The mayor made the announcement yesterday at a session of city government officials, following plans released last month for informational posters featuring Stalin’s role in winning World War II to be placed throughout the city in the run-up to May 9 Victory Day celebrations.

“I am not an admirer of Stalin,” said the mayor. “I am an admirer of objective history.”

Luzhkov then accused the Russian media of misrepresenting the city’s plans for the Victory Day posters and giving a false impression that big portraits of the dictator would be literally hung around the city.

“We’re going to do it in appropriate proportions,” he said.

Human rights organizations have already expressed their outrage at the plans, which the city’s design and advertising committee said was introduced at the request of veteran and pensioner organizations.

“Stalin was a criminal, and his regime, which killed millions of people, is utterly disgraceful to publicize,” said former Soviet dissident and prominent rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva in response to last month’s announcement. “It’s the same as glorifying Hitler in Germany.” She added that rights groups intend to hold protests if the plans are implemented.

The Memorial human rights organization also said on Wednesday that they would be launching their own campaign in response, hanging posters that detail crimes committed by the Stalinist regime.

Estimates of up to 30 million people died in the Soviet Union as a result of the Stalinist repressions and widespread famine in the 1930s and 40s, not counting the tens of millions who died as a result of World War II.

See also:
• Veterans Outraged at Stalin Soft Drink
• Fewer Russians Want Stalin-Like Leader

The posters, which will go on display throughout the capital in the month leading up to Russia’s May 9 Victory Day celebrations, will take the form of informational stalls that picture Josef Stalin and include text detailing his role in orchestrating victory in the war.

Moscow’s department for publicity and design came up with the plan after pensioners and veterans’ organizations repeatedly requested that officials display pictures of Stalin as part of the wider set of decorations set up for anniversary celebrations.

It has been decades since Stalin’s image has been used publicly for the event.

Lev Ponomarev, a prominent activist and head of the organization For Human Rights, said that the decision to display the dictator offends the millions of people who died during the years of the Stalinist repressions.

“A public billboard with a glorification of Stalin is unacceptable. There will most definitely be protest demonstrations. And we will not only be participating in them, but instigating them,” Ponomarev said. “This is a step by city authorities that will evoke opposition throughout society. [Moscow Mayor Yury] Luzhkov is issuing a challenge to Muscovites, and this is a serious political step. Clearly, he wants to use this to escape discussion of the accusations of his corruption and the deterioration of social life in Moscow,” the activist added.

Former Soviet dissident and acclaimed rights activist Lyudmila Alexeyeva supported her colleague.

“Stalin was a criminal, and his regime, which killed millions of people, is utterly disgraceful to publicize,” she said. “It’s the same as glorifying Hitler in Germany. We will be protesting these decisions without fail.”

Alexeyeva added that the Soviet people have their soldiers, and not Stalin, to thank for victory in World War II.

Estimates of up to 30 million people died in the Soviet Union as a result of the Stalinist repressions and widespread famine in the 1930s and 40s, not counting the tens of millions who died as a result of World War II.

The protests echo similar concerns from war veterans and activists in the city of Volgograd last January, where a beverage company announced that Stalin’s portrait would be gracing soft drink labels in honor of the 67th anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad.

Russian society is largely fractured in its reconciliation of Stalin as a war hero and Stalin as a ruthless dictator. In 2007, then-President Vladimir Putin mandated a revised school history textbook that called Stalin “the most successful Soviet leader ever” and lauds his qualities as a “great organizer.” President Dmitri Medvedev condemned the dictator in a speech last October, but Putin spoke out in the leader’s defense several weeks later in a live telecast, arguing that the question of Stalin was a “subtle” one. A 2009 poll indicated that nearly a third of Russians would like to see a Stalin-like leader as their head of state. At the same time, this number is down from recent years – 42 percent favored a Stalin-like leader in 2005.

The drinks are being released in honor of the 67th anniversary of the pivotal Battle of Stalingrad, the Soviet-era name for Volgograd, and will appear in Volgograd stores in early February. A second release of the drinks is set to coincide with the May 9 Victory Day celebrations, with this year marking the 65th anniversary of the end of World War II.

The three soft drinks in the series feature portraits of Stalin, Marshal Gregory Zhukov, and Marshal Konstantin Rokossovksy, and are flanked with the phrase “Our cause is right – We have triumphed.”

An estimated 30 million people died as a result of Stalinist repressions and widespread famine in the 1930s and 40s.

Boris Izgarshev, director of the Pivovar plant producing the beverages, saw nothing wrong with putting Stalin’s picture on a lemon-flavored soft drink. “There’s nothing bad here: all three military commanders are significant historical figures…the name of each one is connected with the Volgograd soil.”

“Of course, we expect there to be a negative wave from social organizations and some veterans, but time will tell. I think that there will be a demand to have these drinks,” he added.

Stanislav Gorokhov, chairman of the Volgograd City Council for Military Veterans, spoke out passionately against the product.

“Before such a reckless step was taken, they should have interviewed the veterans,” Gorokhov insisted. “Really, every one of us has known much sorrow from those times. We think that we have the right to vote. Alright, Zhukov and Rokossovsky, but Stalin – that’s excessive.”

“Yes, he was chief in command, and the country won against the Germans under his command,” he went on. “But what a feeling the veterans will have who unjustly suffered from the Stalinist repressions! Who sat for years in the camps! And the families, who were deprived by his fault of their relatives and close ones? Veterans will be torn over this novelty, but we are in favor of stability. And we will never support those who drive a wedge between generations through such actions.”

Volgograd Regional Duma Deputy Andrei Popkov shared no such misgivings. “There’s nothing bad here,” he told the newspaper. “I think that far from all veterans are hostile towards this novelty; really, they lived through a whole epoch with Stalin. And there’s another plus – in the battle for the market, all means are good ones. And here’s just a superfluous advertisement that doesn’t harm anyone.”

“I mean, there’s vodka named Putinka, and that’s no problem,” the deputy added.

Russian society is largely fractured in its reconciliation of Stalin as a war hero and Stalin as a ruthless dictator. In 2007, then-President Vladimir Putin mandated a revised school history textbook that called Stalin “the most successful Soviet leader ever” and lauds his qualities as a “great organizer.” President Dmitri Medvedev condemned the dictator in a speech last October, but Putin spoke out in the leader’s defense several weeks later in a live telecast, arguing that the question of Stalin was a “subtle” one. A 2009 poll indicated that nearly a third of Russians would like to see a Stalin-like leader as their head of state. At the same time, this number is down from recent years – 42 percent favored a Stalin-like leader in 2005.

Kuznetsova, whose organization works to provide information and legal aid regarding military law, noted numerous examples of flagrant violations of conscript’ rights during the conference, citing a steep cut in military funding as a key source of problems.

During this past draft, she said, military enlistment offices employed policemen to detain and deliver young men found without a registration slip, a document legally required to be carried at all times by Russians. Moreover, some of these men were not even Russian citizens, making them most likely illegal immigrants who would have virtually no chance of avoiding conscription into the Russian army.

In this way, she said, the enlistment offices hoped to meet their quotas.

Once recruited, Kuznetsova went on, the young men were often examined by medical students who had no authority to practice medicine. Even so, there were still not enough medical personnel on hand to deal with the large number of conscripts.

The Russian military cut its planned draft to 271 thousand recruits for Fall 2009, still a staggering figure given the massive cuts in funding and personnel that the military faced this past year.

In a particularly striking example of the lengths enlistment officers went to in order to meet their quotas, Kuznetsova noted the case of a young man with cerebral palsy, who was brought to a recruitment center and told by a military commissioner that “they’ll cure him in the army.”

Ella Polyakova, a representative of Soldiers’ Mothers in St. Petersburg, said that many instances of severe medical problems were observed in various conscription centers. An epidemic of pneumonia, many cases of angina, and three fatal cases of swine flu were seen plaguing the new recruits. Additionally, one new conscript had committed suicide.

The office of the military prosecutor had been markedly less helpful during the past year in response to requests for help from the Soldiers’ Mothers than in the past, said Polyakova, saying that it had “stepped aside.”

Russian men are eligible for the country’s mandatory military draft between the ages of 18 and 27. It is officially avoidable by obtaining a certified medical diagnosis or through university enrollment. The vast majority of eligible Russians go to great lengths to dodge the draft, due to the infamous brutality, mistreatment and lack of compensation faced by enlisted soldiers. One horrific hazing incident in 2005 left one conscript with no legs or genitals. In recent years, the military has stepped up attempts to catch those dodging the draft, as Russia’s ongoing low birth rate has drastically reduced the number of eligible men.

In a statement on Monday, the mayor expounded upon his history of banning the events, which activists have attempted to hold annually since 2006.

“It is impossible to gaze kindly upon the display of blasphemy under the guise of creativity and protected by the principle of freedom of speech,” said Luzhkov. “The activities of destructive cults are not allowed, and the propaganda of so-called unisexual love is unacceptable.”

“For several years, unprecedented pressure has been exercised on Moscow with the demand to hold a gay parade here,” the mayor went on, “which can be called nothing more than a satanic activity. We have not allowed such parades and will not allow them in the future.”

“Everyone should take this not as theory, but as an axiom,” he concluded.

Nikolai Alekseev, founder of the Gayrussia.ru rights project and organizer of the Moscow Pride annual parades, said that the city’s sexual minority was prepared to hold a march in Moscow on May 29, and had already prepared the necessary application. He added that guests from other countries had been invited to the event, following suit with previous years’ parades.

An attempt to hold Moscow Pride in May 2009 ended with the arrest of all 30 participants, including Alekseev and British human rights activist Peter Tatchell.

Russian gay rights advocates have suffered from strong public and governmental opposition dating back to Soviet times. In accordance with a Stalinist decree, homosexuality carried a sentence of up to five years in prison until 1993, when legislators legalized it at the urging of the Council of Europe. It remained on the list of Russian mental illnesses until 1999. While there are no laws explicitly banning homosexuality, authorities have failed to recognize the need for anti-discrimination legislation. Public opinion remains strongly opposed to such reforms – as of 2005, 43.5 percent of Russians supported the re-criminalization of adult homosexual acts.

In an interview with reporters on Wednesday, Former Captain Yevgeny Romanenko claimed that the management of Nizhny Novgorod Detention Facility No. 1 made the decision to fire him because employees of the prison were frightened of working with a Buddhist.

After returning to work on January 1 from vacation, Romanenko learned that another employee had called him a cult member at a year-end meeting for facility personnel. Two weeks later, prison head Colonel Vladimir Marmur called Romanenko into the guards’ locker room and found pictures of Buddhist iconography, including a left-facing swastika symbolizing perfection, among Romanenko’s personal belongings.

The colonel took the symbol for a Nazi swastika, and “that was the last straw,” said Romanenko.

The captain was then taken to Deputy Chief Konstantin Ivanov, who explained that workers in the facility were frightened of Romanenko and he would therefore have to be fired.

“Romanenko, we’re afraid of you,” Ivanov told the captain. “We’re not going to work with you. You have two alternatives: either immediately write a letter of resignation on your own accord, or we’ll attribute you as having contact with prisoners outside of your duties.”

It was not the first time Romanenko had faced discrimination for his religion. Colonel Marmur often expressed surprised that he abstained from using alcohol and tobacco. “Something’s not right about you,” Romanenko recalled the colonel saying.

Romanenko wrote a letter of resignation and is currently attempting to work with regional officials from the Federal Penitentiary Service to rectify his situation.

Igor Cherchenko, a member of Russia’s banned National Bolshevik Party, was detained after opening an exhibition of his works on Moscow’s Triumfalnaya Square entitled “My Northern Country.”

About fifteen other activists stood with the Cherchenko while a detachment of police detained him and another National Bolshevik, Dmitri Yelizarov.

The artist’s colleagues proceeded to move his paintings to the Sakharov Museum and Public Center, where a presentation of Cherchenko’s works was to be held that same day.

Cherchenko is not the first artist arrested in Russia while attempting to display his work. Aleksander Shchendov was detained and threatened by police when he tried to display a collage of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in a dress in Voronezh last June. Artem Loskutov, a leader of the underground art movement in Novosibirsk, was detained in May and charged with political extremism, as well as other charges he asserts are false.

Born in the Russian city of Vitebsk in 1973, Cherchenko has lived in Israel since 1990. He has frequently taken part in activist demonstrations with the aim of attracting attention toward political imprisonment. In December 2005, he chained himself to the gates of the Russian embassy in Tel Aviv to demand the release of political prisoners in Russia. The embassy later filed a complaint against the artist, accusing him of “the violation of state borders.”

The 29 percent of respondents who answered positively to the proposal is actually down from 2005, when 42 percent of Russians wanted to see a leader like Stalin ruling the country.

Accordingly, opponents of Stalinist methods of governing also rose to 58 percent from 52 percent four years ago.

However, the number of Russians who had difficulty deciding how to respond (13 percent up from 7 percent in 2005) and those who were apathetic towards the dictator (28 percent up from 13 percent in 2001) both rose significantly.

More Russians responded positively than negatively to Stalin on the whole, 37 percent versus 24 percent.

A similar majority approved of Stalin’s leadership skills, with 31 percent judging them as “average,” 19 percent as “above average,” and only 14 percent as “below average.”

Thirty-five percent of Russians supported the characterization of Stalin as a cruel tyrant who annihilated millions of people, while just as many lauded his prominent role in achieving victory in World War II.

There was a rise in the number of Russians who considered Stalin to be a “wise manager,” up to 21 percent from 16 percent in 1998.

The poll comes at a time of increased conflict over the legacy of Stalin in Russian society. In what became an exchange that demonstrated polarization on Stalin’s legacy among Russians, President Dmitri Medvedev condemned the dictator in an October 30 statement: “I’m convinced that no development of the country and none of its successes or ambitions can be reached at the price of human grief and loss, and there is no justification for oppression.”

Just weeks later, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin responded to what he called the “subtlety” of the question of whether he considered Stalin’s activities to be positive or negative by saying: “One cannot, in my view, make a judgment on the whole.” Putin then proceeded to praise Stalin for successfully changing Russia from an agricultural to an industrial country and said that victory in World War II was Stalin’s achievement.

At the same time, he continued, these positives “were nevertheless reached at an unacceptable price.”

At the end of summer 2009, a recently refurbished metro station in central Moscow shocked residents with the restoration of two lines from an old version of the Soviet hymn engraved near the ceiling: “Stalin brought us up on loyalty to the people / He inspired us to labor and to heroism!” The move was condemned by rights advocates and praised by communists and others, and responded to by authorities by adding an additional couplet from the hymn overnight in late October: “Through tempests shined on us the sun of freedom / And the great Lenin lit us the way.”

The Deputy Chairman of the parliamentary Federation Council of Russia has proposed legislation to ban profanity throughout the country, reports Regions.ru.

Mikhail Nikolayev, a representative from the far-eastern Russian Republic of Sakha, said that a special law could be adopted to impose a ban on uncensored public speech.

“Profanity should cease to be a part of our everyday life,” said the senator.

The proposed legislation is modeled off of a similar ban that has already existed for several years in Belgorod, a city south of Moscow where nightclubs close at 10 pm.

According to Nikolayev, the law against profanity “prohibits expressions in public places, at work, and when communicating with one another.”

Violating the ban would result in a large fine, and Nikolayev stressed that in Belgorod, “the effect from these measures is already palpable.”

Anyone found swearing in Belgorod currently receives a fine from between 500 and 1500 rubles (about $16 to $50), depending on who witnessed the incident. Swearing in front of children, for example, would result in the highest possible fine.

The measure is not the first time Russian legislators have attempted to regulate aspects of public speech. Fearing that “poor grammar enters the subconscious,” members of parliament set to work last April to develop a measure that would regulate the use of internet slang.

According to the November study, Russian attitudes towards immigrants became more negative on the whole. 61 percent of Russians feel that the government “should try to limit the stream of migrants,” a 9 percent increase from a year ago. Another 30 percent feel that the authorities “do not need to put administrative barriers in the way of the influx of migrants and try to use them for the good of Russia,” down from 35 percent in 2008 and 44 percent in 2002.

Attitudes towards labor immigration also followed a negative trend. Only 19 percent of Russians held a “definitely” or “probably” positive attitude towards the idea that “one meets workers from Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova and other nearby foreign countries on construction sites in Russia more often.” This figure was at 30 percent in 2002. Those who held neutral attitudes towards labor immigration fell to 44 percent, down 5 percent from a year ago, and those with a negative attitude rose to 35 percent, up 4 percent from a year ago.

The percentage of Russians who felt negatively towards labor immigrants has fluctuated back and forth over the past decade. In 2000 and 2004, 38 percent of Russians held negative attitudes in this regard, but only 27 percent did so in 2002. Aleksei Grazhdankin, vice director of the Levada Center, told Gazeta.ru that the fluctuations “are connected with the economic crisis and an intensification of competition in the labor market.” Therefore, Grazhdankin continued, “attitudes towards migrants remain in a completely civilized framework, and the level of xenophobia and nationalist enmity is not increasing. People are simply striving to protect their interests in the labor market.”

Attitudes toward the idea of a Russia in which only ethnic Russians resided did not change significantly in the past year.

The number of Russians, however, who support the infamous slogan “Russia for the Russians” and feel that it “has long been time to implement” such an idea has risen to 18 percent from 15 percent a year ago.

At the same time, 36 percent believe that “it would not be bad to implement this idea, but within reasonable limits,” down from 42 percent last year. Additionally, a growing number of Russians believe that “Russia for the Russians” is “genuine fascism,” up to 32 percent from 25 percent last year.

“Such growth is very good,” said Pavel Chikov, representative of the human rights organization Agora. “In the first years of the Putin administration, there was a surge of patriotism that brought with it a growth in neo-Nazi groups.” Chikov explained the change in poll numbers as the result of more frequent public debate on immigration issues in Russia, causing more people to form opinions on the matter. “However,” he continued, “the ratio of the positions remains approximately the same for now.”

“The country is beginning to wake up and develop individual attitudes to various social phenomena, and on the whole this is, unconditionally, positive,” the human rights representative said. At the same time, he noted that the polarization of society indicates increasing degrees of opposition. “It’s good to start public debates, but I fear that it’s also starting knife fights and violence, and the government likewise answers with violence,” Chikov concluded.