23-05-2025
A Stalin Monument Opens In The Moscow Metro
First, a little background: In the early 1950s, during the dictator's final years, a bas-relief was installed in the passageway of Moscow's Taganskaya metro station. It depicted enthusiastic Soviet citizens literally worshipping Stalin. There was something almost ancient Egyptian in the degree of reverence portrayed.
However, changes came quickly. Stalin died in 1953, and soon afterward, his personality cult was denounced. Stalin's head on the sculptural composition was replaced by that of some unnamed Red Army soldier. It did not look particularly logical. Why were these excited young men and women gazing adoringly and reverently at some random guy? Ultimately, in 1966, the bas-relief was removed entirely.
In 2025, it was restored from photographs.
To be blunt, the restoration was done poorly. Russian social media thoroughly dissected how graceless the new statues appeared, lacking necessary elegance and subtle curves. A former director of the Museum of Architecture, where photos of the original bas-relief were found, bluntly stated that this restoration was a cheap imitation compared to the original. This is true, though the issue here is certainly not just cheapness.
A replica of a removed monument to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin was installed in the Moscow Metro. (Source: @monumentalno)
The Location Chosen Is Symbolic
The return of Stalin monuments in Russia began in earnest in 2014, from Crimea. Tentatively, as a test, a monument commemorating the Yalta Conference was erected. Officially, it was not explicitly about Stalin; it depicted three political leaders, including Churchill and Roosevelt. But the main message was clear: It was a trial run, testing society's readiness to accept that soon, statues of mustached monsters would once again be marching across the country. Society did not protest. Eleven years later, there are roughly a hundred monuments to Stalin scattered throughout Russia.
And now, it is Moscow's turn.
The location chosen is symbolic: The circular metro line, in the heart of the city, where tens of thousands pass daily. All these people can see clearly: This is the new normal. Things will once again be this way.
Changing heads on monuments was not practiced in ancient Rome alone as a cost-saving measure for new emperors. First Stalin's head. Then Putin's. And we have long understood whom Putin is emulating in both life and career.
The Yabloko party, a faint memory of democratic Russia, has begun collecting signatures to dismantle the bas-relief. They have gathered slightly more than 2,000 in a week. Why so few? First, because it is Yabloko – a party long driven to the margins of public life. Second, people have lost the habit of participating in that very public life.
No one believes a signature can make any difference. If for nearly a quarter-century you can vote for any president you like, yet the result is always predetermined, what hope is there for signatures?
Besides, it might seem that Russia has far bigger problems right now. Why fuss over Stalin, when so many have died in the special military operation?
Elvira Vikhareva
Today, We Cannot Imagine Mass Repressions – But We Should
But eventually, perhaps thanks to U.S. president Donald Trump, this operation will end. External enemies will wall Russia off behind an iron curtain. At that point, internal enemies will be required, and they will not be a mere thousand "foreign agents," as they are now, but far greater numbers. That is when Stalin will truly become useful again. We are moving toward him slowly but surely. Who could have imagined Russia plunging into war?
Similarly, today we cannot imagine genuinely mass repressions either. But we should. All the necessary laws have long been in place, held back only by the regime's mercy in fully enforcing them.
For now, the regime is content to intimidate us with isolated political persecutions, and it is succeeding. But once you start sliding down a slippery slope, there is no stopping. Even Stalin did not immediately begin with the Great Terror of 1937; he waited until the twilight of his life to decide to deport the Jews.
Vladimir Vladimirovich still has quite some time ahead.
But let us set forecasts aside and consider the symbolism here. Stalin has been placed in the metro, the underground world, so to speak. Away from the sun, away from fresh air. Symbolic, is it not? Go just a few meters deeper, and perhaps you will find the real Stalin, with a particularly hot cauldron reserved for him.
While officially Russia combats satanism and protects believers' feelings, it simultaneously builds pagan altars like these, utterly removed from Christian faith. Why? What drives the authorities? Is it simply a desire to accustom the population to a new personality cult, or is there something deeper, more ancient, and more sinister here?
Stalinist practices, meanwhile, have been justified for a long time already. Just a few recent news items: A Moscow court refused claims from descendants of repressed citizens who sought to reclaim property seized from their families during Stalin's time; In St. Petersburg, searches were conducted against Trotskyist students; one was arrested and sent to detention.
I am not joking, this is happening. Where Stalin goes, Trotskyist hunts follow. Yes, those students may have been eccentric, but seriously imprisoning someone for leftist ideas has not been accepted anywhere in the civilized world for many decades now. Anywhere, but Russia.
In short, Russia's capital has acquired a new tourist attraction. Visitors will stare at what these Russian barbarians have done, how, 70 years later, they love a man who exterminated them by all available means.
As For The Shabby Quality Of Stalin's Monument, Just Wait: Better Ones Are Coming
It is small consolation that China, from which tourists primarily come nowadays, is filled with monuments to Mao. After all, we never aspired to live like China, but rather like Europe. For centuries, we yearned to be part of Europe, only to become its laughingstock now. A grim one, admittedly, but a laughingstock, nonetheless.
Indeed, you will not find instances in Europe where dictators' monuments are restored. Spain is cleansing itself of memories of Franco; Germany prosecutes admirers of Hitler; Portugal does not celebrate Salazar's legacy, and Greece wants nothing to do with its junta-era colonels. Only Russia, as always, follows its own unique path, paved with bones. As for the shabby quality of Stalin's monument, just wait: Better ones are coming.
It was all predicted decades ago by Soviet-era bard Alexander Galich. And I still recall how these lines once seemed purely theoretical, archaic even:
Our homeland's morning is rosy,
Signals chirp and scatter free.
Bronze ones depart, unsteady,
But gypsum ones lie quietly.
Though damaged now, still hidden,
Their likeness preserved in dust.
Give these plaster statues human blood,
And again, they shall rise robust.
And now, indeed, they are rising again.
*Elvira Vikhareva is a renowned Russian opposition politician based in Russia. In 2023, she was poisoned with heavy metal salts.
