Today the Youth organisation of YABLOKO conducted a series
of one-person pickets by the Kazan Cathedral in the centre
of St.Petersburg. YABLOKO protests against placement of Stalin
portraits in the city.
“We are outraged by emergence of portraits of the executioner
of the people on the threashold of the Great Victory Day.
It is inadmissible to place portraits (whatever they may be)
of a man who broke millions of lives, was an absolutely talentless
leader of the army and killed the heroes who had protected
Leningrad during blockade,” stated the organisers of the action.
Four young YABLOKO’s activists dressed in prisoners’ clothes
and bearing plates on their chests with a list of Stalin’s
crimes were spreading leaflets. The leaflets described Stalin’s
crimes and explained why his portrait was an insult of the
memory of the war and its victims.
Several young persons who said they were the Communist Party
members interfered with YABLOKO’s peaceful action and they
also were very persistent in asking the police to arrest young
YABLOKO’s activists. Consequently the police arrested four
activists: Alexei Mamonov, Yulia Anatoyeva, Elena Pasynkova
and Denis Vasilyev. Alexander Skobov, member of the Bureau
of St.Petersburg Solidarnost who was watching the pickets
was not arrested despite his demands to let him join the arrested
activists.
In the police department Denis Vasilyev was beaten as he
refused to let the police to take his photograph.
“First they prohibited our slogan ‘Governor to Dismissal’
and then took a decision to place a memorial plaque to Romanov
(odious head of Leningrad during Leonid Brezhnev’s period)
and then they even ‘decorate’ a bus with Stalin portraits.
Now they have arrested our activists for spreading anti-Stalinist
leaflets. Only blind people may be unaware of the trend. And
all this happens when President Medvedev makes a statement
today [where he condemned Stalin],” Maxim Reznik, Chair of
St.Petersburg YABLOKO said. He also noted that the incident
with a bus ‘decorated’ with Stalin portraits demonstrated
the common roots of Putin’s supporters and Stalinists: “United
Russia+CPRF (the communist party)=CPSU (the Communist Party
of the USSR).”
Nevertheless, Resnik noted that democrats won a moral victory:
“There will be no bus decorated with portraits of a serial
killer Stalin in our city on May 9. And this is the main thing.”
See also:
Overcoming Stalin's
Legacy
President of
Russia should give his assessment of Stalinism. Statement
by YABLOKO’s Chairman. May 6, 2010.
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