WORLD : Lenin’s Niece Blames Stalin
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MOSCOW — The closest living relative of Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet state, today blamed Josef Stalin for the current unpopularity of her uncle and said “sacred” monuments to Lenin in Eastern Europe should be preserved.
Olga Ulyanova, a daughter of Lenin’s younger brother, Dmitri, told the newspaper Argumentia i Fakti that the fashionable criticism of Lenin is nothing less than “ideological sabotage.”
“There is no end of attacks on Lenin in the mass media and television,” she said. “These attacks destroy our sacred national figure, destroy our Communist Party. Something sacred should remain. It is sad to read about the destruction of Lenin monuments by extremists and fascists in Eastern Europe.”
Ulyanova took vigorous exception to the view that Lenin, not Stalin, inaugurated the Soviet police state with its crimes. “This is a lie,” she said.
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