In front of the railway station in the Crimean capital Simferopol there used to be a statue of Lenin and Stalin sitting side by side on a bench. Shortly after Khrushchev's Secret Speech in 1956, the granite likeness of Stalin was removed surreptitiously, and Lenin was left sitting alone on a slightly ridiculous half-bench, a book in his hand. In the thaw that followed the speech many of those who had been deported on Stalin's orders were allowed to return home, but not the Crimean Tatars.

LRB 23 June 1994 | PDF Download