 The current statue replaces a monumental statue of General Secretary Joseph Stalin that was created as a victory memorial for World War II.During Stalin's reign of the Soviet Union, Grigor Harutyunyan, the first secretary of the Armenian Communist Party's Central Committee and members of the government oversaw the construction of the monument which was completed and unveiled to the people on November 29, 1967.The statue was considered a masterpiece of the sculptor Sergey Merkurov.