Press Release, 6.03.2019

Deputies from United Russia, the Communist Party of the Russian Federation and the LDPR party excluded from the agenda of the plenary session of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg consideration of the legislative initiative of Yabloko “On the prohibition of the memorialization of Stalin and introduction of amendments to certain legislative acts of the Russian Federation”. Head of the Communist Party faction Olga Khodunova proposed not to consider the bill.

“As I expected, our anti-Stalinist law is excluded from the agenda by 40 votes, against six. A touching union of communists, United Russia and Zhirinivsky’s party. Shame, ” said Boris Vishnevsky, head of the Yabloko faction.

Vishnesky reiterated that the purpose of the law is to stop attempts to whitewash the tyrant.

“Stalinism is recognised as the gravest crime against humanity and repeatedly condemned by international and Russian documents, including federal laws, decisions of the government and the State Duma, and public speeches by two presidents of Russia. We very much hope for the support of society in this matter, because the process of rehabilitation of Stalinism is one of the most shameful phenomena in modern Russian history, ” Boris Vishnevsky noted.

It should be noted that Yabloko’s bill proposed to ban installation of monuments, busts, plaques to Joseph Stalin with his image or mention, as well as assignment of the name of the dictator to different objects.

The Yabloko faction has been drafting the law for three years. At the first stage of development, the law was sent to the People’s Assembly of Ingushetia. On February 22, 2017, the Parliament of Ingushetia adopted a decision on banning memorialisation of Joseph Stalin in the region.