Russia unveils new busts of Stalin in time for the anniversary of the Battle of Stalingrad

A bust of dictator Joseph Stalin was unveiled in the southern Russian city of Volgograd on Wednesday on the eve of the commemoration of the Soviet victory in the Battle of Stalingrad.

The bronze bust was unveiled ahead of President Vladimir Putin’s visit to Volgograd, formerly known as Stalingrad, on Thursday for high-profile celebrations, including a military parade.

Most of the monuments to Stalin, who presided over purges known as the Great Terror, have been torn down in countries that were once part of the Soviet Union.

The Great Terror

But since Putin came to power in Russia in 2000, there has been a growing chorus of Russians who take a positive view of the mustachioed despot’s role in history, and historians have pointed to Stalin’s creeping rehabilitation in the country.

Footage released by the state news agency RIA Novosti showed teenagers in military uniforms pulling white blankets off the busts of Stalin and two Soviet military commanders before placing baskets of red flowers near the statues.

The ceremony, in front of the museum dedicated to the Battle of Stalingrad and attended by several dozen people, as seen in the video, was accompanied by the Russian national anthem.

Artist Sergey Shcherbakov, who was commissioned to create the three busts, said he had to work “quickly”.

“The order had to be fulfilled in a short time,” he told local media.

Nostalgia for the superpower status of the USSR

Nostalgic for the USSR’s superpower status, many Russian officials promoted Stalin as a stalwart leader who led the Soviet Union to victory in World War II and spearheaded the country’s industrialization.

Since the Kremlin sent troops to Ukraine last February to, as they put it, “de-Nazify” the pro-Western country, the Kremlin has often compared that conflict to the Soviet war against Nazi Germany.

On Thursday, Volgograd will mark the 80th anniversary of the Soviet Union’s victory over the Nazi army in the Battle of Stalingrad, one of the bloodiest in World War II.