TBILISI (Georgia) For more than half a century a forbidding statue of Joseph Stalin loomed over Gori, the Georgian town where the Soviet Union's most notorious tyrant was born. Nearby is the modest one-storey hut where the young Stalin grew up. There is also a museum, complete with Stalin's personal railway carriage, portraits and letters.

But in a secret operation early on Friday Georgia's pro-western government ripped the monument down. The six-metre high bronze statue of Stalin kitted out in a full-length general's overcoat is to be moved into the museum courtyard.

In its place president Mikheil Saakashvili plans to erect a monument to the victims of the 2008 Russia-Georgia war.

The operation is likely to offend many Georgians, especially older ones, for whom Stalin remains a source of pride - despite the gulags, purges and other crimes.

The Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev tore down thousands of Stalin statues after the dictator's death in 1953. But the politburo gave exceptional permission for the one in Gori - a small city 80km west of the capital Tbilisi - to remain.

Gori is also home to some smaller statues and busts of Stalin, who was born on 21 December 1879 as Josef Dzhugashvili.

Russian warplanes pulverised Gori's main square during the war in August 2008, killing a Dutch journalist who had been filming nearby.

It is unclear why Saakashvili suddenly decided to send in municipal workers and police to cart the statue off.

“I think it's a sign of Georgia's western orientation, and of cutting links with the communist past,” Zaza Gachechiladze, editor-in-chief of the Georgian Messenger newspaper said.

He added “But it's also a controversial move. There are still some sentiments towards Stalin in Georgia. He's seen as a local boy who achieved great heights and for 30 years was No 1 in the world together with Hitler.

“There is a kind of local patriotism here. This will be a personal insult for many elderly people in particular, who still love and worship him.”

The statue was erected in 1952. Khrushchev's denunciation of the cult of personality meant that Stalin - unlike Lenin - vanished from most squares and streets in the Soviet Union.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service