Penza, 8 May 2016. PenzaNews. The Penza Communists have laid flowers to the Joseph Stalin monument by the CPRF regional committee building on Kirova street as a token of gratitude to the Soviet leader’s contribution to the victory over Nazi Germany and its full surrender on 8 May 1945, exactly 71 years ago.

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“Today, we assembled to express our stand in relation to our history, to the man who wrote its most heroic pages. We always stressed and are stressing now that there would be no Victory without Stalin and no Stalin without Victory. This man was and remains for us the embodiment of great deeds of the Soviet state,” said Dmitry Filyaev, first secretary of the CPRF Penza city committee.

At present, the society’s opinion on the figure of Joseph Stalin is divided, he pointed out.

“Our enemies are finding proofs that the victory has been achieved not thanks to Stalin, but in spite of him. But we all know well that the first thing that any nation and any army needs is an organizer. No victory would be possible without a guiding force. And the comrade Stalin ended up being the very force that united the Soviet people,” Dmitry Filyaev added.

In turn, Georgy Kamnev, first secretary of the Regional Committee of the Communist Party, deputy of the Legislative Assembly of the Penza region, reminded that the year of 2016 has been chosen as the Year of Stalin in the region, and Victory Day is one of the events that provides an opportunity to get a better insight into the figure of the Soviet leader and his standing in the national and international history.

“Once again, we are giving our dues to everything that had been done by this great man. Thank you, veterans, you who fought, the heroes who lost their lives in the battlefields to make our country free and liberate the world from the ‘brown uniform plague’,” stressed the leader of the Penza Communists.

However, he also stressed that Nazi ideas are finding their followers even now.

“The followers of ‘brown uniform’ ideas are gaining numbers with time. We see their marches in the Baltic countries. And now, they are freely congregating in Ukraine and proclaiming the traitors of the humankind as their heroes,” Georgy Kamnev pointed out.

According to the deputy, the current situation calls for the Russian people to unite over preventing the tragedy.

Moreover, during the official event, the leader of Penza Communists presented the party membership documents to their new comrade Oleg Salnikov.

Also, Georgy Kamnev reminded the people that the Penza Communists will assemble on May 9 by the “Buratino” store on Pobedy prospekt at 10.00, to form a column for the march to celebrate the 71st anniversary of the Great Victory.

Following the announcements, the people laid flowers to the Joseph Stalin monument.