Guess whos back...Back again..Stalin's back politcaly exile a friend...

[exatreide]

http://edition.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/europe/07/23/stalingrad.reut/index.html

MOSCOW, Russia (Reuters) -- A reference to Soviet dictator Josef Stalin is to appear on a Russian monument for the first time in more than 40 years, on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin made public on Friday.

Putin ordered the word "Stalingrad" engraved on a memorial complex by the Kremlin wall in Moscow, replacing Volgograd, the current name of the city where one of the bloodiest battles of World War Two was fought.

Less than two years ago Putin said reviving the name of Stalingrad "would do us no good."

But his latest order, posted on the presidential Web site www.kremlin.ru on Friday, said restoring Stalin's name on the monument was to "pay tribute to the heroism of the defenders of Stalingrad and to preserve the history of the Russian state."

In 1961 Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev publicly accused Stalin, who died in 1953, of killing millions of innocent people in political purges and ordered his name removed from most official records.

Countless monuments referring to the Soviet leader of nearly three decades were pulled down.

Stalingrad, named after the dictator in the late 1930s, was one of hundreds of cities, towns, villages, factories and collective farms renamed under Khrushchev's orders. Stalin's name was removed from history books as well.

Under Khrushchev's successor Leonid Brezhnev, Stalin staged a partial comeback as a respected leader and the wartime commander-in-chief in state-sponsored films and books. But his name and role remained taboo in official records.

Russians hail Stalin in 1992 on anniversary of the leaders death.

Post-Soviet Russian leaders have resisted pressure from nationalists and war veterans to restore the name of Stalingrad to the city on the Volga, where more than one million Russians and Germans died in five months of fighting in 1942-1943.

In December 2002 Putin, a KGB spy in Soviet times, said: "I am sure that by reviving the name of Stalingrad in this country we could trigger suspicion that we are returning to the times of Stalinism. This would do us no good."

But his change of mind appears to have been triggered by next year's 60th anniversary of the end of World War Two, known as the Great Patriotic War in Russia and other ex-Soviet states.

The event will probably be the last occasion for lavish ceremonies honoring more than 20 million Soviet dead.

[Caid Ivik]

It's not a rememberance on Stalin, but on the name of city, in which the fights were held. Actually I never heard anything else about that fight than "battle for Stalingrad", tough today we call that city Volgograd, as well as there was a blockade of Leningrad, which we call now Petrohrad as well. If we talk about the empire of Nabukadnezar, we say it was babylonian, not as an "empire of al-Babilim".

[Dunenewt]

Putin is more 'imperial' than 'stalinist' to me.

[Edric O]

I agree.

And this whole thing really is just a lot of hot air for nothing. They're talking about the name of the city (Stalingrad/Volgograd), not any rehabilitation of Stalin himself.