Press release based on the statement by Lev Shlosberg, Chair of the Pskov branch of YABLOKO, 24.02.2016

On 24 February, Chair of the Pskov branch of YABLOKO Lev Shlosberg forwarded an application to the Prosecutor’s Office of the Pskov Region demanding to dismantle the statue of Joseph Stalin. Shlosberg claims that all the officials who organised and authorised the installation of the bust of Stalin in the Pskov Region must be brought to responsibility.

On 22 February, 2016, a bust of Joseph Stalin was installed at the Military History Museum Preserve of the Pskov Region under the support of the Military History Society.

“This action is anti-historical and, as a matter of fact, political, this is part of the process of the Stalinisation of the society and rehabilitation of the reprisals.

It is in essence the mockery of the memory of the deceased – both military men and civilians – who became victims of the state terror organised directly by Stalin.

The installation of Stalin’s bust next to the graves of the World War II soldiers is double blasphemy since Stalin, as the initiator of the reprisals among the Workers’ and Pesants’ Red Army commanders, bears personal responsibility for the extermination of the best cadres of the Red Army before the war broke out, which affected its course dramatically, lead to the retreat of the army, capturing several millions of military men, death of millions of the USSR citizens.

The installation of the bust to Stalin at the territory, where the decapitated and betrayed Red Army’s parts retreated, is the humiliation of the memory of the decedent,” the statement says.