Stalin was back. Since last summer, he had hardly been glimpsed by the public. Rumors had him paralyzed, deposed, dead. When a Swedish cancer specialist flew to Moscow last month, U.S. newspapers started brushing up their Stalin obituaries.
Last week, on the huge, red-draped stage of Moscow's Bolshoi Theater, before hills of spring-hued paper blossoms, Stalin was very much alive. The ceremonies hon ored the 24th anniversary of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's death (Stalin, at 68, has now outlived Lenin by 15 years). Surrounded by assorted party bigwigs, Stalin listened to his new Agitation and Propaganda chief, tousled, turbulent...
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