There will be no monument to Joseph Stalin...

Veterans and Communist Party members rallied in the city on Wednesday to call for the erection of a monument to the man who led the Soviet Union to victory in World War Two, but who was also responsible for the deaths of millions in labor camps.

"There has been a lot of talk about a monument to Stalin in the run-up to the 65th anniversary of victory in World War II," Yury Zabolyev announced after the meeting. "In January, Communist Party members held a rally and accused me of spitting on the history of the Soviet Union."

"But I believe that the erection of a Stalin statue would be, at the very least, an insult and a disrespect to the memory of the fallen heroes of the war. There will be no monument in Irkutsk while I am mayor," he added.

He suggested instead the creation of a monument to the mothers of those soldiers who perished during the war.

"This would be a unifying monument for all World War Two veterans, showing respect to the mothers who gave birth

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