What do you think of STALIN?

All of 1 through 8 comes to mind, but #6 probably comes to mind a moment sooner than the others. When I think of Stalin, I usually think first of his suppression of Eastern Europe after World War 2.

I agree with Brandon. If anyone in modern times was more monsterous than Hitler, it was Stalin. I can't think of a single redeeming feature of the man, and he was directly responsible for as many murders as the Nazis. Stalin's image has been guarded by apologists for the Communist Party for so long that the legend far outshines the facts.

The thing about little Koba (later Stalin) is that he was brilliant in terms of social organization. The man understood how to climb the ladder of the party without becoming a target. He was not a part of the intelligentsia so much as a cunning proletarian (at least in his own mind).

At the height of his power, he understood how to use the mechanism of terror/purge to rid himself of rivals. In a sense he was the perfect Machiavel. In other ways, Stalin was less the architect and more the delusional actor.

Later in life, he certainly began to lose his mind. His reaction (or lack thereof) to the attack by the Germans is a great example of Stalin's delusional mind. He simply could not believe that Hitler had duped him, that molotov-ribbentrop was merely a setup to keep the Eastern front closed until Hitler was ready to attack the USSR.


I think one mark of Stalin's genius was that he always presented the masses with a common enemy. First the kulaks, then the bourgeoisie. This is the same type of macro-psychological tool that US presidents use when they start a war to increase their popularity.

The everpresent threat places the leader in a position of special power. It allows him to do things that are outside the normal boundaries of his control. This exceptional state of things becomes the norm, and the leader is able to use his "emergency powers" to eliminate his enemies, while building a following of fearful sycophants.

Stalin used fear to govern, and he did so more effectively than anyone in history. He even got the people to assist him, by turning in their kulak neighbors. People were tried on the spot and killed for being a kulak. They had their possessions stolen by jealous proletarians, all under the guise of protecting the Soviets from the evil kulak's (kulaks can be thought of as the upper class, later the bourgeoisie).

The only one of your 10 phrases that I don't think fits is #10. Stalin's guidance of the war effort was not likely what caused the eventual Soviet success against the Nazis. The war effort began miserably and was more costly than any before or since... not exactly a job well done.

Stalin was a Freemason. A jewish Freemason. He was a poor leader who starved his country.

He killed a whole bunch of his own people. That's what I think of when I hear Stalin. But didn't he have a soft spot for a niece?

1. Evil

2. Genocidal Maniac

3. Brilliant at Real Politik -- esp. a) outmaneuvreing Trotsky and b) Yalta

4. Sociopath -- It may be apocryphal, but I always remember one story, when his son attempted suicide by gun and missed, he is alleged to have remarked, "He can't even shoot straight." (Though he did have a soft spot for his daughter, I thought it was.)

5. Georgian :wink:

On a percentage of population basis, Pol Pot beats both Stalin and Hitler, though Hitler managed to kill the most per diem.

But to be more obliging, in order:

6. Great cruelty.
4. Cunning.
7. Life in fear.
5. Dictatorship.
3. Cowing dissenters.
2. Collective punishment.
8. Repressive measures.
10. Successful leading in the war against Germany (1941-1945).
1. Assassination.
9. Political wisdom.

When I was growing up I had friends who's parents had escaped from the Ukraine during the second world war. The over riding impression I got from them was the pervasiveness of fear under Stalin.

For me great cruelty came to mind first. and i agree that Stalin and Hitler were the two most brutal dictators of the 20th centuary. however, Hitler gets more of a reputation because he tried to wipe out an entire race of people. even though, stalin killed many more people.

Unkass, I first think of #2, Collective punishment.

I belong to an informal group of retired professionals and I recently agreed to speak about Josef Stalin. Other than what I learned about him in grammar school, which was little, I really do not know very much about him at all other than the standard line about him being an evil man.

I am not going to do serious study of Josef Stalin. I have scanned a number of sources on Internet and I have a fair amount of material upon which to base my presentation on. Unfortunately they are mostly of American and British origin.

For whatever reasons that even I am not sure about, I have a feeling that Russia had much more to do with winning World War II in Europe than it has been given credit for in history. Not a historian, military or otherwise, but it seems to me the battle of Stalingrad had to have been the greatest battle of World War II. Even more treacherous than the Normandy Invasion which I believe is far over rated and serves mainly as a great public relations focal point for the U.S. I believe it was a great battle but just not that great.

I would like to locate sources of information about Stalin of a positive nature, if there are any, provided honestly from the Russian point of view. And I would like to include them in my presentation.

Stalin could not have been entirely bad. No one is.

6. Great Cruelty. 26 million people agree with me from the grave.

More. He killed more (unless you count WWII casualties). However, if Hitler had been in power as long as Stalin, I'm sure he wouold have outdone him. Anyway, the one "redeeming fact" maybe that he was paranoid. I know. But at least it helps to explain his great purges. He thought everyone was against him so he kept on killing his ranks.

The battle of Kursk was far more decisive than Stalingrad. As for Josef Dugashvilli, the suggestion that he may have been unfairly dealt with by history is to me ludicrous. He abandoned the monastery to become a bank robber for the socialists. He systematically destroyed the Petrograd Soviet to eliminate political competition from the one group with bolshevik credentials and a bolshevik history who might in future challenge his authority. He hounded Trotsky out of power and out of Russia, and was complicit in his murder. He purged the Red Army to further eliminate any challenge to his authority. No Tsar of the old empire could compare to his cruelty toward the general population; none had a record even remotely approaching his for destroying those who might oppose him.

The suggestion that he be seen in a more sympathetic light because no one is entirely bad is at best naive. He was an unmitigated disaster for Russia, and absent his show trials and purges, the Soviet Union would have been far better prepared to deal with the German invasion. I lay at his feet not only the responsibility for the millions he slaughtered directly, but the millions who died because he crippled the Red Army's ability to immediately and effectively deal with the Wehrmacht.

Famine - Holodomor

In 1932-33 approximately 7,000,000 Ukrainians were murdered by Stalin's regime in the Soviet Union's push to introduce collectivisation during the first Five Year Plan. This event is known as the Ukrainian Famine (Holodomor in Ukrainian).

http://www.ozeukes.com/std1.php?parm=famine.php

Thank you Setanta.