Joseph Stalin, iron-fisted ruler of the Soviet Union from 1924 until 1953 was born on December 18, 1878. While some in Russia may celebrate his birthday, I cannot in good conscious do so. He was responsible for the murder of millions of innocent people which is beyond the scope of imagination.
The man originally named Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili born to Ketevan Geladze and Besarion Jughashvili in Gori, Georgia, would destroy all who opposed him and those who threatened his paranoiac mind. Few men in history carry such a horrific biography but he stands with men like Genghis Khan, Mao Tse Tung and Adolf Hitler.
In his defense, some have claimed that he saved Russia from the Nazi’s through his leadership and forced industrialization but at what cost? He used humans like bullets throwing them at the Nazi’s or into slave labor to industrialize his country. Stalin, despite being warned over and over that the Nazi’s were going to attack the Soviet Union, refused to set up defenses that would have saved the lives of millions of people.
During the Great Purges of 1937-39, Stalin had no qualms about ordering the execution of innocent people for no other reason than they were alive. Anyone who he perceived as being a threat as well as their families, friends and associates were destroyed or sent to inhumane labor camps. The incredible toll it took on his people and those surrounding him were incalculable.
If you’ve been listening to my post-Stalin podcasts you would by now understand how he emasculated the leaders that followed him. The idea of independent thought was squashed, reforms almost impossible to successfully pull off and a system so corrupt that it collapsed in 1991. Khrushchev tried to repudiate things in the 1950’s and early 1960’s but was defeated by Brezhnev and his allies who tried to bring back some of Stalin’s ways to squash open discussions of the problems facing the Soviet Union.
While some may think I’m being harsh in my assessment of Stalin, I can’t justify any other thought process. Spending weeks looking at all the evidence, especially the material that was opened after perestroika, I cannot have an opinion any less than his being, as my mother used to call him, “a beast.”
2 replies on “Stalin’s Birthday”
It is not possible to be too harsh on Stalin. This was the man responsible for the Holodomor in the Ukraine. This was the man responsible for the Gulag. This is the man who came close to loosing the Great Patriotic War three years running. This is the man who wiped out tens of millions of Russians, Ukrainians, and Poles. This is the man who wiped out Millions of Belorussians, Balts, Hungarians, and Germans. This is the man who not only contemplated Armageddon, but actively planned for that final battle. Only a stroke, and perhaps a poisoning prevented him from enacting his final mad scheme. His birthday is nothing to celebrate.
I believe you are right James. He was one of the worst figures in history. My uncle was one of his victims so I have no good feelings about him at all.