Is it possible we're over thinking this just a bit?

This somewhat reminds me of groups such as Sons of the Confederacy, whom seek to honor the war time sacrifices of their forefathers without appearing to endorse slavery or being racist in general. Whether it be that or the Russian question it can seem like quite the needle to thread.

However, I think it's a bit more simple than all that.

First off we must start by acknowledging there is a difference between our WWII allies (as Titus eluded to). We were allied with the British and partisan/anti-Vichy French in what we were trying to preserve, not just in whom we were trying to defeat. That separates the Soviet regime from the rest. We all had a common enemy, not common cause. In that recognition it is only right that we honor our British (for example) ally in a far different way then do we the Russians. Busts of Churchill are expected, even required in D-Day museums, Stalin on the other hand ... well, we covered that.

Now, lets say (as is happening with the New Orleans D-Day Museum) you have in place an overall WWII museum, in which a proper description of the Eastern Front is clearly necessary. Can't we take a page from Russia herself in this respect? They hold parades, build memorials, honor their fallen all without evoking admiration (or even mention quite often I'd wager) of Josef Stalin. Instead they set about honoring the sacrifice of their fighting men. And we could even do one step better then that - in the new "Eastern Front" wing of the New Orleans museum I would present a recitation of just how brutal the Stalin regime was, it being necessary in my estimation in order to fully demonstrate the true grit possessed by the Russian people, and the nearly insurmountable odds they were facing. Here they were suffering under the yoke of one despotic regime while having to fight another. Centralized planning left them monumentally short of material, proper cold weather clothing, weaponry, food, anything imaginable needed to wage effective warfare, yet they prevailed. I think an Eastern Front wing in any Western nation's museum would do well to honor the individual Russian fighting man by describing what he had to endure at home and on the battlefield ("home" rhetorically & literally). Telling the story of how Red Army discipline was brutally enforced; how materially unprepared Marxist economic practice left the fighting men; how they had to organize a way forward despite an officer drain after the Stalinist military purges; the Hitler-Stalin Pact (as Titus aptly described); the fact that Himmler gleamed architectural/functional insight into German concentration camps by observing Soviet Gulags; the authoritarian government and bleak circumstances the Russian veteran returned to - this sort of complete picture only serves to highlight the efforts of the individual fighting Russian soldier, rather then diminish it, in my estimation. And while any tour of this Eastern Front wing of the museum would necessarily be ripe with era relative material, be it film footage, pictures etc, including those of Stalin, I think this sort of 2 birds with one stone presentation is not only historically accurate, but properly prevents such things as busts, or statues or any other manifestation which seems to honor the Soviet despot rather then the efforts of the individual fighting Rusky.

Is that not fair both to history and the WWII Russian soldier?