Women walk past a statue of Stalin | Getty Stalin’s new clothes As Lenin statues are tumbling down in Ukraine, Stalin statues are being erected in Russia.

In the provincial city of Oryol, 370 km from Moscow, preparations for the 70th anniversary of the Soviet victory over Nazi forces on May 9, known as Victory Day in Russia, have been underway for more than two weeks. The streets are plastered with billboards depicting scenes from WWII, and Stalin’s face gleams from signs on boths sides of the main avenue. Inside the train station, animated maps trace the 1943 Soviet counter-offensive against German forces. A documentary about that feat plays on repeat in the waiting room.

Across town, sculptor Dmitry Basarev has just finished his most unexpected commission to date: a bronze-plated bust of Stalin, complete with the Soviet leader’s fine moustache and thickset shoulders — both perfectly matched to the original features. Just another day’s work, he insists.

“This is my profession. I carry out commissions. In the end, half the population supports the idea. What’s foolish is destroying statues, not putting them up,” he says, lighting up in his cramped, airless workshop.

The build-up to this year’s Victory Day celebration has coincided with a Stalinist renaissance of sorts. Against the backdrop of the crisis in neighboring Ukraine, a state-sponsored effort to fan patriotic sentiment in Russia has brought about a reassessment of the dictator’s contribution to its history. In Moscow, bookshops are filled with volumes casting a positive light on Stalin’s policies, and new museums praising his legacy are scheduled to open in time for May 9.

A March survey conducted by independent Levada Center found that 45 percent of respondents believe that the successes of Stalin’s rule justify the sacrifices Soviet citizens made during his time in power. That figure was 25 percent in November 2012. The same poll found that while the number of people with a positive opinion of Stalin has remained stable over the past 15 years at around 35 percent, those with a negative opinion have markedly decreased in number, from 43 percent in 2001 to 20 percent today.

In Oryol, surveys indicated that over half of the city’s inhabitants supported the idea of a new Stalin statue in town. So the local Communist party chose to erect one at exactly the same location on Moskovskaya street where his eight-meter figure towered in the 1950s, and commissioned Basarev to sculpt it. The news sparked heated debates far beyond the city itself, one of dozens across the country where Stalin’s rehabilitation is underway.

In Lipetsk, a city in Russia’s so called “Red Belt” of traditionally Communist-leaning regions, some 300 km from Oryol, a new bust of Stalin, sculpted in the republic of North Ossetia, was erected on May 6. It is now under the watchful eye of CCTV cameras, according to state media, though it has already been vandalized. Two weeks prior, on April 23, banners depicting Stalin were removed from the streets of the northern city Syktyvkar after an uproar from local residents.

In Oryol, locals whose relatives personally fell victim to Stalin’s repressive regime are also making their voices heard. In the Medvedevsky forest on the city’s outskirts, 16 km drive from the center, hundreds accused of collaborating with the advancing German army in 1941 were shot. Today, in that same clearing, a granite monolith with a commemorative inscription stands.

“The idea of erecting a monument to Stalin in our city belongs to people who do not understand his regime. The fact that [his] phantom is hanging over Russia’s cities is a stern warning to all of us,” said Ilya Kushelev, a 36-year-old music teacher who campaigns for the preservation of architectural heritage.

Kushelev, along with 5,000 people from around the globe, signed an online petition against the Oryol statue, first posted in March. Participants credit the petition with stalling the Communists’ progress.

But this is not the first time such an initiative has been launched in Oryol. A similar campaign for a new Stalin statue began to mark the 60th anniversary of WWII in 2005, but never gained traction. Basarev, who has created hundreds of sculptures across Russia, said he didn’t even catch wind of those plans at the time.

The force behind the drive for a new Stalin statue, then and now, is Svetlana Polyanskaya. The 76-year-old was a small-time party functionary in Soviet times and until recently served as chief editor for the “Oryol Spark,” the weekly newspaper of the Communist party’s regional branch. Polyanskaya is open about the fact that she is desperate for a return to the Soviet Union, when “a true sense of solidarity prevailed.” While she admits she does not remember Stalin, who died when she was 14, in 1953, she has a fond recollection of the system he helped create.

“Within 30 years, Stalin managed to create a country that was victorious over the united forces of Europe. He had to repress people who tried to interfere with this modernisation. The repressions were a necessary measure to complete that course,” she said.

Polyanskaya’s wistfulness is not unusual in Oryol, where Soviet flags hang outside homes and the Communist Party holds an undisputed majority. The provincial city lies at the heart of the "Red Belt." Four Stalin statues stood here until the mid 1950s, when Nikita Khrushchev denounced his predecessor’s legacy and commenced his policy of de-Stalinization.

Stalin’s supporters in the city insist that the new wave of positive feeling towards the Soviet dictator will only grow, though Basarev’s sculpture may never see the light of day. A combination of public backlash against the project, combined with the party’s failure to commission an appropriately Stalinist height for the likeness, means it might make more sense to hide the statue than to showcase it.

“I told them the size they commissioned will be too small, but they didn’t listen,” Basarev said. Behind the heavy metal door that leads to his workshop, located on a small sidestreet in Oryol’s industrial district, only a plaster-cast of the generalissimo remains. After a week of uncertainty concerning its fate, the rejected clay bust was discarded.

Nevertheless, local Communist politicians like Evgeny Melnik, a deputy in the Oryol city parliament, are not giving up.

“Stalin said: ‘I know that after my death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on my grave, but the wind of History will sooner or later sweep it away. Gradually that rubbish is being swept off. In 10 years, Stalin’s name will be fully rehabilitated,” Melnik said.

Dismissing suggestions that his supporters have lost the fight in Oryol, Melnik is convinced Stalin’s presence will return soon to grace the city’s streets. “This is not a loss. Even if we don’t manage to erect the statue now, we will win ideologically in the long run. You’ll see,” he said.

Matthew Luxmoore is a Moscow-based freelance journalist who has written for Al Jazeera, The Times, Foreign Policy, The New Republic and other publications.

Authors: