Printer-friendly version Just before May 9 the scandal around the posters with portraits of Stalin, which the Moscow authorities intend to place in the streets of the capital on the Day of Victory, does not abate. A number of human rights organizations, veterans and community leaders have already expressed their protests against this decision. So, on April 19 a joint statement "Victory Day should not disconnect" was issued by the International Society "Memorial", Moscow Helsinki Group and other human rights organizations. It states that "the placement of portraits of the dictator in a festive context can not be treated differently, as his glorification, as a justification for the terror ". A meeting of the President Council for the promotion of civil society institutions and human rights, which took place on April 26, included discussion on the posters with Stalin. As a result an appeal of the members of the Council to the President was prepared, on planning to open a monument to Stalin, in which they addressed him "to express his position on this issue and use his powers as the President to protect the Great Victory from the provocation of neo-Stalinists, dividing society and insulting the memory of the fallen." On April 28 the appeal was sent to Dmitry Medvedev. In case the decision of Moscow authorities still will not be changed, public persons think of different options for public expression of their position: from placement in the streets parallel information about the true role of Stalin in the war and the establishment of a special competition and exhibition of anti-Stalinist posters to put on T-shirts with scratched whiskers of the «grandfather». It became known that they are going to "please" the Russians for the holiday by picture of Stalin not only in Moscow. For example, in St. Petersburg the initiative group is raising money for the placement of posters with the «leader of folks» on buses as a private advertising. Banner depicting Stalin and the slogan "For the Motherland!", "For Stalin!" and congratulations to the Great Victory recently have appeared in two districts of Syktyvkar. In Vladivostok similar posters have been placed as an initiative of the city administration. In Tambov on May 8 local communists are planning to open a monument to Stalin. "It is clear that regardless of the story with the placement of posters in the capital, the playing «Stalinist card» by the Moscow mayor's office serving its political goals gave the public a specific signal. The signal is that despite recent statement by the President on the inadmissibility "under the guise of restoring historical justice to justify those who killed his people", the glorification of Stalin is still not something reprehensible. It looks like the "neo-Stalinism relapse" can and will happen until finally put an end to the historical evaluation of the Stalinist regime, similar to how it was done in other countries with totalitarian past ", - said Konstantin Baranov, co-coordinator of the YHRM Program "Anti-totalitarianism. Meanwhile, on April 28 the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) adopted a resolution under the number 1723, which formally recognized that Stalin's regime is responsible for the starvation of millions of Soviet citizens in the late 20th - early 30th of XX century.