Millions of Soviet citizens perished in prison camps and ethnic-deportation campaigns under the reign of Josef Stalin.

Nonetheless, he remains one of Russia's most popular historical figures, remembered fondly as a strong leader who led the Soviet Union to victory in World War II.

"Comrades! The Great Patriotic War has ended with our complete victory," Stalin told Soviet citizens in a radio broadcast on May 10, 1945. "The period of war in Europe has come to an end. A period of peaceful development has now begun."

It was 130 years ago today that Stalin was born, as Iosif Dzhugashvili, in the Georgian town of Gori.

Russia's Communist Party is marking the anniversary with a wreath-hanging ceremony at Stalin's Kremlin gravesite and numerous marches in his honor.

"Between 3,000 and 5,000 people went. They kept coming and coming and coming, and we placed [flowers], and people were still coming," says Nikolai Kharitonov, a Communist lawmaker in the State Duma who was among those who went to Stalin's grave today. "That's why it's a holiday. I'm the son of an officer who served under the leadership of the Generalissimo Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin."

Communists handed out medals to a number of famous sportsmen, including former world chess champion Anatoly Karpov, to commemorate Stalin's birth. Party members also called for a moratorium on criticism of the controversial leader to allow people time to reflect on his accomplishments.

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