Gulag Plagues

From the MT:
"Plaques Commemorating Gulag Victims Popping Up Around Moscow"

At least seven plaques commemorating Russian citizens sent to gulag forced labor camps under Soviet dictator Josef Stalin have been placed on the Moscow buildings where they last resided before being apprehended by Soviet secret police, the independent newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported Sunday.  The palm-sized plaques have been installed as part of a memorial project known as “Last Address,” and feature the names, occupations, dates of birth and death of the gulag victims, as well as the year they had their names cleared of all charges, or were “rehabilitated,” Novaya Gazeta reported.

An online crowdfunding campaign raised more than 1.5 million rubles ($22,300) in December to have the plaques installed on the former homes of Stalin's victims, and many of the plaques have been requested by surviving family members who remember where the victims were living when they were seized.  The Last Address project is not affiliated with the Russian government, Maxim Kats, a Moscow city councilman said when the project was launched in December. “Thank God they didn't interfere,” he said at the time.  While human rights groups such as the Memorial Human Rights Society — which maintains the database of victims that Last Address is using for the project — continue to draw attention to Stalin's repressions, the Soviet dictator is enjoying renewed popularity in Russia under President Vladimir Putin.  Results of a survey conducted by the independent Levada Center in December showed that over half of Russians believe Stalin played a positive role in Russian history.     The plaques have so far been placed at Sivtsev Vrazhek 21, a residential building in central Moscow, near the Arbatskaya metro station. Two buildings on the same street have also received memorial plaques. Last Address has also installed a plaque on a building at Bolshoi Afanasyevsky Pereulok 33, and two plaques at Ulitsa Palikha 1/13.

^ These plagues need to go up all over Russia, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to remember the innocent men, women and children that were imprisoned, deported and/or murdered by the Communists from 1917-1991. The number of victims of these Communist repressions are well into the millions upon millions of people and so the average person today can not comprehend that each name was an actual person with a family. These plagues put a face and a story behind each name the same way the "stepping stones" plagues are doing for Holocaust victims throughout Europe. There is no reason why people nowadays should have any love for Stalin or the other Communists that carried out the murderous acts. Even the Soviet Communists themselves disclosed Stalin's immense guilt in these acts back in 1956 and even more has come out since the USSR collapsed in 1991. Anyone who worships Stalin or the other Communist dictatorships clearly doesn't have a grasp on reality and has more issues then just love for a mass-murderer. Russia, like every country in the world, needs to fully admit the mistakes of their past and work to make sure the "wrongs" are made public so they won't be repeated. The horrendous acts committed by the repressive Communists should not be honored, but should be made as an example of what should never be allowed to happen ever again. It's unfortunate that Russia is going through tough times today (brought on mostly by their annexation of the Crimea and supporting the ethnic Russian terrorists in eastern Ukraine) and with that economic and political decline has come an official and unofficial love for anything Soviet. History is being rewritten so that people can feel good about themselves and not think too much about their current situation rather than for accuracy. It is made easier by the fact that many of the people who helped lie during Soviet times still have immense power in modern Russia. People who live in a bubble tend to believe everything they are told - even when the original bubble was bust 15 years ago and the full truth was made known back then. ^

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/news/article/plaques-commemorating-gulag-victims-popping-up-around-moscow/529143.html