Joseph Stalin
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Joseph Stalin, born Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, was a Georgian revolutionary who murdered and schemed his way to the leadership of the Soviet Union.
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[edit] World War Two
He was responsible for the purges and power consolidations that left the USSR utterly incapable of taking on Nazi Germany when it invaded,[1] but fortunately "General Winter" stepped in to save his butt. Prior to World War II, Stalin had all of his best generals and spies shot.[2] (He felt like he didn't have anything to worry about, because he and Hitler were like brothers or something.) Between the Russian winter, Russian mud, Hitler's incompetence[3], and the fact that Russians are bull-headed enough to do anything, the USSR managed to survive and beat back Hitler's armies. (Stalin had all of the POWs the Germans had taken shot or sent them to Siberia as spies.[4])
[edit] Starving the peasants to feed them
See the main article about this subject, Holodomor.
He also (possibly intentionally) created the worst famine the world has ever seen. The former Soviet Republic of Ukraine has considered accusing Russia of attempted genocide, since it seemed that Stalin was trying to starve them all to death. (Most historians do not accept this view, but many in Ukraine believe it anyway.)[5]
And following a common trend in which a certain portion of the population waxes nostalgic for the reign of a dictator ("when Mussolini was in charge, the trains ran on time"), there are tons of people in Russia who say (quite publicly!) that Russia needs to "bring back Comrade Stalin"!
[edit] Communism in the West and Stalin
Once upon a time, most Communist parties in the West were openly Stalinist. After Khrushchev denounced Stalin, many of them fell apart under the internal dissension.
[edit] El poemtry de la belle Guiseppe
He was also known for his poetry during his youth, which was written in Georgian. A selection was published under the pseudonym "Soselo" in the Georgian newspaper Iveria ("Georgia") in 1895, some of which were later reprinted in anthologies of Georgian poetry.[6]
[edit] Yeah, he was an atheist
Which, in the minds of certain people, proves that all atheists are potential mass-murderers. He also went to seminary school before becoming a Communist, but they rarely condemn seminaries using the same "logic".
[edit] Stalinism
Stalinism, Uncle Joe's legacy to the world, is a ruthless approach to communism that relies heavily on an all-powerful supreme leader aided by a large body of secret police who "encourage" neighbor to inform on neighbor, purges of any potential adversary to the supreme leader (with emphasis on the comrades who helped him achieve his position in the first place), the imprisonment and murder of intellectuals (liberals), and the occasional mass murder of entire portions of the population.
[edit] See also
[edit] Footnotes
- ↑ Great Soviet Experiment, p. 309-311
- ↑ For the generals, See the Soviet Experiment, p. 314. The intelligence service purge is mentioned in Allen Dulles's Craft of Intelligence.
- ↑ Soviet Experiment, p. 316
- ↑ ibid., p. 324
- ↑ Ibid., p. 224-228
- ↑ Montefiore, Simon Sebag, Young Stalin, London: Phoenix, 2008, pp. 53-66
