For first time in 11 years, Moscow bans annual name-reciting ceremony of Stalin's victims

The Guardian ^ | 19 Oct 2018 | Agence France-Presse in Moscow

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Memorial, the country oldest rights group, has held a 12-hour ceremony every year on 29 October for the past 11 years. Hundreds of people read out names of those killed during Stalin-era repressions at a memorial in Lubyanka Square, outside the headquarters of the current security service and its Stalin-era predecessors. Historians estimate about a million people perished in Stalin’s Terror, also known as the Great Purge, in the 1930s.

The group said Moscow city authorities had refused permission this year for “The Return of Names” ceremony. “Today, 19 October, that is 10 days before the ceremony was due to go ahead, permission was withdrawn by the Moscow city hall,” the group said in a statement, adding that the authorities had previously promised that construction work would not prevent the ceremony going ahead.

“This action is outrageous not only because of the Moscow authorities breaking promises that they had many times given and confirmed,” Memorial said. “The officials did not consider it necessary to apologise in any form whatsoever.

”Memorial, which also speaks out about current human rights violations in Russia, has come under increasing pressure from the authorities in recent years.

[CondoleezzaProtege]

Posted about this earlier, but this is a better article. The assault on historical memory in Russia continues. Numerous polls in Russia show that over half of Russia's young people are unaware of the criminal terror dimension of Stalin's rule.

[Don Corleone]

For most people, history begins the day you are born.

[neverevergiveup]

I have no doubt that there are those on the left in this country who would act as Stalin did, and those who would support it as ‘necessary’. We’ve let the left teach hate, unchecked, for way too long.

[Snickering Hound]

[yawningotter]

One million? Maybe in the purges, but the actual number killed by Stalin in staggeringly higher.

[yawningotter]

One million? Maybe in the purges, but the actual number killed by Stalin in staggeringly higher.

[piytar]

If you count starvation and other consequences of Stalin’s policies, his death toll is about 60,000,000. Only Mao killed more people. Hard to believe, but Hitler comes in third.

Note: What do they all have in common? All three were communist or socialialist. (NAZI stood for National Socialist Workers Party. They were leftists. But Freepers know that.)