The annals of history are filled with tales of tyrants. There is no shortage of self-serving, conniving, and brutal rulers who have committed acts so heinous that the mere mention of their name stirs strong emotions. Names like Calligula [1], Genghis Khan [2], Ivan the “Terrible” [3] and Napoleon[4] come to mind. Among these however, the most brutal dictators have to be the various authoritarian leaders of the 20th century. Of them none stands out more for their brutality and tenacity than the Soviet leader Joseph Djugashvili, better known as “Stalin”.
The crimes of his regime, include but were not limited to ethnic cleansings, forced starvation, repression of media, mass incarceration, forced labour and many others [5] . Despite these facts, the “Vozhd” as he was popularly known, retains a high level of popularity in the Russian Federation and some other post-Soviet states [6] [7]. Much of this can be attributed to the role he supposedly played in the fight against Nazism, by stopping the “undefeatable” Third Reich.
This raises the question, how much of this is true? Who was Stalin? Saviour of the Soviet Union or killer of innocents?
Source: Firstpost // Stalin in his office
Setting the Stage - A Tramp Turned Tyrant
After the October Revolution of 1917, Vladimir Lenin’s Bolshevik party came to power in Russia and imperial possessions. However, their power was far from consolidated, with the outbreak of the Russian civil war[8]. The revolution that aimed to remove the authoritarian regime of the tsar, instead produced a regime that was equally hostile to ideas of democracy and freedom. The Bolsheviks, although nominally in power, inherited a state that was shattered in a million pieces. It is this harsh environment that allowed ambitious individuals such as Joseph Stalin to climb the ranks of the party hierarchy.[9]
Joseph Djugashvili “Stalin”(1878-1953), was born the son of a cobbler, in Gori, a Georgian town in the Tiflis (Tbilisi) governorate of the Russian empire. As a young boy, he enrolled, at his mother’s behest, in a monastery, in order to become a priest. During his education, he was introduced to the ideas of Marxism, which he quickly adopted. At the same time, he became a follower of the exiled revolutionary, Vladimir Lenin. In his youth, he began participating in illicit activities, such as participating in bank robberies and arson [10] . This garnered attention from the Imperial Russian secret police, the Okhrana. Subsequently, this strengthened his connection to Lenin, but also caused him to be sent to exile in Siberia.
Source: Wikimedia Commons (originally from Pravda,1939) // A Young Stalin in 1939
During the 1917 Revolution, Stalin established himself as a strong and reliable asset to the Bolsheviks, with him taking a very active role in the revolution, with his non-Russian background helping him become the token minority representative in the Bolshevik Central Committee. Slowly climbing the ranks of the Bolshevik government, he was promoted to the rank of Commissar for Nationalities. With the outbreak of the Russian Civil War and the parallelly occuring Polish-Soviet War, his prominence only grew, as he played a crucial role in the Red Army offensive in Georgia and the Caucasus[11]. For his actions, he was rewarded with the post of General Secretary of the Communist Party of the USSR in 1922. At the same time, two major changes took place, the resolution of Russia’s civil war and the Polish-Soviet War, and Vladimir Lenin’s decline in health, leading to a power struggle within the Bolshevik party. Leon Trotsky, the Commissar for War during the civil war, was the primary thorn in Stalin’s side, and was vocally opposed to many of Stalin’s stances and policies. However, using his position as General Secretary of the Communist Party, Stalin managed to place more and more of his supporters in key positions. This did not go unnoticed by Lenin, who in his statements[12] admonished Stalin, for his autocratic tendencies. The very traits that had helped him flourish during the brutal civil war and accompanying instability, entrenched him during the relative peace that followed. Even Lenin could not stop the monster he had created, as after his death in 1924, despite his opposition, Stalin ascended to leadership of the USSR. All his opponents were either killed, imprisoned or exiled (like Trotsky, who would later be assassinated in Mexico in 1940[13]).
Man of Steel - Fists of Power
“Heavy is the head that wears the crown.” is a statement that would ring true for even the supposedly ‘classless’ society that was the Soviet Union. Stalin, although comfortably in power, always had a nagging sense of paranoia. Having been the one to wrestle power from his fellow party members, he had no false sense of security that the same would not happen to him. This was not merely restricted to his image internally, but also externally, as the civil war (which saw the anti-communist side being supported by several western nations) clearly demonstrated that the Bolshevik government would see a lot of opposition from global powers who feared a “communist takeover”.
Source: Wikimedia Commons (from Saveliev) // Stalin and his associates in 1928,before announcing the first five year plan
The USSR as it stood, had inherited not just the territories of the former Russian Empire, but also its problems. As such, very little of the social fabric had changed, despite attempts by Lenin, to push workers and peasants to commit to the idea of communism, and repression through the infamous “Red Terror”[14]. The USSR also inherited the economic problems of the erstwhile Russian Empire. In essence, there was a large peasant class that had only recently acquired land (with the serf emancipation of 1861, prior to which it had been under rich landowners). As a result agriculture was very fragmented and inefficient. In addition to this, the Russian empire had been one of the most unequal societies in recent history, and outside of the major cities such as the erstwhile Petrograd, and Moscow, infrastructure was next to non-existent.
To counter these two major fundamental issues, Stalin launched his infamous 5 year plan in 1928[15]. These aimed to fundamentally transform Soviet society by addressing the two main sectors of the Soviet economy, that being agriculture and industry. The agricultural sector was to undergo the process of “collectivisation” where smaller peasant owned plots of land were consolidated into large groups called ‘Kolkhoz’ to improve productivity. This was not always done with the consent of the farmers and those who did not cooperate were “punished”. Similarly industrialisation was ramped up in the Soviet command economy, with large factories being set up across the nation, especially in the larger cities.
Source: LSE Library’s archive // Propaganda poster denouncing Kulaks
These major leaps were however, under shadowed by the true horrors of Stalin’s reign. In the pursuit of progress, any cost was justified. As mentioned earlier, Stalin had been exiled to Siberia, due to his revolutionary activities. This was a fairly common punishment in the Russian empire, and even used later on by Lenin, to punish non-cooperating wealthy peasants or kulaks[16]. Exiles were forced into “correctional labour” camps, more popularly known as “gulags” where they were forced into physically excruciating tasks such as timber production and mining, with little food and harsh living conditions. This forced labour was instrumental in the large scale industrialisation efforts that Stalin pushed for. However, the human toll of this endeavour cannot be denied, as under Stalin the camp system was expanded at a rapid pace and by 1939, 1.8 million people were imprisoned in the camps. Parallelly, the People's Commissariat of Internal Affairs (NKVD) gained more and more power[17].
In addition to this, Stalin’s regime was known for its brutal policies against non-Russians in the union. Despite his Georgian roots, Stalin perpetrated several atrocities against “troublesome” elements in Soviet society. A clear example would be the holodomor[18], which saw forced grain seizures under the previously mentioned collectivisation efforts, and saw over 4 million people (mostly Ukranians) perish due to extreme starvation.
These actions set in stone the legacy of the “Vozhd” of the proletariat, but some of his worst was yet to come.
The Great Terror - Leading Up to the Disaster
Stalin’s USSR as established was very much a police state. However, the so-called “Great Terror” would probably go down in history as Joseph Stalin’s biggest blunder, and was one of the reasons for the major flaws of the initial Soviet response to the German offensive.
After the Wall Street Crash of 1929, began the Great Depression, which was the greatest economic crisis the world had seen up till that point. The ripple effect of this was the growth of even more hostility towards the USSR. As the economy was controlled by the state, and remained relatively isolated from the global economy[19]. This had a two fold impact on the global perception of the USSR - leaders and people became more cautious of communism in general, and as a result alternative ideologies started finding more popularity. Indeed, Adolf Hitler’s rise to power in 1933 can be strongly attributed to the trainwreck that was the German economy after the First World War (and reparations) and the subsequent depression[20].
In light of this, Joseph Stalin’s paranoia only increased, as to him enemies were on all sides, and also on the inside. Border conflicts with the Japanese Empire[21] , the Republic of China [22] and its prior engagements with Poland and Finland [23], only worked to strengthen Stalin’s paranoia about potential spies in his own ranks.
Source: Hoover Institution // Nikolai Yezhov, a victim of the purge, being removed from official soviet photographs
Hence began the so-called “Great Terror” of Stalin’s regime. The first phase began after the assassination of a certain Sergei Kirov[24], in December 1923, leading to efforts by Joseph Stalin to purge the Communist Party of potential moles and foreign agents. This eventually escalated to a purge of the entire Soviet government[25]. Most crucially for this discussion, was the purges conducted on the Red Army. As the military was the most obvious threat to Stalin’s power, large swaths of High and Middle ranking officers such as Mikhail Tukachevsky and Vasily Blyukher, were executed. This move ended up severely weakening the Red Army, as a large number of experienced and competent officers were killed, leaving behind only those that were absolutely loyal to Stalin.
Soon the purge would extend its reach to outside of the government. The prejudice that existed against non-Russian ethnic groups was ramped up. As foreign powers grew more hostile to the regime, ethnic groups with potential “dual-loyalty” were targeted en masse[26]. Germans (Volga Germans in particular), Poles, Finns and other ethnic groups were targeted, and forced into labour camps or executed.
This was the state of the USSR in the beginning of the 1940s. A state that had rapidly grown its agricultural and industrial sector, but also torn down internally from years of repression. The government and military lacked a lot of middle and high ranking officers, which made administration and control rather inefficient and misguided.
The Initial Blunder
Contrary to popular belief, Stalin was under no misapprehension that Hitler wanted peace with the Soviet Union. The Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact [27] in August 1939 was simply an attempt to delay what Stalin perceived as inevitable. Stalin knew that he was not ready to take on the German war machine after the Anschluss[28] and occupation of Sudetenland[29] and hence sought it best to bide his time and build up, whilst letting Hitler weaken the western allies, which he perceived as just as large of a threat.
Source: The Guardian // Signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact
Indeed, the then-secret terms of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact divided Eastern Europe into Axis and Soviet spheres of influence. The most egregious example would be the division of Poland, which was to be split in half between the USSR and Germany. Moreover, Stalin used Hitler’s actions in Europe as a distraction, as took control of the Baltic states which had gained independence from the Russian Empire after World War One[30] . The Red Army was still a shell of its former self, and although the focus of the planned economy moved towards armament, the Soviet arsenal was still small. On the eastern front, Stalin took a more indirect role in the Chinese Civil War, and turned a blind eye to the Japanese Invasion of China. In order to secure his eastern front, he signed the Soviet-Japanese Neutrality pact in April of 1941[31].
The war in Europe was of little concern to Stalin at this point, and he turned his focus on consolidating his newly occupied territories. His assumption was that Hitler would not wish to start a war on two fronts, and that until the Reich crossed the English channel and subjugated Britain, he had little to worry about [32]. In fact, he was so convinced of this assumption that he repeatedly denied or rejected intelligence reports that suggested a buildup of a large number of German troops on the Soviet border[33] and dismissed several officers like Ivan Proskurov who suggested that Hitler was planning an invasion. He believed that these reports were a conspiracy by the west to try and involve the USSR in the war before it was ready, weakening it.
Überraschung aus Deutschland
22nd June 1941 would go down in history as the day that changed the world forever. The German Reich, under the stewardship of Adolf Hitler, began its invasion of the Soviet Union. This came as a shock to no one, not the Allies, not the other Axis partners. The one person who was truly shocked was Stalin. He had convinced himself that he had time to prepare and when the Germans came knocking he would be able to push them back with ease. Yet, ironically, it was his assumption that Hitler would act rationally that came back to bite him.
Source: rarehistoricalphotos.com // Stalin informed of the German capture of Kiev
The Soviet Union was absolutely unprepared for the German assault. Hitler and his generals such as Walther von Brauchitsch and Franz Halder, had engineered their invasion plan, “Operation Barbarossa” around a swift offensive, unlike anything the world had seen prior. The combined Panzer tanks division, the Luftwaffe air force support and wehrmacht and SS infantry were able to take large swathes of territory in short amounts of time. Time was of the essence, and the plan relied on taking Moscow before the onset of the infamous Russian Winter[34].
The USSR as mentioned prior was in the process of preparation for an eventual war. Hence, it was not completely unprepared in the face of the German offensive. However, the odds were heavily stacked against the Soviets. Despite having over 4 million troops in service, and having several thousand tanks, shells and aircraft in production[35], the lack of proper structure and distribution of troops and equipment meant that the German advance proceeded without much opposition. Adding to the problems of the Soviets was the previously mentioned shortage of competent officers in the command structure, leading to even more chaos and confusion on how to respond. Towards the end of 1941, the German Army split between North, Central and South (targeting Leningrad, Moscow and the caucasus oil fields respectively) had gained much ground, occupying major Soviet cities such as Kiev and almost made it to Moscow.
The Panzers Stall - Moscow and Stalingrad
Despite the absolute dire situation on the ground, all hope was not lost. Stalin, in a rather uncharacteristically brave move, decided to stand his ground in Moscow. As the Germans were just miles away from the city, the situation began to turn in the favour of the Soviets. The harsh Russian winter began to set in. The Germans had overestimated themselves and underestimated the Soviets. Soviet troops were better prepared for winter and began fighting back, eventually repelling the Germans. Circumstances favoured Stalin, who begrudgingly entered into an alliance with the western allies. After the destruction of Pearl Harbour on December 7 1941[36], the United States too joined the war. The lend-lease act [37] that had been instituted a few months helped the Soviets access critical supplies for the war effort.
Source: Britannica // German troops outside Moscow
However, the tide of the war truly turned at the battle of Stalingrad. Hitler wished to take the city at any cost, as the city was named after Stalin and would be a major blow to his personal pride. Moreover, the city would open up access to the Soviet oil wells in the Caspian, which Hitler desperately needed to continue the war effort[38]. Stalin too knew the implications of protecting Stalingrad, and made it his highest priority. What proceeded was the single largest battle in human history up to that point. With fighting in the streets, in the fields and from the windows of homes, no place was safe, as Hitler and Stalin both insisted that their troops not give up. In order to ensure Soviet victory, Stalin made use of over 100 Red Army divisions, both in the defence and subsequent encirclement counteroffensive. Eventually the Germans surrendered in February 1943[39].
The German surrender at Stalingrad essentially sealed the fate of the third reich, which was now in retreat. Stalin had set up factories in the Urals to continue the war effort[40], and building tanks, munitions, planes and other supplies. The Red Army was now being led by legendary generals such as Georgy Zukhov, who were able to effectively counter the German war effort. Stalin had gotten over his initial shock and started using the Soviet war machine to its full potential.
The Turning Tide and Rising Red Wave
After Moscow, Stalingrad and other subsequent successful victories, Stalin was in a much better position both internally and externally. The western allies temporarily softened their hard stance on the Soviets, both out of a sense of gratitude and also out of mutual interest in the destruction of facism. Stalin used this as leverage to try and further the USSR’s standing globally.
As the war progressed, much of the horror’s of the Third Reich were revealed to the world. However, the Soviets were not innocent bystanders. True to his character, Stalin was ruthless in his response to the Germans. The persecution of nationalities with “dual-loyalties” during the great terror was ramped up, with minorities such as Crimean Tatars, Karachay, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars and others being forcefully expelled to Central Asia [41]. The inmates of the gulags were forced into penal battalions, called “Shtrafbat”, and sent as cannon fodder to the front[42].
Source: Suspline Crimea // A Family of Crimean Tatars being deported
Despite posing as liberators, the Red Army committed some highly questionable acts. The Red Army was widely known for its brutality, justifying it as retribution. There was widespread rape both of women of German descent, as well as other nationalities[43]. Several massacres of opponents to Soviet rule, such as the Katyn massacre[44], would take place. The treatment of Prisoners of War (POWs) in the Soviet Union was much like the treatment of inmates in the Gulag, and the conditions were inhumane[45]. Nonetheless, Stalin either encouraged or turned a blind eye to these as the Red Army marched closer to Berlin. Victory was inevitable for the allies, as the Normandy Landings on D-Day had been successfully executed and it was only a matter of time until the Third Reich capitulated.
For the duration of the war, Stalin had leveraged the Soviet propaganda machine in order to portray himself as a strong leader in the fight against facism. However, on closer scrutiny, it becomes clear that he was merely an opportunist who would deal with both the capitalist West and the Nazis, based on who best supported his interests. His lack of foresight and refusal to acknowledge the possibility of an early German offensive cost the USSR dearly in terms of lives and land with an estimated 27 million Soviet citizens having perished during the course of the war, more than any other nation.
The Iron Curtain Descends
As the war came to an end, Stalin was emboldened by the strength of his army, as well as by the new found respect that the western allies showed. He, however, was not blind to the fact that their alliance was merely temporary, and that with the war finally drawing to an end, they would return to being enemies.
Hence, during the Tehran Conference of 1943 [46] and the Yalta Conference of 1945 [47], Stalin negotiated favourable terms for his contribution to the war, and ensured that the Soviet Union would have its own sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. Moreover, he also ensured that nations like Austria and Finland maintained their neutrality. During the establishment of the United Nations he bargained for greater representation of communist states, and also managed to get the Ukrainian and Belarussian Soviet Socialist Republics, seats in the UN General Assembly, despite them not being independent nations.
Source: Atlantic Council // The “big three” at the Yalta conference
The war had changed the face of the world forever, with the use of Nuclear Weapons making it clear that large-scale conflicts were a thing of the past. To clear the technological gap between the west and the USSR, Stalin accelerated the Soviet Nuclear program[48] (which had begun in 1943) and by 1949 the USSR had its first nuclear bomb.
Conclusion
Stalin's legacy is one marked by his unwavering conviction and extreme paranoia. Through mass purges, forced labour camps, and a pervasive atmosphere of fear, Stalin transformed the Soviet Union into a rigid police state where loyalty was demanded, dissent was crushed, and suspicion became the norm. He saw enemies everywhere, both real and imagined, and dealt with them with merciless efficiency.
While Stalin's decisiveness and conviction led to the industrialisation and military strengthening of the Soviet Union, they also exposed the darker side of his leadership. His reign is a stark reminder that effective leadership is not measured solely by the ability to achieve goals, but by the moral and ethical considerations that guide those achievements. True greatness in leadership is reflected not just in the strength of one’s convictions, but in the capacity for compassion, justice, and respect for human dignity. Stalin's life and legacy serve as a cautionary tale of how power, when unchecked and driven by fear rather than by principled leadership, can lead to devastation on a catastrophic scale.
Article by:
Samarth Bhandary,
Editor-in-Chief,
PES MUN Society, RR Campus
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