While Vladimir Putin may be encouraging the rehabilitation of Stalin’s image in order to increase support for his own leadership, some of today’s Stalin supporters are openly critical of the president.

Children play on a tank at the Museum of Military Equipment in Bor, Nizhny Novgorod. “I spent my life demolishing Stalin’s totalitarian system that killed hundreds of thousands, the core of Russia’s elite,” said Valery Borshchev, a former Soviet dissident who is now a human rights activist at the Moscow Helsinki Group, a Russian human rights organization.

This has come as a shock to some Russians. Opinion polls conducted by the Levada Center, an independent polling organization based in Moscow, have shown that approximately 70 percent of Russians approve of Stalin and his policies. Yet in recent years, statues have been erected around the country celebrating the man as a national hero who defeated the Nazis and oversaw an era of modernization. Under Stalin’s rule, approximately 1.7 million Soviet citizens were evicted from their homes and taken to forced labor camps. The Stalin Сenter would remind state officials that “they must fight corruption at the top,” he said. Zorov was 18 when he joined the Communist Party, which still enjoys strong support among local residents. “Stalin, wake up!” an old man in the crowd yelled, as if addressing a statue of the deceased dictator. People watch the laying the first stone in the foundations of the Stalin Center in Bor, Nizhny Novgorod. Putin’s government has cracked down harshly on pro-democracy protesters, as thousands of people have taken to the streets in support of the imprisoned opposition leader Alexei Navalny. To others, however, Stalin represents an era of fear and repression that seems all-too familiar in Russia today. To some, the memory of Stalin suggests an era of national greatness, and President Vladimir Putin has promoted Stalin’s image as a way to deflect criticism of his own leadership, as he grapples with falling approval ratings, a sluggish economy and accusations of corruption. The public rehabilitation of Stalin’s image reflects the social and political tensions that have gripped Russia in recent months. He won the war and built the country from ruins,” Aleksey Zorov, 44, a local businessman who is the sponsor of the new center inaugurated May 8, told NBC News.

Another view on stalin