Josef Stalin (1878-1953)

A Josef Stalin (1878-1953) is a Soviet totalitarian historical person who transformed the Soviet Union through mass terrors, forced collectivizations, and industrial modernizations.

• AKA: Joseph Stalin, Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili.
• Context:
  • It can typically implement Stalinist Terror Systems through mass purges and show trials.
  • It can typically establish Stalinist Economic Policys through forced collectivizations and five-year plans.
  • It can typically create Stalinist Totalitarian States through party control mechanisms and personality cults.
  • It can typically orchestrate Stalinist Mass Killings through deportations and labor camp systems.
  • It can typically pursue Stalinist Industrialization through command economy methods and heavy industry prioritizations.
  • It can typically be associated with Stalin Quotes and Stalin Purge Orders.
  • ...
  • It can often demonstrate Stalinist Paranoia through ally eliminations and conspiracy theory promotions.
  • It can often employ Stalinist Propaganda Methods through history rewritings and image manipulations.
  • It can often manifest Stalinist Power Consolidation through rival liquidations and loyalty tests.
  • It can often pursue Stalinist Foreign Policy through sphere of influence expansions and satellite state creations.
  • ...
  • It can range from being a Revolutionary Activist Stalin (1878-1953) to being a Totalitarian Dictator Stalin (1878-1953), depending on its Stalin power position.
  • It can range from being a Pragmatic Leader Stalin (1878-1953) to being a Paranoid Tyrant Stalin (1878-1953), depending on its Stalin psychological state.
  • It can range from being a Wartime Ally Stalin (1878-1953) to being a Cold War Antagonist Stalin (1878-1953), depending on its Stalin international context.
  • ...
  • It can transform Soviet Union from agricultural society to industrial superpower through human cost.
  • It can establish Gulag System imprisoning millions of Soviet citizens.
  • It can cause Holodomor Famine killing millions of Ukrainians through grain requisition policys.
  • It can create Eastern Bloc through postwar occupations and communist regime installations.
  • ...
• Example(s):
  • Stalin Life Periods, such as:
    • Early Life Stalin (1878-1917), including:
      • Georgian Youth Stalin (1878-1894) born to shoemaker family in Gori, Georgia.
      • Seminary Student Stalin (1894-1899) studying at Tbilisi Spiritual Seminary.
      • Revolutionary Stalin (1899-1917) organizing strikes and bank robberys for Bolsheviks.
      • Exile Period Stalin (1902-1917) experiencing multiple arrests and Siberian exiles.
    • Revolutionary Period Stalin (1917-1924), including:
      • October Revolution Stalin (1917) playing minor role in Bolshevik takeover.
      • Civil War Commissar Stalin (1918-1921) commanding Red Army units.
      • Nationalities Commissar Stalin (1917-1923) handling ethnic minority policys.
      • General Secretary Stalin (1922-1924) building party apparatus control.
    • Power Struggle Stalin (1924-1929), including:
      • Triumvirate Member Stalin (1924-1925) allying with Kamenev and Zinoviev against Trotsky.
      • Duumvirate Leader Stalin (1925-1927) partnering with Bukharin against Left Opposition.
      • Sole Leader Stalin (1928-1929) defeating Right Opposition and achieving absolute power.
    • Early Rule Stalin (1929-1939), including:
      • Collectivization Enforcer Stalin (1929-1933) eliminating kulaks and creating collective farms.
      • Industrialization Director Stalin (1928-1938) implementing five-year plans.
      • Great Terror Orchestrator Stalin (1936-1938) conducting mass purges and show trials.
    • Wartime Leader Stalin (1939-1945), including:
      • Nazi Pact Maker Stalin (1939-1941) dividing Eastern Europe with Hitler.
      • Wartime Commander Stalin (1941-1945) directing Soviet war effort against Nazi Germany.
      • Big Three Member Stalin (1943-1945) negotiating with Roosevelt and Churchill.
    • Postwar Dictator Stalin (1945-1953), including:
      • Eastern Europe Controller Stalin (1945-1949) establishing Soviet satellite states.
      • Cold War Initiator Stalin (1946-1953) confronting Western powers.
      • Late Purge Planner Stalin (1952-1953) preparing new terror campaign before death.
  • Stalin Terror Campaigns, such as:
    • Collectivization Terror (1929-1933) causing millions of peasant deaths.
    • Ukrainian Famine/Holodomor (1932-1933) killing 3-7 million Ukrainians.
    • Great Purge (1936-1938) executing 750,000 Soviet citizens.
    • National Operations (1937-1938) targeting ethnic minoritys.
    • Military Purge (1937-1938) eliminating Red Army leadership.
    • Doctors' Plot (1952-1953) targeting Jewish doctors before Stalin's death.
  • Stalin Economic Policys, such as:
    • First Five-Year Plan (1928-1932) prioritizing heavy industry.
    • Collective Farm System replacing private agriculture.
    • Command Economy Model centralizing economic decisions.
    • Stakhanovite Movement promoting labor productivity.
  • Stalin Ideological Developments, such as:
    • Socialism in One Country doctrine opposing Trotsky's permanent revolution.
    • Marxism-Leninism Ideology codifying Soviet orthodoxy.
    • Stalin Constitution (1936) proclaiming socialist democracy while maintaining dictatorship.
    • Stalinist Cult of Personality presenting Stalin as infallible leader.
  • Stalin International Impacts, such as:
    • Eastern Bloc Creation (1945-1949) establishing communist governments.
    • Berlin Blockade (1948-1949) confronting Western Allied forces.
    • Korean War Support (1950-1953) backing North Korean invasion.
    • Sino-Soviet Alliance (1950) supporting Mao Zedong.
  • Stalin Historical Reception Periods, such as:
    • De-Stalinization Period (1953-1964) under Khrushchev exposing Stalin crimes.
    • Partial Rehabilitation Period (1964-1985) under Brezhnev softening criticism.
    • Glasnost Period (1985-1991) fully revealing Stalin atrocitys.
    • Post-Soviet Period (1991-present) showing mixed Russian opinions on Stalin.
  • ...
• Counter-Example(s):
  • Vladimir Lenin (1870-1924), who led Bolshevik revolution through ideological leadership rather than personal terror.
  • Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971), who pursued de-Stalinization rather than maintaining terror system.
  • Mikhail Gorbachev (1931-2022), who implemented glasnost and perestroika rather than totalitarian control.
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882-1945), who led through democratic institutions rather than dictatorial terror.
  • Winston Churchill (1874-1965), who defended parliamentary democracy despite wartime alliance with Stalin.
  • Mao Zedong (1893-1976), who created Chinese communism independently rather than as Stalin subordinate.
  • Vladimir Putin (1952-), who uses authoritarian methods but without mass terror scale.
  • Peter the Great (1672-1725), who modernized Russia through reforms rather than mass murder.
• See: Soviet Union, Totalitarianism, Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Great Purge, Gulag, Holodomor, World War II, Cold War, Marxism-Leninism, Socialist, de-Stalinization, The Gulag Archipelago, Show Trial, Cult of Personality, NKVD, Collectivization, Five-Year Plan, Eastern Bloc, Yalta Conference, Iron Curtain, Totalitarian Leader, Mass Murderer, Dictator.

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References

2015

• (Wikipedia, 2015) ⇒ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin Retrieved:2015-2-18.
  • Joseph Stalin or Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis Dze Jugashvili, , ; 18 December 1878  – 5 March 1953) was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953.

    Among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who took part in the Russian Revolution of 1917, Stalin was appointed general secretary of the party's Central Committee in 1922. He subsequently managed to consolidate power following the 1924 death of Vladimir Lenin through suppressing Lenin's criticisms (in the postscript of his testament) and expanding the functions of his role, all the while eliminating any opposition. He remained general secretary until the post was abolished in 1952, concurrently serving as the Premier of the Soviet Union from 1941 onward.

    Under Stalin's rule, the concept of “socialism in one country” became a central tenet of Soviet society. He replaced the New Economic Policy introduced by Lenin in the early 1920s with a highly centralised command economy, launching a period of industrialization and collectivization that resulted in the rapid transformation of the USSR from an agrarian society into an industrial power. However, the economic changes coincided with the imprisonment of millions of people in correctional labour camps. The initial upheaval in agriculture disrupted food production and contributed to the catastrophic Soviet famine of 1932–1933, known as the Holodomor in Ukraine. Between 1934 and 1939 he organized and led a massive purge (known as “Great Purge") of the party, government, armed forces and intelligentsia, in which millions of so-called "enemies of the Soviet people" were imprisoned, exiled or executed. In a period that lasted from 1936 to 1939, Stalin instituted a campaign against enemies within his regime. Major figures in the Communist Party, such as the old Bolsheviks, Leon Trotsky, and most of the Red Army generals, were killed after being convicted of plotting to overthrow the government and Stalin. In August 1939, after failed attempts to conclude anti-Hitler pacts with other major European powers, Stalin entered into a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany that divided their influence and territory within Eastern Europe, resulting in their invasion of Poland in September of that year, but Germany later violated the agreement and launched a massive invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. Despite heavy human and territorial losses, Soviet forces managed to halt the Nazi incursion after the decisive Battles of Moscow and Stalingrad. After defeating the Axis powers on the Eastern Front, the Red Army captured Berlin in May 1945, effectively ending the war in Europe for the Allies. The Soviet Union subsequently emerged as one of two recognized world superpowers, the other being the United States. The Yalta and Potsdam conferences established communist governments loyal to the Soviet Union in the Eastern Bloc countries as buffer states. He also fostered close relations with Mao Zedong in China and Kim Il-sung in North Korea. Stalin led the Soviet Union through its post-war reconstruction phase, which saw a significant rise in tension with the Western world that would later be known as the Cold War. During this period, the USSR became the second country in the world to successfully develop a nuclear weapon, as well as launching the Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature in response to another widespread famine and the Great Construction Projects of Communism. In the years following his death, Stalin and his regime have been condemned on numerous occasions, most notably in 1956 when his successor Nikita Khrushchev denounced his legacy and initiated a process of de-Stalinization. He remains a controversial figure today, with many regarding him as a tyrant. However, popular opinion within the Russian Federation is mixed. Stalin is attributed to 20,000,000–40,000,000 deaths as a result of his regime's actions.

2014

• http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2014/11/understanding-stalin/380786/2/
  • This ideology offered Stalin a deep sense of certainty in the face of political and economic setbacks. If policies designed to produce prosperity created poverty instead, an explanation could always be found: the theory had been incorrectly interpreted, the forces were not correctly aligned, the officials had blundered. If Soviet policies were unpopular, even among workers, that too could be explained: antagonism was rising because the class struggle was intensifying.

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