Moscow (AP) – A monument to Josef Stalin was revealed in one of the busiest metro stations in Moscow, the last attempt by the Russian authorities to Revive the inheritance brutal Soviet dictator.
The sculpture shows Stalin surrounded by radiant workers and children with flowers. It was installed at Taganskaya station to mark the 90th anniversary of the Moscow metro, the sprawling metro known for its mosaics, chandeliers and other decorations ornate built under Stalin.
He replaced a previous tribute which was removed in the decade which followed the death of Stalin de Stalin in 1953 in a desire to eliminate his “cult of personality” and count with decades of repression Marked by spectacle tests, night arrests and millions of people killed or thrown into prison camps like “enemies of the people”.
Muscovites gave different answers to the disclosure earlier this month, some recalling how the country lived in fear during its reign. Many commuters have taken photos of the monument and flowers placed below.
Aleksei Zavatsin, 22, told the Associated Press that Stalin was a “great man” who “transformed a country poor into superpower”.
“He raised the country of his knees,” he said.
Activists of Society. FUTURE, a Russian political movement which expresses pro-democratic and nationalist opinions, protested by placing posters at the foot of the monument which cited the best politicians condemning the dictator.
A poster, featuring President Vladimir Putin, quoted him as “mass crimes against the people” of Stalin and saying that his modernization of the USSR came at the cost of an “unacceptable” repression.
The disclosure occurred for weeks after Putin signed a decree rejoining Volgograd airport as Stalingrad – as the city called the Soviet Red City defeated the Nazi German forces there in one of the durations The bloodiest battles in the Second World War.
Volgograd himself has briefly returned to his old name from May 8 to 9 for victory day celebrations and will be temporarily renamed five times this year to mark related birthdays in wartime.
Putin invoked the Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted five months and saw up to 2 million soldiers and civilians killed, as a justification for Moscow actions in Ukraine.
Russian political analyst, Pyotr Miloserdov, said that the Kremlin had used a wider journey to adopt Stalin’s inheritance to justify both the conflict in Ukraine and the repression of dissent to the house.
“Stalin was a tyrant, a despot, and that’s what we need,” he told AP. The authorities want to rekindle the image of Stalin to popularize the idea of Strongman’s rule, he added, and paint violence and repression as justified in extraordinary circumstances.
“This can lead to justifying all the insane and energetic actions. Under Stalin, it was authorized, there was a war. … So here is our special military operation, and now this is also authorized. It is simply an attempt to justify the use of force on people,” said Miloserdov.
