In Russia, former Bolshevik and Soviet leaders honored again

Lhe statue that was inaugurated this week in the inner courtyard of the SVR, Russia’s foreign intelligence service, will not be visible to the general public: it is on secret territory outside Moscow. But television and public media widely reported its inauguration. This is a statue of Felix Dzerzhinsky, nicknamed “Iron Felix”, creator of the Cheka, the first political police of the Bolshevik regime, the ancestor of today’s KGB and FSB. A character infamous for having been the main architect of the Red Terror and for having implemented lays the foundations of the Soviet repressive system.

In 1991, the immense statue of Dzerzhinsky, which stood on Lubyanka Square, opposite the KGB headquarters, was torn down to the cheers of the crowd. For many, this event remains the symbol of the collapse of the USSR. The original bronze statue, weighing 11 tonnes, is today in a park where many debunked Soviet monuments have been brought together. But a replica, a little smaller, has just returned to the courtyard of the foreign intelligence service, which allowed Sergey Narichkine, its head, to pay a vibrant tribute to Dzerzhinsky:

“He remained true to his ideals of goodness and justice until the end. He dreamed of creating a future based on these principles of goodness and justice.”

Sergey Narichkin

during the inauguration of the statue

Not sure that the former dissidents from the Soviet era share the opinion of the head of the SVR…

Rehabilitation of the USSR

VSIn recent months, several statues and busts of Stalin have been inaugurated in Russia. And this is even found in the new history textbooks for high school students, published this year, which offer a justification for Stalinist repression.

Several polls have confirmed that a majority of Russians admire the figure of Joseph Stalin, in whom they see more the winner of the Second World War and an architect of Russian greatness than a bloodthirsty dictator.