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.

Most Russians agree.  According to a survey by the VTSIOM pollster, 60 percent of Russians believe that denying the Soviet Victory in World War II is an act deserving of criminal proceedings.  Communist Party supporters and respondents over 60 were most likely to back the idea, while younger Russians and self-described democrats were more likely to hold the opposite view.  The poll was conducted during April in 42 regions.

In his video blog, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev spoke against the “distortion of history” and decried whitewashing the tragedy and significance of the war.

“We are all the more often encountering what are called historical falsehoods,” he said. “Also such attempts are becoming tougher, more malicious and aggressive.”

As the Nezavisimaya Gazeta newspaper reported earlier, legislators were planning to introduce draft legislation to counteract historical whitewashing, both in Russia and the former Soviet Republics.  Russian officials have been angered by attempts to remove Soviet-era monuments and honor anti-Soviet resistance movements in Estonia, Lithuania, Ukraine and other former Soviet states.

The bill is titled “On countering the rehabilitation of nazism, nazi criminals and their supporters on the territory of independent states– the former Republics of the USSR.”  Both Russians and foreigners could be charged under the draft law, and would face sentences of three to five years and fines up to 500 thousand rubles ($15,500 or €11,400).

The law would also give Russia the power to create a special tribunal to monitor the development of pro-nazi policies in the countries of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS).  The tribunal would hand down evaluations on foreign politicians, parties and civic organizations suspected of revisionism.

A foreign national found by the tribunal to have taken part in rehabilitating nazism would be barred from entering Russia, and tried under Russian laws if they were discovered on Russian soil.  Russian organizations and media outlets would be issued a warning from the Prosecutor-General’s office.  After several warnings, the organization could be closed by a court order.

The bill proposes several means of responding to former Soviet Republics that allow themselves to question the outcomes of the Second World War.  Russia may expel ambassadors, launch a partial of full blockade of transport and information communication, sever diplomatic ties, and make recommendations to the Russian business community and public organization on cutting ties with the offending country.

Foreign organizations found guilty by the tribunal would be banned on Russian soil.

The idea for such a comprehensive law was first proposed by Sergey Shoigu, the head of Russia’s Ministry of Emergency Situations, in February.  Shoigu’s suggestion has had a wide resonance with the public, and has been backed by Yury Chaika, the Russian Prosecutor General, and other public figures.

Two of Russia’s liberal democratic parties, Yabloko and Right Cause, have called for expanding the legislation to include rehabilitating Stalinism and whitewashing Stalin’s repressions as a criminal act.  The idea is ironically fitting as Russia’s government has itself been criticized for downplaying Stalin-era terrors, and reconstructing a public image of a “glorious Soviet past.”