From MT:
“Moscow Commemoration of
Stalin's Victims Returns After Pandemic”
(Several activists read out the
names of at the Solovetsky Stone, a monument from the first Soviet labor camp.)
An annual commemoration of victims
of Stalinist repressions has resumed live in person Friday after going online
due to the coronavirus pandemic last year. The Memorial human rights group
organizes the “Returning the Names” ceremony, an annual gathering outside the
former KGB headquarters in central Moscow that takes place every Oct. 29.
Participants read the names, ages and professions of those who died in Stalin’s
purges in the 1930s. “Today we are returning the names and the memory of the
places” where the victims had been repressed, said Memorial co-founder Yelena
Zhemkova during a live stream of the event.
As many as 30 million are
believed to have been killed during the repressions during the period known as
the Great Terror. Several activists who read out the names at the Solovetsky
Stone, a monument from the first Soviet labor camp, also issued demands for the
current Russian government to end what they called present-day repressions.
The Russian government declared
Oct. 30 the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions. But
Memorial began to honor victims the day before, on Oct. 29, after activists
balked at participating in official state ceremonies following what they called
renewed repressions in the mid-2000s. Russian authorities in 2013 labeled
Memorial a “foreign agent” for receiving money from abroad. The government and
pro-Kremlin vigilantes have increasingly targeted Memorial over its work.
^ 32 Million Soviet Men, Women
and Children were officially murdered by the Communists from 1917-1991 (98.4%
of them were innocent of their crimes.) This is only the number the Russian
Government officially recognizes - the
actual one is much higher.
While Stalin murdered millions
upon millions of Soviet Citizens and millions upon millions of Eastern
Europeans he reigned from 1922-1953 so the Communist bloodbath started before
him (under Lenin) and continued after him (under Malenkov, Khrushchev, Brezhnev,
Andropov, Chernenko and finally Gorbachev.)
It is only right for the Return of
the Names to continue in-person after being held virtually last year.
Since every victim had a name, a
family and a story that needs to be known. ^
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