MOSCOW. March 24 (Interfax) - The Kremlin believes that Russian Security Council Deputy Chairman Dmitry Medvedev's reference to Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's experience during the Great Patriotic War regarding the strict fulfilment by defense industry enterprises of their obligations to the army was justified.
When asked to comment on the Kremlin's attitude toward Medvedev's move, who read out Stalin's wartime telegrams in front of the directors of Russian defense industry plants, presidential press secretary Dmitry Peskov said, "It is necessary to refer to any experience. It was a very difficult time then. The Great Patriotic War was underway, so this experience is invaluable of course."
Medvedev said on Thursday that he had recently read Stalin's telegrams on defense industry issues and would like to read them out to the directors of such plants "in order to stimulate" them. In a telegram dated 1941, Stalin warned about what would happen to one of the directors of defense industry enterprises if the weapons delivery schedule was disrupted.