This is a special edition of Doorstep Postings, the periodic political commentary column written by Josh Lieblein for The CJN.
Armando Iannucci, best known as the creator of HBO’s political sitcom Veep, also directed a 2017 movie titled The Death of Stalin, which depicts the chaos that ensues when one of history’s greatest monsters abruptly departs a political system that has been built to cater to his slightest whim.
For decades, his underlings have cowered in terror of misinterpreting a joke or a directive, learned to expect regular humiliations or sudden demotions, and pretended at friendships and alliances with those they can and will destroy given the first opportunity.
Now they have to observe the old order and make new rules up as they go along at the same time—all the while trying to choose a successor despite no clear succession plan.
Some of the papers fly away right before Canadian Prime Minister Trudeau begins his statement. pic.twitter.com/CA5iXcB9Xx
— Jeremy Art (@cspanJeremy) January 6, 2025
The film shows the tyrannical Stalin demanding a recording of a classical piece that he heard on the radio. Since no recording was made, the pianist Maria Yudina is forced to repeat the performance. Within the record cover, she includes a letter denouncing the dictator which he finds and reads. Before he can order her death for this petty act of rebellion, he laughs so hard that he strokes out on the spot. Stalin’s inner circle rushes to the leader’s deathbed, feigning grief and trying to out do one another in tributes while sharpening their knives.
When Stalin comes back to life for a brief moment and points wordlessly at an unclear target, the apparatchiks obsess over the meaning. Was he denouncing one of them or giving them his blessing?
A Liberal leadership race will be the easiest way for Hamas to flip the foreign policy of a G7 country. Hamas and its global supporters are well aware of this opportunity. https://t.co/QNH0GTPILg
— Ian Brodie (@irbrodie) January 5, 2025
As of this writing, Justin Trudeau has not suffered the same fate as Stalin and will continue to oversee the Liberals as leader until a replacement is chosen. Yudina did not—as far as we know—have designs on succeeding Stalin the way Chrystia Freeland is rumoured to. But excluding those differences, what we are about to see is a similar disasterpiece of Liberal Kremlinology as hilarious and dark as anything Iannucci could conceive of.
Are you guys serious?
— Melissa Lantsman (@MelissaLantsman) December 16, 2024
Hate crimes in this country rose by 250%. She was the deputy Prime Minister who stoked the divisiveness of a morally bankrupt Liberal government and stood by the Prime Minister in every decision against western liberal democracy, the rule of law and… https://t.co/tXhGC8lyJk
The comedy will derive from how hard the contenders will strive to be Canada’s next Liberal leader, the next prime minister, and—assuming current trends hold—the answer to a trivia question of who Pierre Poilievre demolished on his way to institute decades of Conservative rule.
For the next to-be-determined number of months, those we pay to report and interpret the inner workings of Ottawa will have to rank Donald Trump’s promised demolition of our economy below the latest thing Mark Carney or Melanie Joly said or did. The CRA will be free-styling how they’re collecting capital gains taxes this year since the proposed changes have been prorogued along with the rest of the government business, but never mind that: how far is Dominic LeBlanc distancing himself from the legacy of the Great Leader, and is it wise for him to do so?
Today’s decision to prorogue Parliament would mean the higher capital gains tax bill, which never officially passed, is terminated. Yet CRA has been and continues to enforce it as if it’s been passed.
— Steve Saretsky (@SteveSaretsky) January 6, 2025
The Death of Stalin is a fairly accurate rendering of history, as these go, but it overlooks a major event that actually precipitated the crisis generated by Stalin’s passing. The U.S.S.R. was in the middle of the deeply antisemitic Doctor’s Plot, a purge of physicians that left the leader without proper medical care. Stop me if this rings another current events bell: Soviet leaders had convinced themselves that physicians, acting under the auspices of Zionism, were conspiring to subvert the State and murder its officials. Despite the fact that few if any doctors were ever found to be “conspiring” to do anything, the Plot would have led to the deportation of all Jews living in the U.S.S.R. had Stalin not bought the farm (or taken collective ownership of the agricultural commune, as it were.)
This Liberal leadership race is going to be wild. As a reminder: basically anyone living in Canada can register (you don't need to be a citizen or permanent resident), and you need to be just 14 years old. The race can thus be easily hijacked by any number of special interests
— Robyn Urback (@RobynUrback) January 6, 2025
Some might call the implication that the whole affair was an attempt by the ruling class to consolidate power and act against its enemies mere bourgeois-nationalist subversion. Just like the implication that certain groups would sign up as Liberal “supporters” and elect a leader sympathetic to their interests. Remember that all you have to do is be living in Canada and be over the age of 14 to select the next Liberal chief. But as we’ll hear many times over the course of this race: implying that certain groups are trying to act against the country’s leaders is just another form of promoting hatred. Even if they say that’s explicitly what they’re doing!
🚨 Why did @CIJAInfo delete its tweet thanking former Deputy PM Chrystia Freeland, a longtime friend of the Canadian Jewish community who has made historic investments in community security, visited Israel, and addressed the @WorldJewishCong?
— Daniel Minden (@DanielMinden) December 17, 2024
What’s going on over there? #cdnpoli pic.twitter.com/9epo2PY6LX
Not to worry though: if The Death of Stalin is anything to go by, the contenders will eventually pick one camp to be the common enemy and unite against them. In the film, this is the loathsome sex criminal Lavrentiy Beria, who is brutally executed without trial by eventual winner Nikita Khruschev and buried in history. Beria’s mistake was to threaten all the other contenders instead of trying to work with any of them—when they all turn on him, he’s reduced to begging for his life to no avail. So, if you are one of those radical students of history who believes this race is a way to bend the Liberal Party to your whims, be warned: “Wade gently through the river because there are snakes and crocodiles.”
It should not have ended this way,but Spring will come, the grass will grow and the Liberal Party will rise again .
— Michael Ignatieff (@M_Ignatieff) January 6, 2025
Josh Lieblein can be reached at [email protected] for your response to Doorstep Postings.
