Joseph Stalin (1878 – 1953)
View(s):Joseph Stalin
Born : Dec 18th1878 Gori Tiflis Governorate of the Russian Empire(now Georgia)
Died : March 05th 1953 (at the age of 74)
Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Nationality : Georgian
Political party : Communist party of the Soviet Union
Religion : Atheist
The Leader of Russia after Lenin
There were many tyrannical Leaders in the world history to be recalled by which also remained as a fact in respect of the Russian government too; rulers namely Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great existed in the Russian history of whom due to their despotic character and the lust for power paved the way for many in reaching their graves.
And in the 20th century there existed a Russian communist ruler who developed its industries as well as the military also at the same time punished and killed his opponents in the cruelest manner that he was renowned as the “Cruel Dictator” the world over!
Joseph Stalin (originally known as Vissarion Djugashvilli) was born to a Georgian family in Russia and in later years he joined an underground revolutionary group and sided with the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social-Democratic Workers Party in 1903. And then became a follower of Vladimir Lenin and was later appointed to the Bolshevik central committee in 1912.
He was later exiled to Siberia, which was described by Stalin as the happiest period of his life! And his return to Russia was in 1917.
During 1917-23 he served as Commissar for Nationalities and for state control in the Bolshevic Government. When Lenin died in 1924 Stalin became the Ruler of Russia. He later consolidated his position as a dictator by overcoming his rivals including Rykov,Trotsky,Bucharin and several others.
In 1928 Stalin initiated his first five year plan which brought Russia both glory and suffering. Some historians say that the industrialization of Russia during Stalin’s era was the fastest in history. And soon after the war Stalin was according to Service was at the “apex of his career”. Within the Soviet Union he was widely regarded as the embodiment of victory and patriotism.
Yet nevertheless during the post-war period there were often food shortages in Soviet cities and the USSR experienced a major famine from 1946 to 1947. Sparked by a drought and ensuing bad harvest in 1946, thus according to estimates between one million and 1.5 million people dying from malnutrition or disease. While agricultural production stagnated, Stalin focused on a series of major infrastructure projects, including the construction of hydroelectric plants, canals, and railway lines running to the polar north where much of this was constructed by prison labour.
However the US began pushing its interests on every continent, acquiring air force bases in Africa and Asia and ensuring pro-U.S. regimes taking power across Latin America launching the Marshall Plan in June 1947, with which it sought to undermine Soviet hegemony in Eastern Europe.
The Allies demanded that Stalin withdraw the Red Army from Northern Iran. He initially refused, leading to an international crisis in 1946, but one year later Stalin finally relented and moved the Soviet troops out. He sent Molotov as his representative to San Francisco to take part in negotiations to form the United Nations, insisting that the Soviets have a place on the Security Council.
In April 1949, the Western powers established the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), an international military alliance of capitalist countries. Within Western countries, Stalin was increasingly portrayed as the “most evil dictator alive” thus compared to Hitler.
In his later years, Stalin was in poor health. He took increasingly long holidays; in 1950 and again in 1951 he spent almost five months vacationing at his Abkhazian dacha. Stalin nevertheless mistrusted his doctors; in January 1952 he had one imprisoned after they suggested that he should retire to improve his health. In September 1952, several Kremlin doctors were arrested for allegedly plotting to kill senior politicians in what came to be known as the Doctors’ Plot; the majority of the accused were Jewish. He instructed the arrested doctors to be tortured to ensure confession.
On 1 March 1953, Stalin’s staff found him semi-conscious on the bedroom floor of his Volynskoe dacha. He had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and died on 5 March 1953. According to Svetlana, it had been “a difficult and terrible death”. An autopsy revealed that he had died of a cerebral hemorrhage and that he also suffered from severe damage to his cerebral arteries due to atherosclerosis which made it possible for Stalin’s death to be somewhat a murder.
Stalin claimed to have embraced Marxism at the age of fifteen and it served as the guiding philosophy throughout his adult life. As a Marxist and an extreme anti-capitalist, Stalin believed in an inevitable “class war” between the world’s proletariat and bourgeoise.
He believed that the working classes would prove successful in this struggle and would establish a dictatorship of the proletariat, regarding the Soviet Union as an example of such a state. He also believed that this proletarian state would need to introduce repressive measures against foreign and domestic “enemies” to ensure the full crushing of the propertied classes and thus the class war would intensify with the advance of socialism. As a propaganda tool, the shaming of “enemies” explained all inadequate economic and political outcomes, the hardships endured by the populace, and military failures.
The new state would then be able to ensure that all citizens had access to work, food, shelter, healthcare, and education, with the wastefulness of capitalism eliminated by a new, standardised economic system.
Stalin adhered to the Leninist variant of Marxism. In his book, Foundations of Leninism, he stated that “Leninism is the Marxism of the epoch of imperialism and of the proletarian revolution”. He claimed to be a loyal Leninist, although was according to Service “not a blindly obedient Leninist”.
Stalin respected Lenin, but not uncritically and spoke out when he believed that Lenin was wrong. During the period of his revolutionary activity, Stalin regarded some of Lenin’s views and actions as being the self-indulgent activities of a spoiled émigré, deeming them counterproductive for those Bolshevik activists based within the Russian Empire itself.
After the October Revolution, they continued to have differences. Whereas Lenin believed that all countries across Europe and Asia would readily unite as a single state following proletariat revolution, Stalin argued that national pride would prevent this, and that different socialist states would have to be formed; in his view, a country like Germany would not readily submit to being part of a Russian-dominated federal state.
Stalin biographer Oleg Khlevniuk nevertheless believed that the pair developed a “strong bond” over the years while Kotkin suggested that Stalin’s friendship with Lenin was “the single most important relationship in Stalin’s life”.
After Lenin’s death, Stalin relied heavily on Lenin’s writings, far more so than those of Marx and Engels to guide him in the affairs of state. Stalin adopted the Leninist view on the need for a revolutionary vanguard who could lead the proletariat rather than being led by them. Leading this vanguard, he believed that the Soviet peoples needed a strong, central figure—akin to a Tsar—whom they could rally around. In his words, “the people need a Tsar, whom they can worship and for whom they can live and work”. He read about, and admired, two Tsars in particular: Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great.
Stalin viewed nations as contingent entities which were formed by capitalism and could merge into others. Ultimately he believed that all nations would merge into a single, global human community and regarded all nations as inherently equal.
Stalin brutally, artfully, indefatigably built a personal dictatorship within the Bolshevik dictatorship. Then he launched and saw through a bloody socialist remaking of the entire former empire, presided over a victory in the greatest war in human history, and took the Soviet Union to the epicentre of global affairs. More than for any other historical figure, even Gandhi or Churchill, a biography of Stalin… eventually comes to approximate a history of the world!
His Personality
Ethnically Georgian, Stalin grew up speaking the Georgian language and did not begin learning Russian until the age of eight or nine. He remained proud of his Georgian identity and throughout his life retained a heavy Georgian accent when speaking Russian. Stalin’s colleagues described him as “Asiatic”, and he once told a Japanese journalist that “I am not a European man, but an Asian, a Russified Georgian”!
Stalin had a soft voice and when speaking Russian did so slowly, carefully choosing his phrasing. In private he used coarse language, although avoided doing so in public. Described as a poor orator, according to Volkogonov, Stalin’s speaking style was “simple and clear.
He rarely spoke before large audiences, and preferred to express himself in written form. His writing style was similar, being characterised by its simplicity, clarity, and conciseness. Throughout his life, he used various nicknames and pseudonyms, including “Koba”, “Soselo”, and “Ivanov”, adopting “Stalin” in 1912; it was based on the Russian word for “steel” and has often been translated as “Man of Steel”.
In adulthood, Stalin measured 5 feet 4 inches tall and to appear taller, he wore stacked shoes, and stood on a small platform during parades. He was born with a webbed left foot, and his left arm had been permanently injured in childhood which left it shorter than his right and lacking in flexibility, which was probably the result of being hit at the age of 12, by a horse-drawn carriage. He had few material demands and lived plainly, with simple and inexpensive clothing and furniture; his interest was in power rather than wealth!
Stalin was always exceptional, even from childhood. He had a complex mind, great self-control and an excellent memory. He was a hard worker and displayed a keen desire to learn; when in power, he scrutinised many details of Soviet life, from film scripts to architectural plans and military hardware. According to Volkogonov, “Stalin’s private life and working life were one and the same”; he did not take days off from political activities.
Stalin could play different roles to different audiences, and was adept at deception, often deceiving others as to his true motives and aims. Several historians have seen it appropriate to follow Lazar Kaganovich’s description of there being “several Stalins” as a means of understanding his multi-faceted personality.
He was a good organiser, with a strategic mind and judged others according to their inner strength, practicality, and cleverness He acknowledged that he could be rude and insulting, although rarely raised his voice in anger; as his health deteriorated in later life he became increasingly unpredictable and bad tempered. Despite his tough-talking attitude, he could be very charming; when relaxed, he cracked jokes and mimicked others and his charm was predicted to be the “the foundation of his power in the Party”.
Stalin was ruthless, temperamentally cruel and had a propensity for violence high even among the Bolsheviks. He lacked compassion, something Volkogonov suggested might have been accentuated by his many years in prison and exile, although he was capable of acts of kindness to strangers, even amid the Great Terror. He was capable of self-righteous indignation and was resentful, vindictive and vengeful, holding onto grievances against others for many years. By the 1920s, he was also suspicious and conspiratorial, prone to believing that people were plotting against him and that there were vast international conspiracies behind acts of dissent. He never attended torture sessions or executions, although Service thought Stalin “derived deep satisfaction” from degrading and humiliating people and keeping even close associates in a state of “unrelieved fear”. Montefiore thought Stalin’s brutality marked him out as a “natural extremist”; Service suggested he had a paranoid or sociopathic personality disorder.
Other historians linked his brutality not to any personality trait, but to his unwavering commitment to the survival of the Soviet Union and the international Marxist-Leninist cause.
Keenly interested in the arts, Stalin admired artistic talent. He protected several Soviet writers. He enjoyed music, owning around 2,700 albums and frequently attending the Bolshoi Theatre. He was a voracious reader, with a library of over 20,000 books. Stalin was also a keen and accomplished billiards player who also collected watches as well as enjoyed practical jokes. And friendship was important to Stalin and he used it to gain and maintain power.
Stalin married his first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, in 1906. According to Montefiore, theirs was “a true love match”;Volkogonov suggested that she was “probably the one human being he had really loved”. When she died Stalin said “This creature softened my heart of stone.” They had a son named Yakov.
The historian Robert Conquest stated that Stalin, “perhaps… determined the course of the twentieth century” more than any other individual. Biographers like Service and Volkogonov have considered him an outstanding and exceptional politician; Montefiore labelled Stalin as “that rare combination: both ‘intellectual’ and killer”, a man who was “the ultimate politician” and “the most elusive and fascinating of the twentieth-century titans”.
According to historian Kevin McDermott, interpretations of Stalin range from “the sycophantic and adulatory to the vitriolic and condemnatory”. For most Westerners and anti-communist Russians, he is viewed overwhelmingly negatively as a mass murderer; for significant numbers of Russians and Georgians, he is regarded as a great statesman and state-builder.
Stalin strengthened and stabilised the Soviet Union; Service suggested that without him the country might have collapsed long before 1991. In under three decades, Stalin transformed the Soviet Union into a major industrial world power, one which could “claim impressive achievements” in terms of urbanisation, military strength, education, and Soviet pride.
Amid the social and economic turmoil of the post-Soviet period, many Russians viewed Stalin as having overseen an era of order, predictability, and pride. He remains a revered figure among many Russian nationalists, who feel nostalgic about the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany in World War II and he is regularly invoked approvingly within both Russia’s far-left and far-right.
It’s a Fact
Stalin wanted to create in Russia a breed of half man half ape super soldiers to fight in wars whom Stalin thought would be obedient to him. According to the Russian newspapers Stalin stated “I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of the food they intake. Yet Stalin’s plan was not successful.
- Nilanthi Wickramasinghe