Stalin Shown In Fresh Light

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30980, 9 February 1966, Page 13

Stalin Shown In Fresh Light

(N.Z.P.A. Reuter—Copyright) MOSCOW, February 7. Stalin made a brief reappearance on Russian television screens tonight after an absence of what is believed to be more than 10 years.

His portrait filled half the screen for a few brief seconds during a history lesson for younger viewers about the period following the 1917 revolution which overthrew the Tsar. It came in a portrait gallery of the Bolshevik leaders who were at the time plotting the fall of the provisional Social Democratic government which replaced the monarchy. In another sequence, Stalin was shown standing next to Lenin while the Bolshevik leader signed a document. New Balance 1 The reappearance of the familiar face after so many years was seen here as part of the drive to restore a more balanced picture of the former dictator than had been current after violent denunciations of him by Mr Nikita Khrushchev. Only eight days ago, leading Soviet historians hinted

that the de-Stalinisation campaign launched by Mr Khrushchev might be dropped in a search for historical truth.

Writing in the Soviet Communist Party newspaper “Pravda,” they termed the phrase the “period of the cult of personality,” coined by Mr Khrushchev to describe Stalin’s rule, as erroneous and non-Marxist, and called for a revaluation of his role.