What else did comrade Stalin do?

[Carl v.]

From time to time, comrade Josef Stalin and communism are debated on the forum. People have clear views about the Gulag, the purges, and the late communist economy. Most of this is true. But the history of Russia, and later USSR, is much more than that.

Let us start with the feudal state under the Romanoffs: Even if slavery was prohibited in the mid-18th century, the majority of the people lived in uttermost poverty. Some were well off, like the royalties, noblemen and industrialist. The latter were in many cases foreigners; the Swedish inventor and businessman Alfred Nobel earned parts of his fortune exploiting the oil fields in the Caspian Baku-region.

But in general, as industrial nations like the US, UK and Germany emerged, the czarist Russia fell way backwards considering industrialization.

When WWI breaks out, the Russians are beaten in two decisive battles in eastern Prussia. After the revolution the peace treaty of Brest-Litovsk gives Germany vast areas in what earlier was western Russia (or Ukraine). At Versailles, the land is given back to Russia.

At this time a gruesome civil war was raging. After the communists had beaten the whites, Russia was invaded by Poland (1919-21), and lost Western Ukraine. But here were other anti-bolschewik invaders. Wikipedia has a list:
* 50,000 Czechoslovaks (along the Trans-Siberian railway)
* 28,000 Japanese (later increased to 70,000, all in the Vladivostok region)
* 24,000 Greeks (in Crimea and the Ukraine)
* 13,000 Americans (in Archangel and Vladivostok regions)
* 12,000 Poles (mostly in Crimea and the Ukraine)
* 4,000 Canadians (in Archangel and Vladivostok regions)
* 4,000 Serbs (in Archangel and Vladivostok regions)
* 4,000 Romanians (in Archangel region)
* 2,000 Italians (in Archangel and Vladivostok regions)
* 1,600 British (in Archangel and Vladivostok regions)
* 760 French (mostly in Archangel and Vladivostok regions)

And the situation was dire. In 1922, industrial production was 13 percent of that in 1914. Still communist Russia was able to clear its soil.

The cheka, the secret police, was inherited from the czar. The concept is not a communist invention as such, but the communist variety used harder means.

The communists started with an agrarian society in ruins. The infrastructure was poor, the infant USSR was internationally isolated and did not get loans, but worst of all was probably the lack of skilled craftsmen and engineers.

In less than 20 years a railway-system was constructed, industry with substantial output erected, large parts of the country electrified, an educational system developed, a health system added decades to average lifespan, and equal rights for both sexes was granted. So when Hitler invaded, the former agrarian society was able to fight a high-tech war.

Germany was on the leading edge technologically, and had a war machine with a command- and education system probably never seen anywhere else. The Germans overran Poland, and they overran France in even shorter time. They beat the feared French army and its great number of tanks, while the British Expeditionary Force barely escaped from Dunkirk. (The British escape was probably made possible by Hitler’s vain hope of a peace treaty with Britain.)

In the summer of 1941, the Red Army was in the middle of a transition period. Stalin had made new plans for the organization, and had his best officers shot or imprisoned. The German initial success should be judged upon this background. In a few hard years, the Red Army re-developed its organization and its weaponry to a juggernaut able to destroy the entire Army Group Centre in 1944.

The Russians dissembled factories in threatened area and reassembled them on the other side of the Ural Mountains, thus producing successful weapons like the tank T 34, or legendary aircrafts like the Yak 9 or the Schturmowik.

The Soviet Union morphed from an agrarian society to someone able to take a fight with the best army the world has ever seen, in less than 20 years. The cost in human lives and suffering was enormous, but it made this possible. I do not think it benefits the understanding of history only to highlight the costs of the development of the USSR, but also the achievements.

Probably also fit for History forum, but comrade Stalin has been heavily debated here.

Other views?

 

[dopedot]

I just enjoyed reading it,thanks.

 

[Huxley Hobbes]

Whatever his achievements in strengthening the USSR, he did so at the cost of tens of millions of lives. Apparently, this should be cautiously balanced against the benefits - I don't hold to that. Unless someone unifies the entire planet into a single political body which is not at risk of fragmentation or secession and starts a centuries-long golden age full of peace, prosperity, and advancement, this is too great a cost.

 

[LlamaCat]

I'm not sure if you're advocating Stalin as a great leader here or just offering some history lesson for the debate, but it's interesting reading!

My view: Stalin was personally responsible - and I stress, personally - for the deaths of something like 20 million of his own people. Not to mention his own wife (ok that's debatable, but who doesn't believe it?)

He was not personally responsible for the military, economic or geopolitical advances his nation made during that time. Circumstances, hard-working Eastern Europeans, and effective military and local political leadership under Stalin were mostly responsible for that. It's simplistic to say Stalin was responsible for those national achievements you mention.

Stalin was just a thug who escaped the Gulags himself several times. After his last escape, he managed to use what brains and tenacity he had to rise to power when certain political conditions were ripe for him to emerge. His story is very similar to Saddam Hussein's in this regard. He's just a murderer that unfortunately got his shot at the top. Actually if I cared about these things (and I don't) I would consider Stalin being in the game as the most offensive.

 

[PimpyMicPimp]

My favourite part of playing Stalin is renaming a city to Pimpingrad


Not really anything to do with this thread, but it made me think of it >.<

 

[Becephalus]

I think this was a worthwhile post. I get sooooo sick of hearing the economic liberalism hawks compare the US's wealth and success to the USSR's & PRC's history. It was not even remotely an even contest and the situations were not similar. Not that I am some crazy commie, I am fairly middle of the road myself, but the historical ignorance drvies me nuts.

The US had much better land/resources, more stored captial, more educated people, a much easier military situation, a solid trading block etc.

Russia and China were the height of impossible to control backward messes in 1900, expending all their effort just to maitain the status quo. And all things considered I think they have ended up in fairly strong positions now, despite all the setbacks.

Its like there was a 100 yard dash and the US started 70 yards down the field. The USSR went 25 yards and China went 30 yards and the US is all self congradulatory about finishing first. I think China is actually stronger now than if it had remained nationalist, Communism was possibly a net loss for the USSR, but I am not positve it would have survived WWII without Stalin.

Yes many people died, and the regimes were morally pretty questionable. But the sad truth is I think a lot of people would have died in these cases no matter what system they were running.

The western nations tend to externalize a lot of their costs into the thrid world. Anyway I could go on, but I don't feel that strongly about it, I just think some historical balance is required.

 

[Pannonius]

Many people died, but more would have died if Hitler won. He wanted to exterminate the whole slavonic race, so there would not be any Russians, Ukrainians etc. today at all. But I share the opinion that he's personally responsible for the killings, but not for the achievements. These were done by the whole soviet nation.

 

[MrFelony]

My favourite part of playing Stalin is renaming a city to Pimpingrad


Not really anything to do with this thread, but it made me think of it >.<

I think that's funnier than the time i took over one of Louis XIV cities and before he retook it renamed it "Louis XIVisGay" swear I laughed everytime it finished a building or troop. I want to do this in a game online so bad haha

and thanks for the interesting read

 

[Yeekim]

Looks like an enjoyable debate Where to start?
1) Should be mentioned, that Soviet Russia probably was able to fend off Germans largely due to Allied help.
Below is the amount of war matériel shipped to the Soviet Union through the Lend-Lease program from its beginning until 30 September 1945.
Aircraft 14,795
Tanks 7,056
Jeeps 51,503
Trucks 375,883
Motorcycles 35,170
Tractors 8,071
Guns 8,218
Machine guns 131,633
Explosives 345,735 tons
Building equipment valued $10,910,000
Railroad freight cars 11,155
Locomotives 1,981
Cargo ships 90
Submarine hunters 105
Torpedo boats 197
Ship engines 7,784
Food supplies 4,478,000 tons
Machines and equipment $1,078,965,000
Non-ferrous metals 802,000 tons
Petroleum products 2,670,000 tons
Chemicals 842,000 tons
Cotton 106,893,000 tons
Leather 49,860 tons
Tires 3,786,000
Army boots 15,417,001 pairs

2) Actually there is so much else to add that I only kind of summarize: the Soviets had tremendous resources to build themselves upon: nearly 1/6 of Earth full of natural resources in abundance. Also greater (albeit low quality: after 80 years of national sport known as "rooting out the intelligence") human resources than any other nation in Europe. All they brought about was environmental, economical, demographic and social collapse.

3) As this is supposed to be a thread more about Stalin in person, I'll add a passage from an article of Russian historian Lev Navrozov (http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/6/4/110510.shtml ), with a comparison between Stalin and, well, you guessed it, Hitler. Now, I do not want to turn this thread into another AH debate, so I put the part about him as spoiler. Read at your own risk. Also, while I agree with the part regarding Stalin, spoilered part seems a wee bit stretched.

Let me conclude his book with this short lecture on the personal difference between Hitler and Stalin that no one, East or West, seems to notice.

Spoiler :

Before 1918, Hitler was a highly decorated soldier who bemoaned the defeat of Germany in the war.

Before 1917, Stalin was Lenin's "professional revolutionary" and a government police secret agent.

Spoiler :

After 1918, Hitler was the worshipped leader of his party (the relevant entry of Goebbels in his diary reads like the confession of an amorous young girl who had met her idol).

Stalin, a comical Georgian speaking comical Russian, was allowed to join the leadership of Lenin's party, since it could not very well consist of only Russians and Jews in a country of 130 nations; it had to include at least one Georgian. A master of secret-police intrigue, he exterminated Lenin's party and replaced it with his sycophants.

Spoiler :

Hitler was a ruthless killer of 12 million civilians out of his sense of superiority and Hitler was a fearless warrior (as per Nietzsche), he loved conventional land war (as per Wagner), and was a genius of it (cf. his Blitzkrieg from the autumn of 1939 to the summer of 1941).

When his army began to roll back at Moscow on Dec. 5, 1941, he rushed into the hell of frost and enemy fire and stopped the stampede by his – yes, fearless – Führerschaft. He despised espionage, and when he was told that a British Embassy official had volunteered to be a German spy, he exclaimed in disgust: "But he is a traitor!"

Stalin feared and hence hated war, in which he was inept. He finished off Germany in three years after the "spine of the fascist beast had been broken," to use his lingo, and grabbed Eastern Europe by his secret-police techniques – that was his road to world domination.

He was after world domination, because the very existence of "bourgeois democracy" subverted his power.But he would not risk the danger of launching a war against Germany (as Suvorov has it) as a step toward world domination, unless he could be sure that Hitler was going to attack him.

Note that in the late 1980s the Soviet losses in the "Patriotic War" were revealed for the first time: 27 million. They say something about Stalin's military ineptness – especially in comparison with, for example, the losses of the military personnel of the defeated Germany: 2.85 million killed and missing.

Ever since the mid-1930s Stalin had been crawling into ever-deeper nooks and crannies in his growing (paranoiac?) fear of danger, pain and death from all quarters and all causes, including poison and bullet. He died secretly inside a secret abode. He had destroyed several times as many civilians as Hitler had. But he had destroyed them out of fear –he had destroyed those individuals, classes and nations that seemed to be dangers to him and his power.

 

[Pannonius]

But Soviet losses included many million civilians killed by the nazis and their henchmen in the occupied territories, which was all part of Hitler's genocidal plans. Altough Stalin was incompetent in military affairs, plus he killed or imprisoned some of the best Red Army's commanders.

 

[Becephalus]

I think most serious WWII historians agree that the lend lease to the USSR while very important, is easy to overblow. Moreover people don't seem to understand that the US and the UK had to do very little heavy lifting in the war. 80&#37; of Germany's blow fell squarely on the USSR. Not that the US couldn't have handled doing a lot more, it was really barely even getting started in 1945. But the glorification of D-Day and the Liberation campaign is kind of a joke compared to the Ostfront.

Campared to the USSR the US treated the war as a passing hobby. Of course the higher standard of living people have the fewer sacrifices they are willing to make, so it probably would have been politically impossible for us to go onto full war footing. The amount of capital and industrial strength we could have marshalled was truly horrifying.

 

[Carl v.]

Thanks for interesting views. I would like to add a few comments. Huxley Hobbes writes: &#8220;Unless someone unifies the entire planet into a single political body which is not at risk of fragmentation or secession and starts a centuries-long golden age full of peace, prosperity, and advancement, this is too great a cost.&#8221;

But that is exactly what the Russian communists believed during and after the revolution. The communists wanted to build a utopia something like Huxley Hobbes describes. And since the cause was noble, the opponents to the cause must be evil. Today we can witness a similar logic in political phrases like &#8220;The Axis of Evil&#8221;, or &#8220;The Great Satan&#8221;.

LlamaCat is a bit harder to understand. I perfectly agree that Stalin was personal responsible for the atrocities under his administration. But I do not understand how he can not take any credit for the gains of the USSR during his time in power. His words were literarily law. When he said &#8220;Industrialization&#8221;, it meant exactly that. NOW! When he said &#8220;Not a single step back&#8221; (1942), it meant whoever did that were shot.

My point is: Stalin was the centre where all power was concentrated, he decided everything of any significance, and all other decisions on lower levels in the USSR were taken according to Stalin&#8217;s principles and the political program of the communist party (approved by Stalin).

During WWII the USSR received lots of weapons, machinery and other goods from its Anglo-American allied. The aid eased war affords, especially raw materials for arms production.

If we look at the figures Yeekim presents, the quantities are enormous. But let us take the 7K+ Anglo-American tanks. They were considered inferior and were mostly used in the rear echelon. During the war the USSR itself produced 50K+ of the fearsome T 34 tank; the best tank on the battlefield until the German had copied some of its main features and made the PzKw VI Panther.

The vehicles from the USA had a great influence on warfare itself. With lots of trucks, the Red Army was made mobile to an extent never seen before. At the same time the Germans lost lots of their logistics; railways were sent sky-high by partisans, trucks were destroyed faster than the German industry could replace them, and the horses died of several war-related reasons (and were often eaten, like in Stalingrad).

With British and American trucks to carry infantry as fast as the tanks rolled, the Red Army could implement the blitzkrieg-concept and roll up the Germans. On Hitler&#8217;s order they were not allowed to use what was left of the Wehrmacht&#8217;s main asset: mobility and organization.

The USSR was in a lucky position considering raw materials and different resources. At this time USA exploited the Americas; England &#8211; and partly Germany &#8211; exploited the rest of the world. In splendid isolation the USSA had to rely on its own resources.

 

[LlamaCat]

My point is: Stalin was the centre where all power was concentrated, he decided everything of any significance, and all other decisions on lower levels in the USSR were taken according to Stalin’s principles and the political program of the communist party (approved by Stalin).

Well I don't mean to say he can't take some credit, of course he can. But I would credit the principles and political success of the communist party in Russia to Lenin, certainly not to Stalin. I doubt whether Stalin really had any "principles" or higher ideals as it relates to Marxism/socialism. Maybe I'm wrong but from what I've read anyway.