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CNN. 21 December 2001. Stalin's birth marked in home town. GORI, Georgia - The 122nd anniversary of the birth of former Soviet leader Josef Stalin as been celebrated in his Georgian home town. About 1,000 supporters of Stalin gathered on Friday in Gori, waving Soviet flags and bearing portraits him as they walked from his home, now a museum, to the Stalin monument in the town centre. One banner read "Under the banner of Stalin, together with Russia!" Georgiy Goriashvili, an 86-year-old decorated World War II veteran, told The Associated Press: "Under Stalin we lived so well, we were proud of our country. We were victors, together with the Americans and the British we beat the fascists. We were equals." Many of the speakers who addressed the rally called for the removal from office of Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze. "What kind of president is he when children are going hungry and the country is falling apart?" said Panteleymon Georgadze, the head of the Georgian Communist Party. Critics accuse Shevardnadze, a reform-oriented Soviet foreign minister under former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, of failing to stem corruption or improve Georgia's economy. He also has been facing pressure from the breakaway region of Abkhazia, separatists in South Ossetia, and from Russia, which accuses Georgia of harbouring rebels fighting Russian troops in neighbouring Chechnya. "If we don't make peace with Russia, nothing will remain of our country," said Vakhtang Goguadze, a former parliamentary speaker who now heads the Georgian-Russian Friendship Association. In Moscow, Russian Communist Party leader Gennady Zyuganov laid a wreath by Stalin's grave in the Kremlin wall. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Barry Stoller http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ProletarianNews ==^================================================================ This email was sent to: [email protected] EASY UNSUBSCRIBE click here: http://topica.com/u/?a84x2u.a9WB2D Or send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] T O P I C A -- Register now to manage your mail! http://www.topica.com/partner/tag02/register ==^================================================================
