Stalin grandson in court fight to clear dictator's name

Sitting in his front room at home in Moscow, surrounded by shelves of books on 20th-century history, Leonid Zhura recounts how life was better under Stalin. "It was a heroic epoch. It was the first time in human history that a society was founded on fair principles," he says, adding that Stalin did not commit any crimes.

Zhura's views are not greatly unusual in today's Russia. What distinguishes the amateur historian from other Stalin fans is that he is going to court to prove his assertion that Stalin never killed anybody. And he claims to have an impeccable witness – Stalin's 73-year-old grandson.

At lunchtime tomorrow Yevgeny Dzhugashvili – the offspring of Stalin's ill-fated son Yakov, from the dictator's first marriage – is due to appear at Moscow's Basmanny court. Dzhugashvili lives in Tbilisi, Georgia. But at Zhura's invitation, he is flying to Moscow to take part in a libel action against Novaya Gazeta, Russia's leading liberal newspaper.