The Moscow authorities were under fire from activists and Russia's political establishment Wednesday over a plan to commemorate tyrant Joseph Stalin during World War II victory celebrations.

The municipality has unveiled plans to erect posters and information points remembering Stalin's role in the war during parades that are planned for the 65th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi Germany on 9 May.
 

If realised, the plans would break a major taboo in the Russian capital of promoting a figure who is blamed for the deaths of millions of Soviet citizens in the Gulag prison camps and forced collectivisation.
 

"We can say that it was not Stalin who won the war, but the people,” commented parliament speaker Boris Gryzlov, a leader of the ruling United Russia party who rarely steps out of line with the political elite.
 

"The ambiguous role that Stalin played in the life of our country will not be corrected by posters," he told the Interfax news agency.
 

Activists have over the last decade raised the alarm over growing official efforts to promote Stalin, at a time when polls show he is still fondly regarded by many Russians as a strong leader who won the war.

Past killings condemned
However Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in October strongly condemned the mass killings under Stalin, in a surprise move some saw as a hardening of Kremlin attitudes towards the wartime dictator.
 

The advertising and information committee of Moscow municipality had the day earlier announced the billboard campaign, Russian news agencies reported.
 

Russian media said that the move came after pressure from Vladimir Dolgikh, a former top Communist Party boss in the Soviet era who now heads the powerful Moscow council of war veterans.
 

"You cannot remove Stalin from the history of the war," former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev told the Izvestia newspaper.
 

"But it needs to be remembered that the country entered the war badly prepared with its own military commanders repressed," he added.

Protests
Lyudmila Alexeyeva, head of the Moscow Helsinki Group, vowed to "protest against this in every way possible", while Lev Ponomarev, head of the Movement for Human Rights, said the billboard campaign was certain to spark protests.
 

Stalin came fifth in a poll by the Russian public opinion research centre seeking the greatest idol of modern Russians.
 

In August last year, an inscription praising Stalin was restored in a Moscow metro station, also sparking outrage from liberals.
 

Source: AFP