Stalin Anniversary Draws Party Faithful

A few dozen Communists made a pilgrimage Thursday to Gori, the birthplace of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, on the 45th anniversary of his death.

Up to 80 people took part in a wreath-laying ceremony at the Stalin statue in the town square. The number of mourners voyaging to Gori on the anniversary has dwindled steadily from about 1,000 five years ago.

This year, the Georgian Communist Party asked its followers not to go to Gori because of the tense situation in he Caucasus nation, where President Eduard Shevardnadze was targeted in an assassination attempt last month. In Moscow, dozens of people marched through Red Square with portraits of the Soviet leader, who ruled for 24 years before dying of a brain hemorrhage.

Many still revile Stalin for his reign of terror, in which more than 21 million people were killed. Admirers look back to his era as a time of glory, when the Soviet Union entered the modern age and life was more stable.