They cleaned up the rest of the photo too. He would have been 39 in the photo and appears to be in excellent physical condition. He lived to 80.
In another article I found on Google his son admits he gave permission to remove the cigarette, that his father quit smoking a few years after the photo, and really disliked smoking later in his life. Considering the facts I don't see this as Stalinesque at all.
Except the pose now looks totally unnatural. All they had to do was recrop the photo. Problem solved, no controversy.