A Russian court ruled against Josef Stalin’s grandson on Tuesday in a libel suit over a newspaper article that said the Soviet dictator had sent thousands of people to their deaths. A judge at a Moscow district court rejected the claim that the newspaper, Novaya Gazeta, damaged Stalin’s honor and dignity in an April article that referred to him as a “bloodthirsty cannibal.” Stalin’s grandson, Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, who did not attend the trial, had demanded a retraction, a public apology and monetary damages. The ruling was a rare victory for Stalin’s critics in their fight against efforts to rehabilitate the dictator, who according to the rights group Memorial ordered the deaths of at least 724,000 people during a series of purges that peaked in the late 1930s. “What should have happened, happened,” said Anatoly Yablokov, the article’s writer. “It’s a decision based on the law.”