“Stalin was slandered”: the initiative to install a new monument to the Leader had an explanation

Smolensk offered three options for placing the sculpture

A monument to Joseph Stalin was proposed to be erected in Smolensk. This initiative was made by the Union of Soviet Officers. Earlier, at the suggestion of the Smolensk communists, a memorial plaque to Stalin had already appeared in Smolensk. The leader of the peoples died 70 years ago.

Why the fashion for the category of sculptural works is returning, “MK” found out from supporters of perpetuating the memory of Joseph Vissarionovich.

– In Smolensk, they proposed to install one of two options – either a monument or a bust, – Colonel Nikolai Miroshnichenko, First Deputy Chairman of the International Union of Soviet Officers, confirmed his initiative to MK. – Among the dates of the opening of the monument, December 18 is the leader’s birthday, or March 5 is the day of his memory. Three places have been selected for it. The most attractive option near the fortress wall is a very good place. There is great hope that the idea will be supported by the newly elected Legislative Assembly of Smolensk. The project will be financed by sponsors and the public.

There are no active opponents of perpetuating the memory of Stalin, but bureaucratic brakes on this path can be traced constantly. Our initiative was supported by all the veteran organizations of Smolensk: Veterans of the 46th Air Army, the First Guards Tank Army, the 50th Army of Strategic Missile Forces, veteran organizations of border guards and law enforcement agencies. Public support is now being prepared in the local press and social networks. At the end of August – beginning of September, a rally is planned in the city in order to support the initiative of our Smolensk branch of the Union of Soviet Officers. The documents have already been submitted. Work is underway to restore Stalin’s name and perpetuate it. Because he is the indelible leader of our society, with whose help we built a strong state, socialism, withstood the onslaught of Nazi fascism and defeated it. Under the personal leadership of Stalin, a high standard of living was achieved for the people. Yes, he was firm, somewhere cruel, but this was done in the name of the might of the state and the well-being of our people.

– The name of Stalin was slandered, and he did a lot for the development of the country, – says State Duma deputy, deputy chairman of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Yuri Afonin, who called for the 80th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad to rename Volgograd to Stalingrad. “But now, public opinion polls and people’s moods show that the figure of Stalin, along with the figure of Lenin, is one of the most iconic and great figures of the Soviet era. Therefore, on the initiative of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and our allied organizations – the Union of Soviet Officers and the Lenin Komsomol, new busts and monuments to Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin are being restored or installed.

– Where in Russia have monuments to Stalin already been erected?

– In the center of Lipetsk, a three-meter composition with a bust of Joseph Stalin was opened on May 9, 2015. Vandals have poured paint over the bust more than once. In the Crimea, in the village of Livadia, a genre sculpture of Stalin, Roosevelt and Churchill was installed. In Vladikavkaz, a bust of Stalin on a pedestal in military uniform was unveiled in 2009. The first monument to Joseph Stalin in North Ossetia was erected in the Kurtatinsky Gorge in the 50s of the last century, located at the entrance to the village of Upper Fiagdon. There are initiatives to erect monuments to Stalin, and there are already dozens of them.