Press release, 29.10.2018

On 29 October, the eve of the Day of Remembrance of Victims of Political Reprisals, leaders and activists of the Yabloko party took part in the Returning the Names memorial action to pay tribute to the victims of Joseph Stalin’s reprisals.

The participants of the action, one after another, read out the names of people executed in Moscow in the years of the Great Terror. In 1937-1938, over 30,000 people were killed in Moscow.

Yabloko Chair Emilia Slabunova read out the name of Kuzma Kochetov, a locksmith who was executed on 27 September 1937. Yabloko leader also spoke about today’s political prisoners – Yuri Dmitriyev, Sergei Koltyrin and Oyub Titiev. She called upon the government to releases them and other political prisoners.

Yabloko Chair Emilia Slabunova (right) and Yabloko Deputy Chair Nikolai Rybakov (centre)

Yabloko Chair also spoke about the necessity to prevent unauthorised excavation of the Sandarmokh memorial graveyard in the Republic of Karelia and the destruction of personal plaques of the repression victims. “We insist that archives should be examined. The government must make a legal and political estimate of Stalin’s crimes,” Slabunova said.

According to Yabloko leader, if society preserves memories of the developments of the 1920-1930s, a similar scenario will be prevented. “They are making more and more attempts to rewrite history: excavation of Sandarmokh, arrests of Sergei Koltyrin, Yuri Dmitriyev and Oyub Titiyev, repressions agains Memorial human rights group – this is the evidence that the government wants Stalin’s crimes to be forgotten”.

Grigory Yavlinsky, Chair of Yabloko Federal Political Committee, said that Russia’s current political system could easily turn towards the developments of the 1930s. “The current political system – taking its logic, methods and approaches into account – is the direct heir of the regime of terror and is a step away from becoming a political mechanism of terror itself.”

Leaders of Yabloko’s Human Rights faction, Soviet dissidents Sergei Kovalyev (centre) and Valeri Borshchev (right). Sergei Kovalyev spent seven years in “Perm-36” high security colony and Chistopol prison in Tatarstan.