The RIA news agency quoted party leader Sergei Malinkovych as saying: “The party has submitted a request to the Prosecutor General’s Office of the Russian Federation and the Federal Security Service to verify the possible involvement of Western intelligence services in the death of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.”

Malinkovitch added, according to the agency’s report: “Numerous testimonies given by Stalin’s contemporaries speak of the possibility that the leader of the Soviet republics was poisoned by agents subject to Western influence.”

Tuesday marks the seventy-first anniversary of the death of Stalin, who was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 until the day of his death.

A hemorrhagic stroke caused his death, according to the government.

Stalin oversaw Russia's rapid industrial transformation, but he was also responsible for the deaths of millions in purges, forced labor camps, and famines.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who portrays himself as the heir to the past tsars, offered a thoughtful assessment of Stalin, praising his leadership during the wars while condemning his domestic policies as "totalitarian."

The Communist Party of Russia was registered in 2012, and its main competitor is the Communist Party of the Russian Federation, which considers itself a successor to the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.