The measures taken against peasants caused unimaginable human damage. Two and a half million peasants were deported, hundreds of thousands of them died during deportation, and just as many others were sent to labour camps. In the countryside, collectivisation and excessive requirements for food resulted in severe famines (notably those in 1932-1933 and 1946-1947). In 1933, Stalin knowingly condemned six million peasants to die of hunger in Ukraine. This was one of the greatest massacres of the century, which was kept quiet in the West and covered up in the USSR.
The Second World War had an even higher death toll in the USSR, with almost 26 million deaths, partly due to the low value given to human life by Stalin’s regime, and to Stalin’s appalling tactical choices. The war also brought its own wave of deportations, which particularly affected some inhabitants of liberated territories who were thought to have been contaminated by capitalism, the elites and nationalists of border territories that were being incorporated into the Soviet Union, and the ‘suspect’ nationalities, or those who had been accused, without proof, of collaborating with the Nazi occupiers. Hundreds of thousands of Karachays (a population of Russia living in the mountainous regions of the central Caucasus), Kalmyks (Mongol people living mainly in Russia), Chechens, Ingush people (a Caucasian population of Russia), the Balkars (Turkish people in Russia), Ukrainians, Crimean Tatars (Turkish Muslims) and Meskhetians (Muslims) were sent to Siberia, Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan in huge freight trains. Their autonomous regions were also abolished and even the very existence of these populations was wiped from official documents.
De-Stalinisation and continuity
Following the war, Stalin enjoyed the sincere support of much of the population, who generally considered him to be a victorious general, and whose youngest members had let themselves get carried away by the utopian socialist plan. He especially owed this glory to the victory he had won at the Battle of Stalingrad and to the role he had played in the protection of the country. His death was therefore met with concern due to the uncertainty of the future and the fear of new problems arising.
Nikita Khrushchev and Stalin, photo taken in 1936.
Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971), Stalin’s longstanding deputy and faithful supporter of the regime, then became the Party’s leader. However, in 1956, during the 20th Party Congress, he implicitly criticised the excesses of Stalin’s reign. It would not be until Mikhail Gorbachev (born in 1931) came to power, with his policy of glasnost (‘transparency’, 1985-1991), that the full extent of Stalin’s crimes was revealed to the entire world. The years following his death were marked by de-Stalinisation and relative peace: half of the Gulag prisoners were released thanks to a large amnesty, and Stalin’s name disappeared from the press. In 1961, his body was removed from the mausoleum in Red Square where he had been buried next to Lenin. Any places bearing his name were also renamed and statues of him were destroyed.
By blaming all the excesses of Stalin’s reign on the dictator himself, Khrushchev successfully preserved the Party’s image and dominance, and kept power. The governments that followed therefore remained aligned with the tenets of Stalinism, following the same policies and perpetuating the economic and social system until the fall of the USSR. De-Stalinisation thus retrospectively appears to mark the start of the cracks in the Soviet system.
Communism after Stalin
During Stalin’s lifetime, Western public opinion had been broadly deceived by Soviet propaganda. Many intellectuals had therefore supported Stalin’s Communism and admired his economic model, which actually seemed viable when they were unaware of the real situation in the country.
The report released by Khrushchev, despite being very biased, therefore came as a shock that seriously weakened Communist ideology and put a brutal end to the dream of a fairer and happier society. Following this, Communists became divided, and some national parties now wanted to find their own way, far from Moscow’s control. After they detonated their first atomic bomb in Kazakhstan in 1949, the USSR no longer seemed to be the standard-bearer for a social revolution that aimed to build a better world, and was increasingly perceived as an aggressive military power.
Stalin and modern-day Russia
Somewhat paradoxically, Stalin is still fairly popular in Russia. The generations who did not live through his regime essentially remember his victory over the Nazis, Russia’s entry into the industrial era and the establishment of a powerful and internationally recognised state. He is also particularly well-liked by those who still feel nostalgia for the Soviet Union. Proof of this is that his tomb, located along one of the walls of the Kremlin, is always covered in flowers.
Indeed, Stalin’s popularity depends on a selective and idealised view of the past, partly developed following the disappointment caused by more recent governments. It is also related to admiration for strong men and nostalgia for Russia’s greatness. As such, for some Russians, the construction of a strong state and national pride can partly justify the torment of Stalin’s terror. This Soviet past has moreover been restored by Vladimir Putin (Russian head of state, born in 1952), with a view to creating historical continuity between the USSR and the current Russian state, which has inherited many of its characteristics from these two periods (omnipresence of the secret police, use of violence against opponents, suspicion of suspected Western spies, etc.). Stalin’s shadow thus still lingers over Russia.
Summary
Stalin came from a humble family in the Caucasus, and became known for his commitment to the socialist movement in the fight against the tsarist regime. He joined the government after the revolution and seized power following Lenin’s death thanks to his opportunism, tactics and unscrupulousness.
For almost 30 years, he ruled the Soviet Union with a rod of iron. He established a totalitarian regime, refusing to delegate any power and resorting to political terror to ensure his continued rule (random executions, mass deportations, organised famine).
The self-proclaimed successor to Lenin, Stalin was just as motivated by revolutionary ideology as by the draw of power. While his political ideas were in line with Marxism, his political activity in practice gave rise to a particular overall system known as Stalinism.
Through a planned, centralised economy, he reached his objective of making his country a great industrial and military power. His successes were glorified by propaganda to demonstrate the great and successful nature of Communist ideology, both inside and outside the country.
Agricultural reform, which was supposed to ensure better nutrition for the population and make farmers more prosperous, was undertaken through a show of force against the rural population and at the price of a terrible famine. Additionally, the measures put in place deprived the new kolkhoz farmers of all their rights and prospects.
Alongside its great industrial and agricultural achievements, the Soviet Union saw its people fall into serious poverty. The reality was very far removed from the ideal promised by Stalin and proclaimed in his propaganda.
When the Second World War broke out, Stalin thought that he would be protected by the non-aggression pact between the Soviet Union and Germany. Consequently, when the Führer’s troops invaded his country, it was a complete surprise. Only the USSR’s vast human and material resources enabled him to deal with the situation. Although the victory was won more despite Stalin than because of him, his was the image that was glorified both inside and outside the Soviet Union.
Although the Allies and the Soviets fought together, their alliance was only fleeting and, following the liberation of the Eastern European countries by the Red Army, Stalin took advantage of the situation to extend Soviet influence across half of Europe. Communists and capitalists would subsequently be at loggerheads across the world for nearly 40 years.
When he died, Stalin was prudently recognised in non-Communist countries as the defeater of Nazism. While he received some criticism from his successors, the true scale of his crimes was only
revealed after the fall of the Soviet Union. The period that followed was marked by de-Stalinisation and relative peace, but a new authoritarian regime was established soon afterwards.
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Bibliography
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Applebaum, A. (2003) Gulag: A History. London: Allen Lane.
Conquest, R. (1986) The Harvest of Sorrow: Soviet Collectivization and the Terror-Famine. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Kotkin, S. (2015) Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928. New York: Penguin Books.
Snyder, T. (2012) Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books.
Iconographic sources
Joseph Stalin. © Bundesarchiv.
The delegates of the 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party. Stalin is on the second row. Royalty-free reproduction picture.
Bloody Sunday: Shooting Workers Near The Winter Palace January 9, 1905, painting by Ivan Vladimirov. Royalty-free reproduction picture.
Lenin stirring up the crowd. © Goldshtein G.
Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt and Stalin at the Yalta Conference. Royalty-free reproduction picture.
Photo of Stalin and Lenin. Royalty-free reproduction picture.
Parade thrown in honour of Stalin. © Bundesarchiv.
Nikita Khrushchev and Stalin, photo taken in 1936. Royalty-free reproduction picture.
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