A monument to Josef Stalin has been unveiled at one of Moscow's busiest subway stations, the latest attempt by Russian authorities to revive the legacy of the brutal Soviet dictator.
The sculpture shows Stalin surrounded by beaming workers and children with flowers. It was installed at the Taganskaya station to mark the 90th anniversary of the Moscow Metro, the sprawling subway known for its mosaics, chandeliers and other ornate decorations that was built under Stalin.
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It replaces an earlier tribute that was removed in the decade following Stalin's 1953 death in a drive to root out his “cult of personality” and reckon with decades of repression marked by show trials, nighttime arrests and millions killed or thrown into prison camps as “enemies of the people.”
Muscovites have given differing responses to the unveiling earlier this month, with some recalling how the country lived in fear under his rule. Many commuters took photos of the monument and some laid flowers beneath it.
Aleksei Zavatsin, 22, told The Associated Press that Stalin was a “great man" who had “made a poor country into a superpower.”
“He raised the country from its knees,” he said.
Activists from Society.Future, a Russian political movement that voices pro-democratic and nationalist views, protested by placing posters at the foot of the monument that quoted top politicians condemning the dictator.
One poster, featuring President Vladimir Putin, cited him as bemoaning Stalin's “mass crimes against the people," and saying his modernization of the USSR came at the price of “unacceptable” repression.
The unveiling came weeks after Putin signed a decree renaming the airport in Volgograd as Stalingrad — as the city was called when the Soviet Red Army defeated Nazi German forces there in one of the bloodiest battles of World War II.
Volgograd itself briefly reverted to its former name on May 8-9 for Victory Day celebrations and will be temporarily renamed five more times this year to mark related wartime anniversaries.
Putin has invoked the Battle of Stalingrad, which lasted five months and saw up to 2 million soldiers and civilians killed, as justification for Moscow's actions in Ukraine.
Russian political analyst Pyotr Miloserdov said the Kremlin has used a broader drive to embrace Stalin's legacy to justify both the conflict in Ukraine and crackdown on dissent at home.
“Stalin was a tyrant, a despot, and that’s what we need," he told AP. Authorities want to revive Stalin's image to popularize the idea of strongman rule, he added, and paint violence and repression as justified under extraordinary circumstances.
“This can lead to justifying any senseless, forceful actions. Under Stalin, this was allowed, there was a war. ... So, here is our special military operation, and now this is allowed too. This is simply an attempt to justify the use of force on people," Miloserdov said.