MOSCOW – A Moscow subway station is the newest focus of Russia's bitter dispute over the legacy of Josef Stalin, whose outsize shadow still haunts the nation more than 50 years after his death.

Critics of the Communist era were outraged when old Soviet national anthem lyrics praising Stalin were restored to a rotunda in the Kurskaya station this summer. Now there is talk of putting a statue of the dictator back where one used to stand, facing commuters entering the station.

Moscow's chief municipal architect Alexander Kuzmin, who raised the idea of returning the Stalin statue last week, said there was nothing behind it but a desire for historical accuracy.