = 98, mean =
48.9), gender (males 37.5%), years of education (min = 0, max = 25, mean = 12.7), knowledge of
Russian (min = 1, max = 4, mean = 2.9), subjective socio-economic rung (min = 1, max = 9, mean =
4.2), attitudes toward political regime (democracy is preferable 66.9%), preferences for privatization
(min = 1, max = 10, mean = 7.3), and the perception of Russia as the greatest threat for Georgia
(32.9%).
The results were quite similar when we calculated the average treatment effect (ATE) in our models.
ATE shows the expected gain for a randomly selected unit from the population.
The highest level of support comes from the combination of rurality and Gori. Although urban areas
tend to have more critical views of Stalin, in the case of Gori, its urbanness, while having lower levels
of admiration than rural Gori, is counterbalanced by it being the birthplace of the vozhd, as it still maintains high levels of admiration, along the lines of other rural areas.
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Appendix 1
Figure A1. Attitudes toward Stalin in Tbilisi, Gori, other urban, and rural areas.
Source: Authors’ calculations based on data from CRRC (2012).
Figure A2. Attitudes toward Stalin in Tbilisi, Gori, other urban, and rural areas.
Source: Authors’ calculations based on data from CRRC (2012).
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Appendix 2
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Missing data and imputations
In order to understand if the “refuse to answer” and “don’t know” answer options, which we treat in the
main analysis as missing data, are absent completely at random (MCAR), at random (MAR), or not at
random (MNAR), we utilize the following procedure. For all eight dependent variables, we generate
dummies which take the value of 1 if respondents fail to provide an answer on the corresponding question. Then, we run linear probability models in which our independent and control variables serve as covariates of non-response. The results shown in Table A1 conclusively suggest that in our dependent
variables data are not missing completely at random. Respondents in Tbilisi, males, elderly, better educated, wealthier individuals, those who are proficient in Russian, and those who perceive Russia as the
main enemy, are much less likely to refuse to answer or to select “don’t know” among alternative
answer options.
Table A2. Covariates of “refuse to answer” or “don’t know” answer options in eight dependent variables
Coefficients from linear probability models.
Dependent variables
Gori district
Tbilisi
Rural areas
Other urban areas
Male
Age
Years of education
Proficiency in Russian
Income rung
Support for democracy
Support for authoritarianism
Support for privatization
Russia is the enemy
Number of observations
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
0
−
0
Ref.
−
−
0
0
−
0
0
0
−
1882
0
0
0
Ref.
−
−
−
–
−
0
0
0
−
1874
0
−
0
Ref.
−
−
−
0
−
0
0
+
0
1881
0
−
+
Ref.
−
−
−
0
0
0
0
+
0
1878
0
−
0
Ref.
−
−
–
−
−
0
0
0
−
1880
+
−
0
Ref.
−
−
−
−
−
0
0
0
0
1880
0
−
0
Ref.
0
0
−
−
0
0
0
+
−
1755
0
−
−
Ref.
−
−
−
−
−
−
0
+
−
1877
Source: Authors’ calculations based on data from CB (CRRC 2012).
Notes: (–) denotes negative effect, (+) denotes positive effect, (0) denotes statistically non-significant effect.
To check the robustness of the findings with list-wise deletion in the main analysis, we conduct
imputation of the missing data, primarily for the dependent variables, but also for some independent variables such as income rung and preferences for privatization. This procedure would not be required if
respondents’ attitudes toward Stalin were missing completely at random. We conduct 20 imputations
using the multivariate normal model for this purpose. The latter procedure not only has stronger
theoretical underpinnings, and involves drawing from a multivariate normal distribution of all the variables in the imputation model, but also tends to be robust to departures from normality. The
results of this exercise are presented in Table A2 and briefly discussed in the main text of the results
section.
(1) Stalin was a wise (2) The most important (3) Stalin was a cruel, (4) Our people will
leader who brought
thing is that under
inhuman tyrant,
always have need of a
power and
Stalin’s leadership
responsible for the leader like Stalin, who (5) Stalin’s acts of
(6) The sacrifices of the
prosperity to the
the Soviet people
deaths of millions
will come and restore
repression were Soviet people under the rule
Soviet Union
won the WWII
of innocent people
order
politically necessary of Stalin can be justified
Gori district
List-wise
0.24 (0.02)***
deletion
Imputed data
0.19 (0.03)***
Tbilisi
List-wise
0.03 (0.03)
deletion
Imputed data
0.01 (0.02)
Rural areas
0.12 (0.02)***
List-wise
deletion
Imputed data
0.10 (0.02)***
Reference
Other urban
areas
Number of observations
List-wise
1640
deletion
Imputed data
2502
0.10 (0.02)***
−0.40 (0.07)***
0.25 (0.08)***
0.28 (0.08)***
0.18 (0.08)**
0.07 (0.03)**
−0.30 (0.06)***
0.21 (0.06)***
0.20 (0.07)***
0.13 (0.06)**
−0.01 (0.03)
0.00 (0.03)
0.06 (0.03)*
0.11 (0.03)***
0.02 (0.03)
−0.00 (0.06)
0.02 (0.03)
0.09 (0.06)***
−0.02 (0.03)
−0.04 (0.02)*
0.03 (0.02)*
−0.09 (0.03)***
0.08 (0.03)***
0.11 (0.03)***
0.12 (0.03)***
0.03 (0.02)*
Reference
−0.06 (0.02)**
Reference
0.08 (0.03)***
Reference
0.07 (0.03)**
Reference
0.10 (0.03)***
Reference
1659
1522
1491
1381
1437
2502
2502
2502
2502
2502
Source: Authors’ calculations based on data from CB (CRRC 2012).
Notes: Coefficients from linear probability models. Robust standard errors are given within parentheses.
*Statistical significance at the .10 level.
**Statistical significance at the .05 level.
***Statistical significance at the .01 level.
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Table A2 (a). Comparison of results using list-wise deletion and imputed data approaches.
122
P. Kabachnik and A. Gugushvili
Generalized ordered logistic regression
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For the dependent variable which specifically asks respondents “would you like to live and work in a country
ruled by a person like Stalin?,” the ordinal form of the answer options permits the estimation of simple
ordered logistic regression, but the conducted Brant Test indicates that in the fitted ordered logistic
model, the parallel-lines model assumption is violated for type of settlement, along with several other variables. Among alternatives to the ordered logistic model, we employ the maximum-likelihood generalized
ordered logit regression, which relaxes the proportional odds assumption and allows the effects of the independent variables to vary across ordered categories of the dependent variable (Williams 2006).
Stalin support index
The cumulative index of perception of the Soviet dictator is derived by combining four dependent variables with the similar ordered answer options into a single index of attitudes toward Stalin (the first four
variables in Figure 1 in the main text). We reversed answer options for one of the questions given in
Figure 1(c) because higher scores indicated negative attitudes toward Stalin in contrast to the other
employed variables. The derived factor loadings and scale reliability coefficient (0.72) suggest that the
cumulative index is a relevant aggregated measure of attitudes toward Stalin. In order to make the
results easier to interpret, we rescale answer options for individual questions from completely disagree
= 0 to completely agree = 3. This aggregate index of feelings about Stalin provides a simple indicator
that allows one to gauge an individual’s perceptions of Stalin, ranging from 0 to 12. Therefore, 0
points (4 × 0) in the cumulative index means that for all 4 questions the respondent holds extremely negative ideas about Stalin, while those who score 12 points (4 × 3) have extremely positive attitudes toward
the Soviet dictator.
Propensity score-matching
In treatment estimators, treatment status cannot be assumed to be randomized. This implies that outcome,
in our case attitudes toward Stalin, and treatment, in our case being interviewed in Gori, are not necessarily independent. The goal of treatment-effect estimators is to utilize covariates in order to make treatment and outcome independent of each other, once conditioned on those covariates. Out of various
treatment estimators, we use the PSM technique which became increasingly popular in recent years in
diverse scholarly disciplines (Becker and Ichino 2002; Dehejia and Wahba 2002). The results presented
in the main text are substantively similar to when alternative treatment-effect estimators are used. For
instance, our unreported analysis using (a) regression adjustment, (b) inverse-probability weighting, (c)
inverse-probability weighting regression adjustment, (d) augmented inverse-probability weighting, and
(e) nearest-neighbor matching estimators produce results (respectively, 1.63, 1.61, 1.61, 1.56, and 1.57
for Stalin support index in the Gori district) which are substantively similar to our main PSM finding
(1.63).
Itself the propensity score is the conditional probability of assignment to a particular treatment derived
from a vector of observed covariates (Rosenbaum and Rubin 1983). The contrast between treatment and
control group averages provide the estimated treatment effects. Therefore, this approach represents more
robust estimation than OLS models. When either of the Gori sub-clusters is used as a treatment respondents
from other sub-clusters are excluded from the model in order to allow an unbiased comparison of the specific
parts of Gori with the rest of Georgia. The treatment independent variables which are used to generate propensity scores are similar to the controls we employed earlier in multinomial, linear probability, and generalized ordered logistic regressions.
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Table A3. Balance statistics for PSM estimations
Gori district
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Mean values
Male
Age
Years of education
Proficiency in
Russian
Income rung
Support for
democracy
Support for
privatization
Russia is the enemy
Urban Gori
t-Test
Mean values
Rural Gori
t-Test
Mean values
t-Test
Treated
Control
P > |t|
Treated
Control
P > |t|
Treated
Control
P > |t|
0.42
52.1
13.3
2.75
0.48
48.2
13.9
2.62
0.559
0.320
0.289
0.409
0.33
50.3
13.9
2.83
0.60
44.6
13.5
2.63
0.039
0.279
0.538
0.384
0.55
54.5
12.4
2.64
0.55
48.7
12.9
2.73
1.000
0.307
0.603
0.700
3.71
0.71
4.10
0.79
0.220
0.370
4.47
0.83
4.47
0.87
1.000
0.723
2.68
0.55
2.59
0.59
0.799
0.767
8.00
7.58
0.523
8.07
8.33
0.736
7.91
7.82
0.916
0.37
0.40
0.690
0.33
0.30
0.786
0.41
0.50
0.556
Source: Authors’ calculations based on data from CB (CRRC 2012).
Table A3 demonstrates the balance statistics of our treatment estimators. The overall results indicate the
success of the matching for our variables. The mean values of treatment and control groups in most cases are
nearly similar. We also present t-test on the hypothesis that the mean value of each variable is the same in the
treatment group and the control group, which is done after matching. If p > 0.1, the null hypothesis cannot be
rejected on the 10% significance level. Indeed, t-test is marginally significant only for one match (respondents’ gender in urban Gori) out of 24 overall matches. Furthermore, we calculate the change in a bias
after matching (not shown). This bias is defined as the difference of the mean values of the treatment
group and the non-treatment group, divided by the square root of the average sample variance in the treatment group and the not-matched control group. In most cases, percentage change in bias after matching is
within ±25% range, which suggests that a good match of our treatment estimators was achieved.