Press release, 28.06.2017
Yabloko’s Federal Political Committee released a statement condemning the decision to install a plaque commemorating a 1924 speech by Josef Stalin in Moscow State Law Academy.

“The Russian United Democratic Party Yabloko considers the practise of restoring and installing memorials to Joseph Stalin unacceptable and destructive for our country. It has nothing to do with the historical memory preservation. On the contrary, it signifies the mockery of the memory of millions of Bolshevism and Stalinism victims and the establishment of a twisted and deadlock view on the history of our country on behalf of the state and the society,” runs the statement.

Yabloko insists that educating a new generation of lawyers under Stalin’s plaque is the mockery of the law and a tragedy for the country. The party expresses solidarity with Genri Reznik, a prominent defense attorney and legal scholar, who resigned from the Academy after the plaque was installed.

“We make a special emphasis on the fact that what has occurred is not an incident or a single episode. It is the direct outcome of the state policy based on the conscious denial of the European course of development and aimed at self-isolation. There is no alternative with a historical perspective to the European way of development. Its denial leads to Stalin’s bloody deadlock,” runs the statement signed by Grigory Yavlinsky, Chair of Yabloko’s Federal Political Committee.