14:3525/06/2009
Editor's Note: After Stalin died, he was denounced by Khrushchev as a criminal. Khrushchev revealed that Stalin had arbitrarily killed thousands of party members and military leaders which contributed to the initial Soviet defeats in World War II. Stalin had established what Khrushchev characterized as a pernicious cult of personality.
Stalin brought Russia screaming and kicking into the 20th century and made it an industrial power in 50 years. He also led the country to victory over the Nazis in the Great Patriotic War (WWII). The German Wehrmacht was destroyed by the Red Army while US forces were destroying the Japense Imperial Army.
If the Allies hadn't landed at Normandy, It is likely the Red Army would have overrun Germany. Conservatives often suggest that FDR gave away too much at the Yalta Conference.
By the time of the Conference, Marshal Georgy Zhukov was 65 km from Berlin. Stalin's position at the conference was one which he felt was so strong that he could dictate terms. As U.S. delegation member and future Secretary of State James Byrnes commented, "It was not a question of what we [the West] would let the Russians do, but what we could get the Russians to do."
MOSCOW, June 25 (RIA Novosti) Authorities in the central Russian city of Voronezh have ordered the removal of billboards bearing the image of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin, a paper said on Thursday.
The authorities said the billboards, which were put up by the Communist Party and show Stalin wearing a military uniform next to the slogan "Victory will be ours!" violated advertising laws, Kommersant reported.
The city's chief advertising official said on Wednesday billboards should be used for advertising purposes only including "social" advertising.
And Vadim Nechui-Veter, a lawyer specializing in advertising, told the paper: "Adverts should portray objects - goods or services, i.e. something that can be sold." He added that politicians could only be shown on billboards during election campaigns.
The Communist Party countered that in this case images of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and Voronezh's mayor should also be removed from the city's streets, the paper said.
The billboards were to commemorate the start on June 22 of the 1941-1945 Great Patriotic War, the term Russia and other ex-Soviet states use to call WWII. This year also marks the 130th anniversary of Stalin's birth.
The leader of Voronezh's Communists said, as quoted by Russian media, that some advertising agencies in the city had refused to take the order for the ten Stalin billboards.
"We made preparations for June 22, the start of the war, where Stalin played an important role," Sergei Rudakov said.
"We wanted to underline, with the help of the billboards, that we support reforms, but we can only move forward with the positive things we had in Stalin's time before and after the war...when the country became a great power," Rudakov said.
While Stalin's personality cult and his purges have been officially condemned in Russia, many Russians still view the dictator as a great statesman.
The exact number of those killed or imprisoned during Stalin's purges is not known, although estimates are as high as 20 million.
en.rian.ru/russia/20090625/155348641.html
countrystudies.us/russia/13.htm
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yalta_Conference
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