Russian Communist leader Gennady Zyuganov...
Moscow mayor Yury Luzhkov announced plans to display portraits of Stalin in Moscow in February. Human rights activists protested against the decision, saying they would stage demonstrations if the posters were put up. Defending the decision, Luzhkov said while he was not a Stalin apologist, the billboards reflected "objective history."
"I am not sure the Moscow city government would be enough brave to bring this idea to life," Zyuganov told journalists at a news-conference, noting that the plan had seen fierce criticism.
He also added that the Communist Party would circulate its own material on Stalin.
Communist Party members and veteran organizations insist that it was Stalin"s leadership that pulled the Soviet Union through its darkest hour and freed Europe from the tyranny of Nazism. However, rights organizations and analysts, among others, say that Stalin"s mass purges of the army in the years before the war left the country exposed to an attack by Germany.