GORI : Stalin Loyalists Gather
Loyalists plan a rally Wednesday in Gori, Josef Stalin’s hometown in Georgia, to mark the 115th anniversary of his birth. The Soviet dictator was born Josef Dzugashvili in a one-room brick and wood shack on the southern slopes of the Caucasus Mountains.
Stalinists, mostly aging Communists who pine for a restoration of something like the Soviet Union, hold annual demonstrations in Gori and other cities across the former empire. A rally is scheduled in Moscow’s Teatralnaya Square, and Stalin’s grave behind the Lenin mausoleum will be open to visitors.
Stalin ruled the Soviet Union with an iron hand from 1924 until his death in 1953.
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