On 30 October 2009, due to the Day of Remembrance of the Victims of Political Repressions, President Medvedev published a statement in his video blog. He stressed that the memory of national tragedies is as sacred as the memory of victory. Medvedev recalled that for twenty of the pre-war years entire layers and classes of the Russian people were destroyed (this period includes the Red Terror mainly under the lead of Felix Dzerzhinsky, the crimes of Joseph Stalin and other evil deeds of the Soviet Bolsheviks). Nothing can take precedence over the value of human life, said the President.