[610] At the second Cominform conference, held in Bucharest in June 1948, East European communist leaders all denounced Tito's government, accusing them of being fascists and agents of Western capitalism. He did. [391] Stalin would not acknowledge that his policies had contributed to the famine,[380] the existence of which was kept secret from foreign observers. [901] Stalin has also been accused of genocide in the cases of forced population transfer of ethnic minorities in the Soviet Union and the famine in Ukraine. Lenin was seen as the figure head of the Communist Party, Stalin used this to his advantage in winning over the Russia population. [459] A week later, Germany invaded Poland, sparking the UK and France to declare war on Germany. [368], Stalin faced problems in his family life. [75] Stalin was in Baku in February when ethnic violence broke out between Armenians and Azeris; at least 2,000 were killed. [151][152], In Kureika, Stalin lived among the indigenous Tunguses and Ostyak peoples,[153] and spent much of his time fishing. [495] Responding to the invasion, the Soviets intensified their industrial enterprises in central Russia, focusing almost entirely on production for the military. As a result of his Five-Year Plans, the country underwent agricultural collectivisation and rapid industrialisation, creating a centralised command economy. The question that needs to be asked is whether a mental illness can explain Stalin's ability to engage in such behavior. [69] Stalin detested many of the Mensheviks in Georgia and aligned himself with the Bolsheviks. [53], That month, Stalin travelled to the port city of Batum. Although probably a hoax, the story of "Rosa Kaganovich" was spread by notable Soviet defectors, including Trotsky, who alleged that "Stalin married the sister of Kaganovich, thereby presenting the latter with hopes for a promising future. Stalin made a decision to use his power over the country to raise production. [449], As a MarxistLeninist, Stalin considered conflict between competing capitalist powers inevitable; after Nazi Germany annexed Austria and then part of Czechoslovakia in 1938, he recognised a war was looming. [534] Cautiously regarding the responses from the Western Allies, Stalin avoided immediately installing Communist Party governments across Eastern Europe, instead initially ensuring that Marxist-Leninists were placed in coalition ministries. [57] Stalin organised another mass demonstration on the day of their funeral,[58] before being arrested in April 1902. [863] The other, Alexander, was the son of Lidia Pereprygina; he was raised as the son of a peasant fisherman and the Soviet authorities made him swear never to reveal that Stalin was his biological father. [109] He was eventually sentenced to two years exile in the village of Solvychegodsk, Vologda Province, arriving there in February 1909. [940] There have also been requests by communist officials to canonize Stalin as an official saint, although these requests were never implemented the author referencing the church's suffering under Stalin's rule. [799] He enjoyed listening to classical music,[800] owning around 2,700 records,[801] and frequently attending the Bolshoi Theatre during the 1930s and 1940s. [217] He was reprimanded by Lenin at the 8th Party Congress for employing tactics which resulted in far too many deaths of Red Army soldiers. Not the Last Word", "The Personality Cult of Stalin in Soviet Posters, 19291953", "Ukraine Court Finds Bolsheviks Guilty of Holodomor Genocide", Stalin Library (with all 13 volumes of Stalin's, Library of Congress: Revelations from the Russian Archives, Electronic archive of Stalin's letters and presentations, Joseph Stalin Newsreels // Net-Film Newsreels and Documentary Films Archive, Stalin Biography from Spartacus Educational, A List of Key Documentary Material on Stalin, Stalinka: The Digital Library of Staliniana, Electronic archive of Stalins letters and presentations, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Stalin&oldid=1133956104, This page was last edited on 16 January 2023, at 08:16. [493] Stalin issued Order No. [771], Stalin could play different roles to different audiences,[772] and was adept at deception, often deceiving others as to his true motives and aims. [384] Historians have long debated whether Stalin's government had intended the famine to occur or not;[385] there are no known documents in which Stalin or his government explicitly called for starvation to be used against the population. Stalin came to power in the Soviet Union in 1929. [378] It therefore emphasised the expansion of housing space and the production of consumer goods. The first four years were years of intense labor on the part of Soviet people in carrying out the Third Five-Year Plan. "[841] Stalin married twice and had several children. [723] He remained proud of his Georgian identity,[724] and throughout his life retained a heavy Georgian accent when speaking Russian. [909], In 2011, historian Timothy D. Snyder summarised modern data made after the opening of the Soviet archives in the 1990s and states that Stalin's regime was responsible for 9million deaths, with 6million of these being deliberate killings. [211] His use of state violence and terror was at a greater scale than most Bolshevik leaders approved of;[212] for instance, he ordered several villages to be torched to ensure compliance with his food procurement program. [312] Many Communists, including in Komsomol, OGPU, and the Red Army, were eager to be rid of the NEP and its market-oriented approach;[313] they had concerns about those who profited from the policy: affluent peasants known as "kulaks" and small business owners or "Nepmen". [3] "Charismatic rule has long been neglected and ridiculed, but apparently it has deep roots and becomes a powerful stimulus once the proper psychological and social doubt that millions believe in it" (Neumann, 1942: p. 75). The Russian Empire became a de facto republic, headed by a Provisional Government dominated by liberals. [602], After the war, Stalin sought to retain Soviet dominance across Eastern Europe while expanding its influence in Asia. fair elections Views: 47. [78] Stalin's squads disarmed local police and troops,[79] raided government arsenals,[80] and raised funds through protection rackets on large local businesses and mines. [346] His speeches and articles reflected his utopian vision of the Soviet Union rising to unparalleled heights of human development, creating a "new Soviet person". [565] He ensured that returning Soviet prisoners of war went through "filtration" camps as they arrived in the Soviet Union, in which 2,775,700 were interrogated to determine if they were traitors. [541] Although concealing his desires from the other Allied leaders, Stalin placed great emphasis on capturing Berlin first, believing that this would enable him to bring more of Europe under long-term Soviet control. It is a chance to consider only what is necessary to make a decision. [849] In later life, he disapproved of Svetlana's various suitors and husbands, putting a strain on his relationship with her. [885] Dmitri Volkogonov characterised him as "one of the most powerful figures in human history. [263] A compromise was reached, in which the federation would be renamed the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (USSR). [599], In 1948, Stalin edited and rewrote sections of Falsifiers of History, published as a series of Pravda articles in February 1948 and then in book form. Joseph Stalin epitomised the 'New Prince', who Machiavelli described, somehow unifying love and fear whilst simultaneously pursuing his ambitious political plan for Russia. [93] By that year according to the historian Robert Service Stalin had established himself as "Georgia's leading Bolshevik". [271] During the 13th Party Congress in May 1924, "Lenin's Testament" was read only to the leaders of the provincial delegations. [640] He instructed the arrested doctors to be tortured to ensure confession. He slowly died over the course of the next few days, apparently in agony, finally expiring on March 5th of a brain hemorrhage. ", "Record 70 Percent of Russians Say Stalin Played a Positive Role in Their Country's History", "In Russia, Nostalgia for USSR and Positive Feelings about Stalin", "Giant new Russian cathedral glorifies Putin and Stalin in mosaics", "Perspective Putin's dangerous campaign to rehabilitate Stalin", "Siberian Pensioner Is Grandson of Josef Stalin, DNA Test Reveals", "Stalin's Approval Rating Among Russians Hits Record High Poll", "Positive Views of Stalin among Russian Reach 16-year High, Poll Shows", "Ukraine Stands by Its View of Stalin as Villain President (Update 1)", "Wall of Grief: Putin Opens First Soviet Victims Memorial", "Why So Many Russian like Dictator Stalin", "Why did the USSR help to create Israel, but then became its foe", "Do Stalina pozytyvno stavlyatsya menshe 1/5 ukrayintsiv", " . . ", "A Tale of "Two Totalitarianisms": The Crisis of Capitalism and the Historical Memory of Communism", "Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the Soviet Famine of 19311933", "Victims of Stalinism and the Soviet Secret Police: The Comparability and Reliability of the Archival Data. [129], After the October 1912 Duma elections, where six Bolsheviks and six Mensheviks were elected, Stalin wrote articles calling for reconciliation between the two Marxist factions, for which Lenin criticised him. [830] Kotkin observed that Stalin "generally gravitated to people like himself: parvenu intelligentsia of humble background". 270, Stalin commanded soldiers risking capture to fight to the death describing the captured as traitors;[492] among those taken as a prisoner of war by the Germans was Stalin's son Yakov, who died in their custody. [795] Stalin also enjoyed watching films late at night at cinemas installed in the Kremlin and his dachas. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as global superpowers and entered a period of tension, the Cold War. [3] [4] [5] Contents 1 Early life 2 CTU General Secretary 2.1 2022 Sri Lankan protests 3 References Early life [ edit] [601] In 1949, celebrations took place to mark Stalin's seventieth birthday (although he was 71 at the time,) at which Stalin attended an event in the Bolshoi Theatre alongside MarxistLeninist leaders from across Europe and Asia. [341] Large debts were accrued purchasing foreign-made machinery. Explanation: No, Stalin was not a fair leader. [539] Privately, Stalin sought to ensure that Poland would come fully under Soviet influence. [198] Stalin supported Lenin's desire to sign an armistice with the Central Powers regardless of the cost in territory. [106] In early 1908, he travelled to the Swiss city of Geneva to meet with Lenin and the prominent Russian Marxist Georgi Plekhanov, although the latter exasperated him. [526] There, Stalin and Roosevelt got on well, with both desiring the post-war dismantling of the British Empire. Not true at all. [743] From mid-1918 until his death he favoured military-style clothing, in particular long black boots, light-coloured collarless tunics, and a gun. [293] In mid-1926, Kamenev and Zinoviev joined with Trotsky's supporters to form the United Opposition against Stalin;[294] in October they agreed to stop factional activity under threat of expulsion, and later publicly recanted their views under Stalin's command. [683] Volkogonov believed that Stalin's Marxism was shaped by his "dogmatic turn of mind", suggesting that this had been instilled in the Soviet leader during his education in religious institutions. [409] Germany and Italy backed the Nationalist faction, which was ultimately victorious in March 1939. [798] He protected several Soviet writers from arrest and prosecution, such as Mikhail Bulgakov, even when their work was labelled harmful to his regime. [519] In 1941, the London Philharmonic Orchestra performed a concert to celebrate his birthday,[520] and in 1942, Time magazine named him "Man of the Year". [581], In the post-war period there were often food shortages in Soviet cities,[582] and the USSR experienced a major famine from 1946 to 1947. [458] In August 1939, the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Germany, a non-aggression pact negotiated by Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. [381], The Soviet Union experienced a major famine which peaked in the winter of 193233;[382] between five and seven million people died. [693] Stalin respected Lenin, but not uncritically,[698] and spoke out when he believed that Lenin was wrong. 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