An oddity: Moscow Plans First Stalin Monument Since 1960s

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow plans to erect a new statue of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, returning his once-ubiquitous image to its streets after an absence of four decades, a top city official said Wednesday.

Since President Vladimir Putin (news - web sites) was elected in 2000, a number of Soviet symbols -- including the national anthem and an army flag -- have been restored to use, reflecting widespread nostalgia for Russia's communist years.

But rehabilitation of Stalin, who was denounced after his death in 1953 by the Soviet leadership for encouraging a cult of personality and killing millions of real and imagined opponents, has previously been out of bounds. Statues of Stalin were removed from Moscow's public spaces in the 1960s.

"A monument will be erected to those who took part in (leading the war against Adolf Hitler), including Stalin," Oleg Tolkachev, Moscow's senator in the upper house of parliament, told Ekho Moskvy radio.

Interfax news agency reported earlier that a Stalin monument would also be built in the Belgorod region near the Ukrainian border to mark the Soviet victory against Nazi Germany 60 years ago -- seen as the country's greatest military triumph.

In another sign of Stalin's growing appeal, state television channels have shown a number of prime-time television shows in recent months depicting him in a positive light.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050119/wl_nm/russia_stalin_dc. (The above is the full article)

It's not that surprising. The Soviet propaganda machine was near unchallenged inside the USSR. Back then, people only saw what the government wanted them to see: Stable jobs, a strong economy, etc. Most never saw the gulags, but they saw the horrors of the 2nd World War though and fascist aggression. They call it the Great Patriotic War for a good reason. Actually, 20,000,000 good reasons, but it gets blurry after the first 1,000,000 deaths.

Putin suspending democracy...attempting to plant puppets in neighboring governments...taking over all privately held media...now re-erecting monuments to Stalin..

Just what we need.