The role of Stalin in the history of the country
December 2009 marked the 130th anniversary of the birth of I.V. Stalin. Since then, and also in connection with the 65th anniversary of the Victory of the Soviet Union over Germany, discussions about the role of Stalin in the history of the USSR have not subsided. It still remains one of the biggest mysteries how an ordinary, poorly educated foreigner with a heavy Georgian accent became a ruler on whom the lives of millions of people depended. They say that Stalin's main quality was his purely Asian ability to stay under the radar and bide his time.
Public opinion polls show that about 40% of Russians are still supporters of Stalin, yearn for Soviet power, and have a hard time with the collapse of the Soviet Union. They note that there were great construction projects, the elimination of illiteracy, the rise of Soviet science, and victory in the Great Patriotic War. Nobody denies these achievements. But they do not talk about the price of “Stalin’s achievements.” They consider people who criticize Stalinism to be anti-Soviet, as well as those who try to objectively assess the course and results of the war.
Stalin was deified by Soviet propaganda, which had a powerful effect on people, especially those who were illiterate. No one dared to doubt his decisions: he could not be wrong!
During the reconstruction of the lobby of the Kurskaya-Koltsevaya metro station, the full text of the second verse of the USSR Anthem of 1943 was restored on its ceiling: “Through the thunderstorms the sun of freedom shone for us / And Lenin, the great one, illuminated our path. / Stalin raised us to be loyal to the people, / Inspired us to work and to heroic deeds.”
In April 2012, school notebooks with a color image of Stalin on the cover went on retail sale in Moscow and other cities.
At one of the meetings of the Moscow government, the issue of decorating the station on the occasion of the 65th anniversary of the Victory was discussed. Vladimir Dolgikh, Chairman of the Council of War and Labor Veterans of the capital, a former candidate member of the Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee, and recently an honorary citizen of Moscow, who spoke at the meeting, called on the city authorities not to abandon the idea of placing posters on the city streets with information about the merits of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief. By the way, in December 2011 V.I. Dolgikh was elected to the State Duma from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation.
The mayor of Moscow at that time, Yuri Luzhkov, completely understood the Dolgikhs’ position. In his opinion, historical objectivity requires the presence of the Generalissimo on holiday billboards. “Objectivity requires that all those who led the state not be crossed out or excluded, but rather their role in the Great Patriotic War and in the post-war efforts to restore the national economy be assessed,” concluded Yu.M. Luzhkov.
In particular, the writer Alexander Melikhov stated in Izvestia on March 18, 2009: “All our attempts to pigment the image of Stalin will remain in vain.”
Historian Yu. Zhukov in the book “The Mystery of 1937. Stalin’s People’s Empire” tried to expose Stalin’s “demonizers” and prove that it was not the evil will of “the leader that caused the repressions of 1937–1938, but the actions of many top-level party and government figures, later presented in the image of innocent victims.”
And the famous writer Alexander Prokhanov, during one of the television debates, tried to convince the audience that “de-Stalinization would be ruin for Russia. Stalin for Russia is the hope that it will rise in the 21st century.”
Authors of the book “Riddles of 1937. Slandered Stalin,” 2009 edition, Yuri Mukhin, Grover Furr, Alexey Golenkov “convincingly prove that the overthrow of Stalin was a kind of artillery preparation for an attack on the positions of socialism and the collapse of the USSR.”
In an interview with Newsweek and Spiegel magazines on April 2, 1996, the head of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation Gennady Zyuganov falsely asserted: “Today there are more victims of repression in the camps than under Stalin.”
During a discussion on NTV on December 20, 2009, “Stalinists and opponents of Stalinists,” dedicated to the 130th anniversary of Stalin, G. Zyuganov did not skimp on compliments to the leader:
Stalin is a great leader, a talented commander.
Collectivization was needed in order to force the inert peasantry to work. There were mistakes, but they were corrected in time. There were excesses, but the perpetrators were punished. Without collectivization there would be no industrialization.
Stalin created the best industry in the world.
During the Great Patriotic War, he encouraged the people to victory with personal courage.
It was great luck that the country was headed by Stalin, who, as a leader, was in the right place at the right time.
From year to year, with enviable consistency, G. Zyuganov brings flowers to the leader’s grave at the Kremlin wall, thereby openly demonstrating his love for him and devotion.
Historian V.M. Zhukhrai even surpassed the statements of the leader of the Communist Party of the Russian Federation in praising Stalin. In the book “Hitler's Fatal Miscalculation,” published in 2000. The collapse of the blitzkrieg,” he categorically states:
“...The merit of I.V. Stalin’s speech to the Soviet people on the eve of Nazi Germany’s attack on the Soviet Union is truly invaluable” (p. 239).
“...A striking manifestation of the military genius of I.V. Stalin was his decision to prohibit the bringing of the main personnel armed forces of the USSR directly to the new unfortified western borders on the eve of the war, which ultimately led to the disruption of the far-reaching plans of the Nazis and to the defeat of Nazi Germany” (p. 303).
(Note by N.Ts.: At the end of May 1941, an extended meeting of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks was held in the Kremlin, discussing issues related to preparing the country for defense. The report was made by the Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army, Army General G.K. Zhukov, recently replacing Army General K. A. Meretskov in this post.
Zhukov, in particular, noted that “an important problem is the construction of fortified borders along the state border, the condition of highways and dirt roads. The construction of new fortified areas on the western border began at the beginning of 1940. It was possible to build 2,500 reinforced concrete structures... The construction of fortified areas has not been completed, and from this side the new border is extremely vulnerable. In this regard, I consider it my duty to declare that the disarmament of fortified areas on our old border, undertaken on the proposals of Comrades Kulik, Shaposhnikov and Zhdanov, is clearly wrong. They may still be useful." ( Note: in 13 fortified areas on the old border there were 3,196 defensive structures, in which there were 25 machine-gun battalions with a total strength of 18 thousand people.)
A very nervous reaction from Stalin followed: “Do you think that we will retreat to the old border?”
Voroshilov agreed with Stalin: “Comrade Zhukov here clearly overestimates the future enemy and underestimates our strength.”
Zhukov’s answer: “Anything happens in war, Comrade Stalin. I'm used to always preparing for the worst. Then there are no surprises. As for Comrade Voroshilov’s remark, his underestimation of the enemy has already cost our armed forces dearly once during the Finnish campaign.”)
It is known that Zhukov’s opinion was not heeded and the fortifications on the old border were eliminated.
Further, the author of the book believes that the repressions against the senior and senior command staff of the Red Army were timely and correct, since this contributed to the cleansing of our armed forces from agents who allegedly penetrated them - the fifth column, which was one of the most important measures in preparing the country for a successful defense . At the same time, he notes the leader’s high human qualities: kindness and cordiality in his relationships with people, daily care for his comrades with whom he had to deal at work. He loved his Motherland very much - Russia and the Russian people. He was fair. The words of the famous French Cardinal Richelieu are quoted, which Stalin loved to repeat: “I have no personal enemies, everyone I persecuted and executed were enemies of the state.”
At the end of the book, Professor V.M. Zhukhrai is trying to convince readers that “the great commander and wise statesman I.V. Stalin, having thwarted Hitler’s plan for a “blitzkrieg” war, won the Great Patriotic War of 1941–1945...”
“Activities of I.V. Stalin during the years ... of the war convincingly testifies that our country in his person had a brilliant commander, perhaps the greatest in the history of mankind.”
Opponents of Stalinism have a different opinion about Stalin.
Columnist for the weekly “Arguments and Facts” Vyacheslav Kostikov, in the article “Song about the Pioneer Tie,” noted Stalin’s most significant acts:
“...destruction of the peasantry, mass repressions, liquidation of the top of the Red Army, persecution of scientists and cultural masters. The “Stalinist order” in the country was ensured by hundreds of thousands of jailers - judges, investigators, escorts, security guards, members of firing squads. All state and public structures were filled with informers and spies - the fear of “saying too much” reigned not only at work, but also in the family, people were afraid of their past...”
War veteran, writer Viktor Astafiev, believed that as a result of Stalin’s policy, “the entire people became the enemy of the Soviet government, and it feared no one as much as its own people, drove them away from the world - more than a hundred million, and the one who remained, tore his veins, brought him to degeneration, endowed him with eternal fear, instilled in him unhealthy genes of slavery, a tendency to betrayal, eloquence and all the same cruelty, gave birth to a slave.” (“Arguments and Facts”, 2009, No. 5.)
On May 3, 1988, the late famous writer and diplomat Chingiz Aitmatov published an article in Izvestia, “Are the foundations being undermined?” In it, he paid special attention to the personality of Stalin and the system of his rule - Stalinism:
“Naturally, the role and contribution of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief in the war should be significant. But who can prove that the country would have lost the war if the Supreme Commander had not been Stalin? Speaking about the war, we must first of all emphasize the colossal spirit of patriotism in the Soviet people, which stirred up the country from small to large and overcame the enemy at the cost of incredible, incomprehensible sacrifices and hardships, which could have been much less if Stalin had truly been an unsurpassed commander.
Attributing victory to one person as a deity, the mythologization of a person during life, bordering on religious worship, indicate the illness of this person and the lack of culture in society.
The victorious country, which spoke of its unprecedented prosperity under the leadership of Stalin... was never able to get out of the increasingly widening gaps in industry, agriculture - in the entire life of the people in comparison with other countries.
Last but not least, Stalin's hopeless isolationism and its tendency towards hostility and alienation of the surrounding world are to blame for the regression. Living with neighbors in hostility and threats is a simple matter. Much more intelligence and flexibility are required to understand the interaction of different worlds and structures in order to extract mutual benefits.
Some people try to compare Stalin with Peter I. Their similarity is that they were both autocrats - Peter by inheritance, Stalin in fact. The difference: Peter opened a window to Europe for boyar Russia, and Stalin closed the same Europe.
It’s scary to imagine how deeply our society was paralyzed by Stalin’s repressions and his totalitarian regime.”
The Orthodox Church appealed to Russians “not to build idealistic pictures of the era of Stalinism” in 2009: “The experience of other nations shows that the same successes could be achieved in other ways - focused on saving citizens.”
Professor at Columbia University in the USA Frederick Schumann in his book “Russia after 1917” assessed the situation at the beginning of the war as follows: “The first five months of the war - the tragic summer and black autumn of 1941 - were a time of terrible catastrophes for the USSR. Along the entire front, stretching over 2 thousand miles, the invincible, all-crushing enemy troops in their path (which, with lightning speed, in a few weeks or days, defeated all the other armies of the continent) punched gaps, bypassed the Soviet troops, destroyed them or forced them to surrender en masse.” .
The famous film director Vladimir Bortko, in an interview with the weekly “Arguments and Facts” (No. 6, 2013), stated: “...Stalin is perhaps the most slandered person in the entire twentieth century. The most!”
The ongoing debate about Stalin indicates that Stalinism is still present in the minds of many Russians. There is a falsification of history, which becomes one of the means of political struggle.
Generations of our citizens have grown up who, unfortunately, do not know well who Lenin and Stalin were. But the reality is that millions of Russians still vote for the Communist Party, are still prisoners of Bolshevism. This, in particular, is evidenced by a survey conducted by the weekly “Arguments and Facts” in February 2012 on the role of Stalin in the history of the country: 1,509 people called him “a tyrant, guilty of the deaths of millions of people,” and 743 people called him “the leader, thanks to whom we won the war."
The purpose of this work is to show objectively and without unnecessary emotions the actual role of Stalin and the system he created in the first half of the last century, especially on the eve and in the early years, based on a comprehensive analysis and comprehension of quite extensive information, including official documents of that time. Great Patriotic War. Many began to forget at what price our victory was given and what price we are still paying, largely due to Stalin’s fault.
author From the book Stalin. Let's remember together author Starikov Nikolay Viktorovich From the book Stalin. Let's remember together author Starikov Nikolay ViktorovichChapter 11 Biography of Stalin and the history of the country: 1943–1953 The less people know, the more extensive their knowledge seems to them. Jean-Jacques Rousseau Destroy money and destroy wars. Quintilian 1943 was the turning point after which the war rolled non-stop to the west. The outcome of the greatest battle
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Surprisingly accurate predictions were left to descendants by I.V. Stalin, some of which have already been fulfilled. Prophetic prediction by I.V. Stalin about Russia - the USSR, the Russian people and the East (quoted from the article by R. Kosolapov, “What is it, the truth about Stalin?” Pravda newspaper, July 4, 1998).
On the very eve of the war with Finland, J.V. Stalin invited the famous revolutionary Alexandra Mikhailovna Kollontai, the daughter of a tsarist general, who at that time was the plenipotentiary ambassador to Sweden (1930 - 45), to his office for a conversation. The conversation was very confidential and made an extraordinary impression on A. M. Kollontai. “When I left the Kremlin, I didn’t go, I ran, repeating so as not to forget what Stalin said. Entering the house... I began to write down. It was already late at night... An indelible impression! I looked at the world around me differently. (I turned to this conversation in my mind many, many times already during the years of the War and after it, re-read it, and always found something new... And now, as if in reality, I see Stalin’s office in the Kremlin, there is a long table and Stalin in it... Saying goodbye , He said:
- Be strong. Hard times are coming. They must be overcome... We will overcome them. We will definitely overcome it! Stay healthy. Temper yourself in the fight."
A recording of this conversation with I.V. Stalin was found in the diaries of A.M. Kollontai, which she kept for a long time. For the first time, these archival extracts were published by the historian and biographer A. M. Kollontai, Doctor of Historical Sciences M. I. Trush in collaboration with prof. R. I. Kosolapov in the magazine “Dialogue” for 1998
J.V. Stalin said:
“Many of the affairs of our party and people will be distorted and spat upon, primarily abroad, and in our country too. Zionism, striving for world domination, will brutally take revenge on us for our successes and achievements. He still views Russia as a barbaric country, as a raw materials appendage. And my name will also be slandered and slandered. Many atrocities will be attributed to me.
World Zionism will strive with all its might to destroy our Union so that Russia can never rise again. The strength of the USSR lies in the friendship of peoples. The spearhead of the struggle will be aimed, first of all, at breaking this friendship, at separating the outskirts from Russia. Here, I must admit, we have not done everything yet. There is still a large field of work here.
Nationalism will raise its head with particular force. It will suppress internationalism and patriotism for a while, only for a while. National groups within nations and conflicts will arise. Many pygmy leaders will appear, traitors within their nations.
In general, in the future, development will take more complex and even frantic paths, the turns will be extremely sharp. Things are heading to the point where the East will become especially agitated. Sharp contradictions with the West will arise.
And yet, no matter how events develop, time will pass, and the eyes of new generations will be turned to the deeds and victories of our socialist Fatherland. New generations will come year after year. They will once again raise the banner of their fathers and grandfathers and give us full credit. They will build their future on our past.”
“All this will fall on the shoulders of the Russian people. For the Russian people are a great people! The Russian people are good people! The Russian people, among all nations, have the greatest patience! The Russian people have a clear mind. It’s as if he was born to help other nations! The Russian people are characterized by great courage, especially in difficult times, in dangerous times. He is proactive. He has a persistent character. He's a dreamy bunch. He has a purpose. That’s why it’s harder for him than for other nations. You can rely on him in any trouble. The Russian people are invincible, inexhaustible!”
On the eve of Stalin's birthday, the Kultura newspaper decided to ask three different people for their opinions about him. I was one of those whom the publication asked a number of questions.
“On December 21, when some Russians are preparing for the end of the world, some are preparing for New Year’s corporate parties, and the majority are working hard, hoping to catch up with what was planned for the outgoing year, many will remember one historical date that is not round. According to the official version, exactly 133 years ago in the small Georgian town of Gori, a son, Joseph, was born into the family of artisan shoemaker Vissarion Dzhugashvili.
We all know who this man became four decades later. And there are practically no people indifferent to his life path, which radically influenced the history of Russia in the 20th century. Interpretations and assessments differ - and are polar.
Today we decided to give the floor to those with three points of view on this difficult figure. The heroes were not chosen by chance. The 900-page “Stalin” by historian and writer Svyatoslav Rybas in the famous “ZhZL” series of the “Young Guard” is being republished for the third time. At the beginning of autumn, the publishing house “Peter” published the best-selling book by publicist Nikolai Starikov “Stalin. Let's remember together,” perhaps the most popular apology for the Generalissimo today. The same publishing house also published an opposite book by the famous TV presenter Leonid Mlechin, “Stalin. Russia's obsession."
Identical questions - different answers. Choose whose opinion is closer to you.
1. Recently, more and more books about Joseph Stalin have been published. Notebooks with his portrait on the cover have gone on sale, and on the street you can meet people wearing T-shirts with the image of the leader. Is this just a fashion or a sign of a change in public sentiment?
2. There is an opinion that Stalin's popularity is actually a dream of a hero-ruler. Why is this image in demand among our people?
3. How do you feel about the actively discussed idea of returning the name Stalingrad to Volgograd? How realistic is this, in your opinion?
4. Industrialization has become one of the symbols of building a great power. Does our country need a similar project today?
Svyatoslav Rybas: “Stalin’s image feeds on current realities”
1. What do you want? Stalin died 60 years ago. Since then, authorities have launched an anti-death campaign at least four times to divert public attention from their mistakes. And what did they achieve? Eventually, this practice began to backfire on its initiators. Since the start of the latest “de-Stalinization” campaign, which began during the presidency of Dmitry Medvedev, sociologists have noted a sharp increase in the authority of the generalissimo. But Churchill also said in relation to Khrushchev that he entered into a fight with a dead lion and came out of it a loser. Subsequent wrestlers also lose.
2. There are three levels of international rivalry: the first is military-strategic, the second is geo-economic, and the third is mental. Regardless of our desire, they constantly interact and must always be taken into account. For example, Hitler's Germany tried to combine the first two in a "blitzkrieg" strategy. But at the third level the whole world united against the Germans. Today it is permeated with a struggle of ideas and meanings. It is meanings that govern the world. Look how one of Zbigniew Brzezinski’s sharp ideas is now being implemented: to equate Stalin with Hitler, and declare the Soviet Union the instigator of World War II. What to answer to this? And what is our political class doing? He still has not proposed his own picture of the world that would suit society. This is where the emptiness is filled.
In my opinion, the idea of the “architect of perestroika” Alexander Yakovlev is still working - first with “good” Lenin to beat “bad” Stalin, then with “good” Plekhanov to beat “bad” Lenin, and then to overthrow the Soviet regime. But today's Stalin is a convincing example of how meanings that meet expectations come to the fore despite the will of the authorities. Moreover, the Stalinist image and the real Stalin are still different things. The Stalinist image feeds on current realities. This is a type of public criticism... On our federal television channels there is an unspoken policy in films about Stalin to show positive and negative in a ratio of 30 to 70. And is this a serious response to the challenge? Some kind of kindergarten! By the way, Mao Zedong said that Stalin’s actions were 70 percent correct and 30 percent wrong, but one must take into account the scale of what was done. How can one respond to such a fact? Twenty days before his death, Stalin signed a government decree to begin work on the R-7 rocket, which launched Yuri Gagarin’s spacecraft into space... Therefore, it is obvious: today’s practice will change, and Stalin will calmly go to historians, where he belongs.
3. Sooner or later they will return. Not today. Although, as far as I know, this was discussed in the Kremlin. We stopped one step short of making a decision and replaced the inscription on the name of the hero city near the Eternal Flame. Now there is “Stalingrad”.
4. It is necessary to revive not in words. It seems to me that Stalin’s appearance on the historical stage was predetermined not by his “evil will” or by the efforts of Lenin, but by the collapse of Stolypin’s reforms and the conspiracy of the imperial elite against the tsar. Stalin is the other side of the failure of Stolypin's reforms. Without Joseph Vissarionovich, Russia would still need to find a leader who would carry out modernization. And now his image, like the shadow of Hamlet’s father, encourages action. And first of all, the authorities and the political class must answer the questions: where is the country going? What are her ideals? Why were these upheavals started?
Nikolai Starikov: “A reverse reaction arises - respect for the person who won the war”
1. We live in a democratic society, which means that anyone is free to wear the clothes and read the books they like. Images of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin on covers and T-shirts do not violate the law. The de-Stalinizers achieved the opposite result: the more vehemently they scold the leader, the more people want to understand this controversial figure. People immerse themselves in documents, in memoirs and become convinced that what is told about Stalin is often a blatant lie. And then the opposite reaction arises: respect for the man who won the most terrible war in Russian history. People wear a T-shirt with his image on it, hang his portrait at home, and try to buy their child a notebook with him on the cover.
2. Unfortunately, modern Russians have a lot of heroes. Complete discord. Some have Stalin, some have Khodorkovsky, and some have a blogger who writes his posts with grammatical errors. It is this fragmentation that is one of the key problems of modern Russian society. I wouldn’t speak for everyone, but there are results of the audience voting on the “Name of Russia” project in 2008. In a sense, the results of this competition can be considered a sociological snapshot. Then Alexander Nevsky won, although there are suspicions that Joseph Stalin still took first place. It was just “intolerant.” And Stalin was eventually given third place.
3. Our organization - the Trade Union of Russian Citizens - collectively decided to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the defeat of Nazi troops at Stalingrad to appeal to the country's leadership with a request to restore historical justice - to return the city on the Volga to the name under which it entered world history. How likely is this to happen? I believe the probability is 50%. The outcome largely depends on our civic position.
4. Today, Stalin's industrialization is often accused of the fact that the main point in the economic breakthrough of the 30s of the twentieth century was the pumping of resources from the countryside. But that's not true. Problems in the countryside arose as a result of certain actions of our geopolitical “friends”, because capitalist countries agreed to sell industrial equipment and generally conduct any trade with the USSR only in exchange for grain. The famine that happened in our country was one of the consequences of this policy. There was no malicious intent of the Soviet leadership here.
The source for new industrialization is our natural resources, which must be nationalized and put at the service of the people. They should not belong to individual individuals or legal entities.
The fact that Stalin and, as they say today, his team, were statesmen is a completely obvious fact. Even liberals admit this. As you know, personnel decides everything. And today, I have no doubt, there is no shortage of patriots. Another thing is that the existing selection principles do not allow these particular people to be nominated. The criterion, in my opinion, should be simple. It is necessary to nominate ideological people, for whom the main thing is service to their country. And the salary is just a nice addition to the idea.
Leonid Mlechin: “The Russian patriot will not say anything good about Stalin”
1. People like Stalin and Hitler will always attract attention, because a normal person is simply not able to imagine the full scale of their atrocities. These scales fascinate a person, he tries to find motives, builds some logical assumptions. In addition, such interest is also associated with people’s severe disappointment in today, a feeling of historical failure, despair and lack of self-confidence. This is very typical for our society. But people do not look forward, do not look for new recipes for solving problems, but look back, hoping to find answers in the past. And since the image of Stalin is imprinted with great victories, it seems to many that it is he who should be taken as an example. This is due, firstly, to a complete ignorance of their past, and secondly, to the reluctance of people to think about what path Russia would have taken, what successes it would have achieved, if not for this historical distortion, which was the Soviet and, in particular, Stalinist period.
2. As a child, my brother and I assembled detector receivers from small parts and were happy. But today's child does not need to be given such a receiver, he needs something completely different. So what we need now is not Stalin’s example. We need to move forward and look for other images.
I have traveled half of Russia, and everywhere there are monuments to either politicians or military leaders. As a rule, both categories are very dubious characters. And in our history there were, are and will be outstanding people who left a clear positive mark. We must value not those who killed and oppressed someone, but those who raised, educated, saved and promoted. Scientists, doctors, naturalists, teachers, just some kind of devotees. We need to look at our past differently and change our guidelines towards morality. In the meantime, it is not included in our estimates. People who say kind words about Stalin do not understand how immoral and unpatriotic they are behaving. A true Russian patriot will not say anything good about Stalin.
3. A certain number of people have been running around with this idea all their lives, as far as I can remember - there are always those who want it. Once upon a time, Alexander Evgenievich Bovin, now deceased, said that “... it is necessary to rename. Most Soviet people were born after the war. They should know the name of the man who allowed the Germans to reach Stalingrad.” In this sense, I agree with him, because the name of Stalin is a symbol of suffering and tragedy. But in general, if you really want to change the name, I would be in favor of returning Tsaritsyn, a good old Russian name.
4. New industrialization is necessary - after all, the world is changing, does not stand still and develops. But industrialization, carried out in Stalin's style, was a disaster for the country. Having forcibly destroyed the economy, artificially cutting themselves off from the world, the Bolsheviks first destroyed the Russian peasantry, and then began to build a poorly thought-out industry. And to this day we are faced with the results of this illiterate industrialization. After all, our industry turned out to be inflexible and unable to respond to circumstances. And all because the original industrialization plan was not correct and was drawn up by illiterate people.
Short course
When a spy or traitor is caught, the public's indignation knows no bounds; it demands execution. And when a thief operates in front of everyone, stealing state property, the surrounding public limits itself to good-natured laughter and a pat on the shoulder. Meanwhile, it is clear that a thief who steals people's property and undermines the interests of the national economy is the same spy and traitor, if not worse. (“On the economic situation and policy of the party”)
The question of oil is a vital question, because who will command in a future war depends on who has the most oil. Whoever has more oil will determine who will command world industry and trade. (“XIV Congress of the CPSU(b)”)
I think that it would be possible to begin to gradually curtail the production of vodka, introducing into the business, instead of vodka, sources of income such as radio and cinema. In fact, why not take these most important means into your hands and put shock people in this matter from real Bolsheviks, who could successfully inflate the matter and finally make it possible to curtail the vodka production business? ( "XV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks)")
The workers cannot have faith in the leaders where the leaders have rotted in the diplomatic game, where words are not backed up by deeds, where leaders say one thing and do another. (“Speech in the German Commission of the VI Plenum of the ECCI”)
... democracy is not something given for all times and conditions, because there are times when there is no possibility and sense to carry it out. (“XIII Conference of the RCP(b)”)
You want to make your country advanced in the sense of raising its statehood, raise the literacy of the population, raise the culture of your country, the rest will follow. (“IV meeting of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) with senior officials of national republics and regions”)”
Leading Russian historian of Stalinism, Doctor of Historical Sciences, chief specialist of the State Archive of Russia and author of works on Soviet history, including the recently published book “Stalin. The life of one leader,” Oleg Khlevnyuk told Lenta.ru about the formation and evolution of Joseph Stalin’s political beliefs. And also about why the peasants suffered the most from the actions of the Bolsheviks, why the leader was unable to build socialism without relying on traditional values and did not prepare a successor for himself.
“Lenta.ru”: In the pre-revolutionary period, did Stalin have his own ideas or did he follow the ideology of the Bolsheviks? Did religious education influence his worldview?
Oleg Khlevnyuk: Stalin, as often happens with people, did not immediately find his path and the value system with which he connected his life. His mother did everything she could to push him out of her social circle and into the top. In her mind, a spiritual career could bring her son a strong and satisfying position in society.
Initially, Joseph followed his mother’s decisions; he studied at a theological school and entered the theological seminary in Tiflis. And already there, under the influence of the surrounding reality and friends, he renounced his political loyalty and jeopardized his career. At first he was interested in the ideas of Georgian nationalism, which was not uncommon in the conditions of Russification and discrimination of the Georgian language carried out by the government. Then he gradually moved towards Marxism, which was also not uncommon, since Marxism was spreading more and more widely in the Russian Empire.
Perhaps, although Stalin himself did not say this, Marxism was really close to him due to the spiritual education he received. Marxism was a kind of faith, but only a faith in heaven on earth. Within Marxism, Stalin sided with the Bolsheviks, with Lenin, because he liked the idea of a militant, strong underground party, in which intellectuals playing an important role in teaching workers. After all, after all, he himself belonged to the number of revolutionary intellectuals.
In general, he was young and active, but, of course, he was not capable of becoming some kind of significant figure; he had to join some group, follow someone. He followed Lenin, which made him what he became several decades later. There was nothing special about Stalin's path to revolution. Quite a typical path.
How important were the ideas of socialism to him when he came to power? Did he want to build real socialism or was realpolitik more important to him? After all, Stalin’s entourage presented him as a pragmatist against the backdrop of idealists.
It is difficult to answer such questions, because they are connected with the inner world of people, with their ideas. And this inner world and its constant changes is not so easy to evaluate in oneself, not to mention others. Of course, Stalin, like other revolutionaries, and the Bolsheviks also, fought for revolution and power. Of course, they, like everyone who goes into politics, had certain ideas. After all, no politician says that he needs power for the sake of power (although, I suspect, this is often the case in reality). A politician needs faith in certain ideals, programs that he can present to the masses. In fact, the desire for power and programs are so firmly welded together that it is difficult to separate them, and the programs themselves are adjusted and changed depending on the tasks of seizing and maintaining power.
The Bolsheviks are a good example. In fact, Lenin, and Stalin was his disciple in this sense, adapted traditional Marxist ideas to the goal of seizing power. Following Marxism, Russia simply could not lay claim to socialism. So they came up with the theory that at first the socialist revolution may win in a country that is not ready for it, but this will give a start to the spread of socialism in more developed countries. And then all together they will move towards socialism. The whole thing was so far-fetched that even some prominent Bolsheviks refused to support Lenin's course towards immediate socialism. Stalin was hesitant at first, but quickly sided with Lenin. In 1917, Stalin called this strategy a creative development of Marxism. He followed it later, that is, he changed theories depending on the needs of strengthening power. In general, I would not divide the Bolsheviks into idealists and pragmatists. Having won power, they all submitted to the goal of maintaining and strengthening it. They proposed different methods and were cruel and power-hungry to varying degrees.
What was the leader's attitude towards the peasantry? Was one of the reasons for collectivization an attempt to “break his back”?
If formulated in general terms, then this was precisely the only reason for collectivization. The Bolsheviks and many other socialists did not like the peasants for many reasons. According to Marxist canons, it was generally impossible to build socialism in a peasant country. Russian experience confirmed this theory.
Image: Russian Look
Despite periodic unrest, the peasants acted as a loyal support for the tsarist regime, and they were the majority. Then Lenin had the idea to tear the peasants away from power and lure them to the side of the revolution. He came up with the concept of an alliance of the working class with the poor peasantry. This made it possible to hope for the victory of the socialist revolution even in a peasant country.
The peasants truly became the driving force behind the revolutionary events of 1917. However, they followed not so much Lenin's party as their own course. They needed land, and they got it by forcing Lenin to change his own program, which included nationalization of the economy. And when, during the Civil War, the Bolsheviks tried to take away the much-needed bread from the peasants and put the peasants under arms, they responded with armed resistance.
However, they treated the opponents of the Bolsheviks the same way. After their final establishment in power, the Bolsheviks constantly fought with the peasantry for bread. The question arose of what to do. Many in the party believed that it was necessary to act carefully: to establish trade with the peasants. In return, they will be interested in increasing production. This was called the New Economic Policy. It was a difficult path, but, according to many scientists, more effective and reasonable.
At the end of the 1920s, Stalin proposed and implemented his program - he liquidated the peasants as a traditional class, gathered (more precisely, drove) them into collective farms, deprived them of their property and made them hired workers of the state. So, in general terms, we can say that not just an attempt, but the real destruction of the traditional peasantry was the goal of collectivization, which predetermined its extreme cruelty.
In Stalin's first years in power, foreign socialists and white emigrants often reproached him for his lack of ideology, for Fordism and Taylorism. Is this fair?
Of course, different things were written about Stalin and his policies, and the assessments you are talking about can be found in them. Indeed, during the years of the first five-year plan in the USSR, there was a passion for technocratic ideas. The USA was perceived as a model of industrial development that needed to be cleansed of capitalist relations and transferred to Soviet soil.
In other words, in accordance with Marxist ideas, it was believed that socialism would take advantage of the technical achievements of capitalism and open up unprecedented opportunities for their further development. So it was rather a mixture of passions for Fordism and Taylorism with Soviet ideology.
Another thing is that such primitive calculations turned out to be incorrect. To master the machines and equipment purchased in huge quantities in the West, what was required was not enthusiasm, but rather bourgeois knowledge and management experience. In subsequent decades, the Soviet economy constantly suffered from the incompatibility of the goals of economic efficiency and technological progress with ideological anti-market priorities and suspicion of private initiative.
The Great Terror is most often associated with repression of the intelligentsia and the Old Bolsheviks. But at the same time, the majority of those repressed were workers and peasants, ordinary intellectuals. What political or economic motivation was there for their repression?
Yes, the victims of repression, including in 1937-1938, which we often call the Great Terror, were mainly ordinary people. The nomenclature made up a small part of them.
There are different points of view on the causes of terror. On the one hand, it was a necessary method of governance under dictatorship. But on the other hand, why did it at times acquire such a huge scope, as in 1937-1938, and in other periods it was at a certain “usual” level? Various exotic explanations for the causes of terror are widespread in our country. They write that all these millions were real enemies, and therefore they had to be destroyed. It is not true. They write that Stalin was forced to organize terror by malicious bureaucrats who were afraid of the elections scheduled for 1937. There is no real evidence for such theories. Their authors simply want to get Stalin out of harm’s way, to whitewash him, inventing ridiculous versions.
In scientific historiography, as a result of many years of work with a huge number of documents, several indisputable facts have been recorded. The first - terror was mainly of a strictly centralized nature, that is, it was carried out on orders from Moscow in the form of so-called mass operations of the NKVD. Plans were drawn up for arrests and executions by region, and records were kept of the implementation of these plans.
Motives? The most convincing and supported by documents, in my opinion, is the version of Stalin’s preventive purge of the country from the fifth column in the context of an escalating military threat. But here you need to understand an important fact: the overwhelming majority of people arrested and executed were not real enemies not only of their country, but even of the Stalinist regime. It was Stalin who considered them enemies, and therefore ordered their destruction.
From the mid-1930s, Stalin made a turn to the West and wanted to cooperate with France and England, then entered into an agreement with Germany. How did he ideologically justify such a policy and how was it perceived by socialist forces?
After the Nazis came to power in Germany, a real threat of future war arose in Europe. Hitler was dangerous both for the USSR and for Western democracies. On this basis, in the USSR, France and Czechoslovakia, first of all, a movement towards cooperation arose, towards the creation of a system of collective security. The USSR joined the League of Nations in 1934, a kind of prototype of the modern UN, and various treaties were concluded. Moscow aimed the communist parties of Europe to cooperate with the Social Democrats, who had previously been branded along with the fascists. All this was also accompanied by some positive changes within the USSR, since it was important for Stalin to show how much Soviet power differed from Nazism, which many in the world doubted. Overall, these were promising and promising changes. And they were generally perceived positively.
However, for various reasons, this course failed. The blame lay with both Stalin and Western governments. Hitler took advantage of this and offered Stalin friendship. Stalin, for various reasons, about which historians argue a lot, accepted this proposal. And here, of course, various problems arose, including moral and political ones. It was very difficult to explain why it was even possible to cooperate with Hitler’s Germany. There was a radical change in ideological work, in the orientations of the Comintern, which led the communist parties. This topic in relation to Soviet society, by the way, has not been very well researched. What people thought about the alliance with Germany, how they were forced to think differently and trust the Nazis - we don’t know all this very well.
In the early 1940s, Stalin made a turn towards Russianness: there was a reconciliation with Orthodoxy, an appeal to history and cultural figures like Pushkin and Suvorov, and their glorification. Does this mean that Stalin realized that without Russian imperialism, without relying on it, nothing would work out for him?
Yes, such a turn took place, and historians are now studying it quite fruitfully. This was a certain adjustment to the revolutionary course, which assumed that the history of the country begins with the revolution, that all pre-revolutionary values are doomed to die out. Life turned out to be much more difficult. A huge country cannot exist without a deep historical tradition, and people need traditional values, especially cultural and religious ones. The war and the need to unite the nation in the face of the enemy played their most important role. It was during the war years that the famous “reconciliation” of Stalin with the hierarchs of the Russian Orthodox Church took place. Other factors also played a role, for example the need to take into account public opinion in Western allied countries.
At the same time, it is important to understand the relativity of this turn. Yes, clergy and believers were not subjected to such terrible repression as was the case in the 1920s and 1930s, but discrimination and arrests persisted. This trend can be traced in all directions of the course of revival of traditions.
Why, after the end of World War II, Stalin did not want to integrate the USSR into the Western world through the implementation of the Marshall Plan?
This problem is not as well studied as it might seem at first glance. On the one hand, everything seems obvious: Stalin did not intend to become dependent on the West, and the United States intended to help its allies in Europe, but not its opponents. In general, this is true. However, it seems that Stalin himself did not initially deny any forms of assistance; for example, he repeatedly raised the issue of American loans. And the West, under certain conditions, could make concessions.
I am closer to the point of view of those experts who believe that the main role was played by mutual suspicion, mistrust, and dangerous actions on both sides. This growing confrontation has not benefited anyone. This is the main lesson.
In the post-war years, society expected from Stalin that same Brezhnev-era stagnation, a calm, well-fed life. But the leader decided to continue developing the ideas of the revolution. Was this done because he was afraid of the corruption of his system? Is this how he held on to power?
In a sense, we can say that society was waiting for stagnation, if by stagnation we mean the end of repression, a gradual improvement in the material standard of living, and social guarantees. Peasants, as documents show, often openly expressed hopes that the collective farms would now be dissolved and allowed to breathe. The intelligentsia hoped for a weakening of censorship and so on. All this is not difficult to understand. People survived a terrible war, they felt like winners and dreamed of a better life.
Stalin's idea of the future was different. On the one hand, he understood that the state did not have the resources to fully meet the needs of the population - military devastation, the famine of 1946-1947, large expenditures on armaments (the nuclear project), and assistance to new allies in Eastern Europe made their presence felt. On the other hand, Stalin was a conservative and feared that any changes could cause a chain reaction of instability. So he preferred to tighten policy across the board.
The Cold War also contributed to this to a certain extent. The feeling of a besieged fortress arose again. It was not difficult for the Soviet people who survived the terrible war to explain that the threat of a new war required sacrifices and belt-tightening.
Everything changed very quickly immediately after Stalin's death. His heirs continued to spend a lot of money on defense, but they also increased social programs, such as housing construction, exempted peasants from exorbitant taxes, and so on. In other words, they demonstrated that there are different ways to act, it all depends on political will.
Photo: Daily Herald Archive / NMeM / www.globallookpress.com
In recent years, Stalin had serious health problems. In addition, many researchers have devoted a huge amount of time to studying his mental health. How did all this - his physical and mental health - influence his decision-making, his activities?
Obviously it did. The famous doctor Alexander Myasnikov, who was invited to see the dying Stalin, wrote in his memoirs: “I believe that Stalin’s cruelty and suspicion, fear of enemies, loss of adequacy in assessing people and events, extreme stubbornness - all this was created to a certain extent by atherosclerosis of the cerebral arteries (or rather, atherosclerosis exaggerated these features). The state was essentially ruled by a sick man.”
Who did Stalin see as his successor? How did you see the USSR in the future - roughly 20-30 years from now? Did he believe in the victory of socialism?
Stalin not only did not prepare a successor, but did everything possible to ensure that such a successor did not exist. It is known, for example, that on the eve of his death he hurled harsh accusations at his closest ally Vyacheslav Molotov, who was perceived in the country and party as the next leader in line to power.
This is not difficult to understand. Stalin was extremely suspicious of any threats to his sole power. He constantly shuffled the deck of his closest associates, subjected them to disgrace, and even shot some of them.
On the eve of his death, attacking his old comrades, he tried to promote new functionaries to leading positions. An expanded Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee was created, in which a significant number of seats were taken by young nominees. However, Stalin did not have time to complete this system, since he died six months later. And immediately after his death, his old comrades took full power into their own hands. True, none of them became Stalin’s successor in the literal sense of the word.
From one-man dictatorship there was a return to a system of collective leadership, which already existed in the 1920s and partly in the early 1930s. This was an important political prerequisite for the relative democratization of the country and the destruction of the main pillars of the Stalinist system.
We can judge Stalin’s ideas about the future from his latest works, in particular from the well-known series of articles “Economic problems of socialism in the USSR.” He considered the ideal a society based on commodity exchange, that is, relatively speaking, living without money, governed by the state, which decides everything, manages everything and distributes everything. Some will call it communism, others - barracks. In any case, such a society is not viable.