Translated material
Poster language
Honorary citizen of Moscow Vladimir Dolgikh demanded that journalists “stop insinuations” regarding Stalin
Former candidate member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee Vladimir Dolgikh, to whom the Moscow City Duma yesterday awarded the title of honorary citizen of the capital, used the resources of the Moscow government in a dispute over whether the city should be decorated with portraits of Stalin on the 65th anniversary of the Victory. The press service of the Moscow mayor's office and government yesterday sent a “Statement from representatives of veteran organizations” to the editors of the capital's publications with a request to publish this work, which in form and content resembles an ultimatum. They signed it, in particular, Comrade. Dolgikh, President of the Academy of Military Sciences General Makhmut Gareev and a dozen other decorated veterans. All of them demand “to stop insinuations in the media on the issue of historical truth in the festive decoration of Moscow, slanderous attacks on the leaders of the capital and on veterans’ organizations.” According to the authors of the statement, the media “are trying, in order to split society, to use the issue of the project for the festive decoration of Moscow... containing the historical truth of the episodes of the war, portraits of the Marshals of the Victory, including Generalissimo I.V. Stalin.”Thus, the press was declared the main opponent of the “Stalinization” of Moscow’s festive decorations. And in this regard, the position of the veterans completely coincides with the opinion of the capital’s leadership. Let us recall that Mayor Yuri Luzhkov, speaking on March 2 at a meeting of the capital’s government, spoke about the “orgy that arose in the media” after it became known about the plans of the Moscow authorities to place posters with a portrait of the “leader of the peoples” on the streets.
However, it is obvious that the Moscow initiative did not meet with approval not only from the media or human rights activists (which is not surprising), but also from the federal authorities and fellow party members of Mayor Luzhkov. In early March, the Speaker of the State Duma, the head of the Supreme Council of United Russia, Boris Gryzlov, addressed the Moscow mayor with a demand to reconsider the decision.
“In general, Stalin’s ambiguous role in the life of our country cannot be corrected with a poster,” said Vyacheslav Volodin, secretary of the presidium of the General Council of United Russia, at the same time. Last Tuesday, the organizing committee for preparing the celebration of the 65th anniversary of the Victory (which is headed by the Presidential Administration Vladimir Kozhin) announced that “there are no plans to use the image of Joseph Stalin in any way during the holiday.” “This never happened even in Soviet times,” a representative of the Pobeda organizing committee told RIA Novosti. Minister of Culture Alexander Avdeev responded more than harshly to the idea of the capital authorities. “I am categorically against hanging posters,” the head of the Ministry of Culture said last Thursday. “Stalin is an executioner,” Mr. Avdeev emphasized. - Stalin is to blame for the fact that our country lost almost an entire century in its development; Stalin ruined millions of lives during repressions and millions of lives during the war. He bears full responsibility for the first two years of defeat in the war.”
But the capital’s authorities have not yet abandoned the plan to place stands with portraits of Generalissimo Stalin “in appropriate proportions.” As the Moscow Advertising, Information and Design Committee emphasizes, these “proportions” are small: out of 2 thousand holiday posters, “only ten information stands at veterans’ meeting places will contain information or an image of I.V. Stalin." As Mr. Luzhkov stated, representatives of the city council of war veterans, labor and law enforcement agencies, headed by Vladimir Dolgikh, who approached the advertising committee with a proposal to place posters with Stalin, asked to hang not only information posters, but also visual propaganda with the image of the Generalissimo, but the authorities Moscow did not agree to this. There is no talk of exalting the role of the generalissimo, officials emphasize, “the information will be neutral, not containing an assessment of Stalin’s role in history.”
The tone in which the statement of veteran organizations was made was far from neutral: “Stalin’s great contribution as a statesman, political figure, and supreme commander in chief to the defeat of fascism in the Second World War... is historically recognized throughout the world, and it is recognized by all the peoples of the former USSR. First of all, history gives us – veterans, participants in the Great Patriotic War – the right to decide who to honor on this sacred holiday.”
Let us recall that in early March, the Moscow branch of the human rights society “Memorial” issued a statement on behalf of completely different capital war and labor veterans - victims of political repression. It said, among other things: “We, living today, recognized by the state as victims of political repression, are deeply offended and mentally traumatized by the decision of a small group that appropriated the right to express or portray the opinion of Muscovites.”
The fears expressed by members of the Public Chamber and Ombudsman Vladimir Lukin (see Vremya Novostey on March 10) , alas, are confirmed: the controversial decision of the Moscow government did not lead to unity on the eve of the 65th anniversary of the Victory, but, on the contrary, to the polarization of public moods. In particular, yesterday's decision of the Moscow City Duma to award one of the initiators of the placement of posters with Stalin, Vladimir Dolgikh, the title of “Honorary Citizen of Moscow” caused indignation among the Yabloko party, which hastened to express its protest.
Dolgikh became the 25th honorary citizen of the capital; Mayor Yuri Luzhkov submitted his candidacy to the City Duma. The resolution of the capital’s parliament states that the title was awarded “for a great personal contribution to the development of the economic and industrial potential of the Russian Federation, including Moscow, and many years of public activity aimed at solving social issues of pensioners and World War II participants.” In December 1941, Vladimir Dolgikh volunteered to go to the front, participated in the battles near Moscow, in February 1943 he was seriously wounded, and for military services he was awarded two Orders of the Patriotic War, 1st degree, and the medal “For the Defense of Moscow.” For seven years, Dolgikh headed the Norilsk Mining and Metallurgical Combine, and from the late 1960s he focused entirely on party activities (on the eve of his retirement in 1988, he served as a candidate member of the Politburo and as secretary of the CPSU Central Committee). “We express our disagreement with the fact that on the eve of the Victory Day, the high honor of receiving the title of honorary citizen of Moscow will be given to only one veteran - Vladimir Dolgikh,” said the leader of this party, Sergei Mitrokhin, on behalf of the Moscow branch of Yabloko. According to him, “while Dolgikh was making his nomenklatura career in the CPSU, hundreds and thousands of citizens of our country were repressed by the regime and sent to prisons and mental hospitals for their political and moral beliefs.” “Dolgikh’s latest high-profile initiatives related to the glorification of Stalin and the fight against the sign at the Anti-Soviet kebab shop also do not indicate this man’s outstanding services to the city and Muscovites. They only indicate that he has connections and like-minded Stalinists in the Moscow government,” says Mr. Mitrokhin.