BERLIN – Lenin and Stalin must have been turning in their graves Wednesday as statues of the fathers of communism in the heart of the former East Berlin were moved to new positions, facing west.

The statues of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were shifted some 80 meters (yards) to allow the extension of the Berlin underground, the city's transport organisation (BVG) said.

The new direction of the two statues has no political meaning, the BVG insisted.

Communist authorities erected the sculpture in 1986 outside the parliament building and it quickly became a symbol of the former East Germany that survived the fall of the Berlin Wall three years later.