Joseph Stalin: Unprecedentedly Destructive
As Ai Wei Wei once stated, “The biggest crime of a dictatorship is to eradicate human feelings from people.” In George Orwell's political novelette, Animal Farm, and from database research, the dictator robbed citizens of their security and initially trumped Adolf Hitler’s heinous crimes. Joseph Stalin’s lust for power terrorized post-revolutionary Russia.
Sources state that under Joseph Stalin’s rule there was a stable government; however, while Stalin may have had complete control over his people, the totalitarian tyrant’s rise to power created an unhealthy level of fear amongst Russian citizens. “[Stalin], more concerned with strengthening his own personal power than with furthering Communist revolution, destroyed Lenin's achievements [plunging] the Soviet Union into misery...from which it never recovered” (Lynch, para. 5). This loss of grounding under Stalin’s rule is a main contributor toward the terrorization of Russia, for it explains the extent Stalin reached in order to attain power. Watching people run in fear intensified Stalin’s will to kill for power causing his citizens’ angst to escalate. “I am not convinced that [Stalin] will manage to use this power with care” (WW II: Behind Closed Doors, para. 3). Lenin’s acknowledgment of Stalin’s inability to stabilize his use of power only foreshadows the hostile environment his citizens would endure. Stalin’s lack of connection with his subjects further enabled him to betray their trust and endanger their lives. “The four young pigs...raised their voices timidly, but they were promptly silenced by a tremendous growling from the dogs” (Orwell 77). The constant echo of the dogs played in the animals’ heads any time they heard the shee...
... middle of paper ...
...iously thought they had. The pile of corpses was a constant reminder of their future if they strayed from Stalin’s reign. “If they resisted or ran away [from the camps] we eliminated them” (Stalin’s Spies and Secret Police, para. 9). Stalin is to blame for instilling life-threatening terror into the minds of his citizens when forming the NKVD, or his secret police. The camps provided a glimpse of salvation for citizens, but once again this was just an allusion.
Following the Russian revolution, Joseph Stalin’s desire to attain power disrupted the lives of Russians. Stalin betrayed his colleagues, robbed his people of the essentials needed to thrive, and created a police force who captured and killed any who disobeyed. The pain and suffering of the people Stalin eradicated will never be restored, for he committed the foulest crime of all, sacrificing human emotions.
Tucker, Robert C. "Stalinism as Revolution from Above". Stalinism. Edited by Robert C. Tucker. New York: American Council of Learned Societies, 1999.
Joseph Stalin said, “Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don 't let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?”. Stalin was a dictator of the USSR from 1929 to 1953. Under his dictatorship, the Soviet Union began to transform from a poor economy to an industrial and military based one. While still a teen, Stalin secretly read Karl Marx 's book the “Communist Manifesto”, and became more interested in his teachings. When Stalin gained power, he ruled his nations using terror and fear, eliminating those who did not comply with his governance.
In conclusion, many soviets citizens appeared to believe that Stalin’s positive contributions to the U.S.S.R. far outweigh his monstrous acts. These crimes have been down played by many of Stalin’s successors as they stress his achievements as collectivizer, industrializer, and war leader. Among those citizens who harbor feelings of nostalgia, Stalin’s strength, authority , and achievement contrast sharply with the pain and suffering of post-revolutionary Russia.
Originally platformed by Vladimir Lenin, Joseph Stalin took control of the communist party in 1924 when Lenin died of a stroke. Communist ideals were heavily in opposition to classical liberal values; Whereas Liberalism stressed the importance of the individual, Communism sought to better the greater good of society by stripping many of the individual rights and freedoms of citizens. Communism revoked the class structure of society and created a universal equality for all. This equality came with a price however. Any who opposed the communist rule were assassinated in order to keep order within society. Joseph Stalin took this matter to the extreme during an event known as the Great Purge. The Great Purge, also known as The Great Terror, began in 1936 and concluded in 1938. During these two years, millions of people were murdered and sent to labour camps in Siberia for opposing the Communist party and the ultimate dictator, Stalin himself. In some cases, even those who did not oppose the regime were killed. Sergey Kirov was a very popular member of the communist party and Stalin saw this as a possible threat to his ultimate power. As a result, Stalin order Kirov to be executed. Stalin furthered his violation of individual rights by introducing the NKVD who worked closely with the russian secret police force. One of the primary goals of the secret police was to search out dissidents who were not entirely faithful to the communist regime. This violation of privacy caused histeria en mass in the Soviet Union and millions were killed as a result. The Soviet union resisted liberalism to such an extreme that it resulted in the deaths of millions of people, leading to some of the darkest days in russian
Two specific factors were considered – Stalin’s removal of political opposition through the trial, and the injection of fear, perpetuated from the trial’s blatant terrorism, into society. These factors effectively enabled Stalin’s preservation of power, preserving his rule as despot of the USSR. The removal of key political figures, reduced the possibility of usurpation, and concentrated party support for him alone, while the injection of fear prevented further uprising against his rule. As Conquest asserts, the trial “brought together publicly every type of opposition, terror, sabotage, treachery, and espionage, and turned them into branches of one single great conspiracy” with the sole purpose of maintaining his autocratic
When most people hear the name Joseph Stalin, they usually associate the name with a man who was part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. He was willingly to do anything to improve the power of the Soviet Union’s economy and military, even if it meant executing tens of millions of innocent people (Frankforter, A. Daniel., and W. M. Spellman 655). In chapter three of Sheila Fitzpatrick’s book, Everyday Stalinism, she argues that since citizens believed the propaganda of “a radiant future” (67), they were able to be manipulated by the Party in the transformation of the Soviet Union. This allowed the Soviet government to expand its power, which ultimately was very disastrous for the people.
Son of a poverty-stricken shoemaker, raised in a backward province, Joseph Stalin had only a minimum of education. However, he had a burning faith in the destiny of social revolution and an iron determination to play a prominent role in it. His rise to power was bloody and bold, yet under his leadership, in an unexplainable twenty-nine years, Russia because a highly industrialized nation. Stalin was a despotic ruler who more than any other individual molded the features that characterized the Soviet regime and shaped the direction of Europe after World War II ended in 1945. From a young revolutionist to an absolute master of Soviet Russia, Joseph Stalin cast his shadow over the entire globe through his provocative affair in Domestic and Foreign policy.
In order to conclude the extent to which the Great Terror strengthened or weakened the USSR, the question is essentially whether totalitarianism strengthened or weakened the Soviet Union? Perhaps under the circumstances of the 1930s in the approach to war a dictatorship may have benefited the country in some way through strong leadership, the unifying effect of reintroducing Russian nationalism and increased party obedience. The effects of the purges on the political structure and community of the USSR can be described (as Peter Kenez asserts) as an overall change from a party led dictatorship to the dictatorship of a single individual; Stalin. Overall power was centred on Stalin, under whom an increasingly bureaucratic hierarchy of party officials worked. During the purges Stalin's personal power can be seen to increase at the cost of the party.
In 1934, Sergey Kirov a rival to Stalin was murdered. Stalin is believed to have been behind the assassination, he used it as a pretext to arrest thousands of his other opponents who in his words might have been responsible for Kirov’s murder. These purges not only affected those who openly opposed Stalin but ordinary people too. During the rule of Stain o...
During Stalin’s regime, the individual Russian was the center of his grand plan for better or worse. Stalin wanted all of his people to be treated the same. In the factory the top producer and the worst producer made the same pay. He wanted everyone to be treated as equals. His goal to bring the Soviet Union into the industrial age put tremendous pressure on his people. Through violence and oppression Stalin tried to maintain an absurd vision that he saw for the Soviet Union. Even as individuals were looked at as being equals, they also were viewed as equals in other ways. There was no one who could be exempt when the system wanted someone imprisoned, killed, or vanished. From the poorest of the poor, to the riches of the rich, everyone was at the mercy of the regime. Millions of individuals had fake trumped up charges brought upon them, either by the government or by others who had called them o...
He had taken the rights of criminals, particularly those who challenged him politically, and gained the ability to execute practically anyone in the Soviet Union at any time. As a result of Kirov’s murder, Stalin was able to gain the political authority and set up the
Stalin’s hunger for power and paranoia impacted the Soviet society severely, having devastating effects on the Communist Party, leaving it weak and shattering the framework of the party, the people of Russia, by stunting the growth of technology and progress through the purges of many educated civilians, as well as affecting The Red Army, a powerful military depleted of it’s force. The impact of the purges, ‘show trials’ and the Terror on Soviet society were rigorously negative. By purging all his challengers and opponents, Stalin created a blanket of fear over the whole society, and therefore, was able to stay in power, creating an empire that he could find more dependable.
Joseph Stalin killed many people in order to provoke a government of fascism.With his obsession in changing the USSR from a backward, peasant-centered, agrarian nation to an industrial superpower, Stalin developed a totalitarian government that ruled over individual lives, striking fear in the converted and threatening death or hard labor camps for the unconverted. The totalitarian rule under Joseph
Socialists were less determined and tenacious, leading to their lack of success in taking control over Russia. Furthermore, not only was Lenin an intelligent speaker who was able to gain supporters, but a steadfast and focused leader willing to make a change.
Love is the foundation and the weakness of a totalitarian regime. For a stable totalitarian society, love between two individuals is eliminated because only a relationship between the person and the party and a love for its leader can exist. The totalitarian society depicted throughout the Orwell’s novel 1984 has created a concept of an Orwellian society. Stalin’s Soviet state can be considered Orwellian because it draws close parallels to the imaginary world of Oceania in 1984. During the twentieth century, Soviet Russia lived under Stalin’s brutal and oppressive governments, which was necessary for Stalin to retain power.