A monument to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin erected in Moscow's metro is stirring debate, with some Russians welcoming it as a historical tribute, but others saying it's a mistake to commemorate someone who presided over so much suffering.

The life-size wall sculpture in Moscow's Taganskaya metro station depicts Stalin standing on Moscow's Red Square surrounded by a crowd of Soviet citizens looking at him in admiration, and is a recreation of a monument that was unveiled in the same station in 1950, three years before Stalin died.

The Moscow metro said that the original monument to Stalin had been "lost" in 1966 when the Taganskaya metro station hosting it had been reconfigured.

Nearly 700,000 people were executed in Stalin's 1937-38 Great Terror amid show trials and purges of his real and perceived enemies. Many other Soviet citizens were sent to the Gulag, a grim network of prison camps, spread across the world's largest country.

The Moscow metro said in a statement that the new version of the monument, which was presented to the public on May 15, was one of its "gifts" to passengers to mark the 90th anniversary of the sprawling, ornate and famously efficient transport system.

The work's original title, "Gratitude of the People to the Leader and Commander,” was dedicated to Stalin's role in delivering victory for the Soviet Union in World War Two, the 80th anniversary of which Russia marked with pomp this year.

"This man (Stalin), he created a lot," said Yevgeny Ivanov, a Moscow resident, who had come to look at the new monument on Wednesday.