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Young World
Lenin joins Stalin
COMPILED BY NIMI KURIAN
When a verse praising Stalin reappeared at a renovated Moscow Metro station in August, there was an immediate outcry. So the director of the Metro system decided to fix things — by also restoring a verse in praise of Lenin, founder of the Soviet state. “Stalin reared us - on loyalty to the people, He inspired us to labour and to heroism,” words from the Soviet anthem of 1943, were joined after some overnight editing in the Kurskaya station’s vestibu
le with the line that preceded them in the anthem: “Through tempests shone on us the sun of freedom, /And the great Lenin lighted the way.” The Stalin half of the verse was restored in gilt lettering for the vestibule’s grand reopening in August, after a year of renovation. The intention, Moscow Metro officials said, was to recreate the atmosphere of the station when it opened in 1950. When the Stalin lines reappeared, human rights activists warned of creeping re-Stalinization.
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