Belief & Terror:
Stalin
JaNae H.,
Alia M.,
Marco B.,
Claire S.
WHO IS STALIN?
•
Stalin’s real name was Losif Vissarionovich
Dzhugashvili
•
He was born on December 21, 1879 in Gori,
Georgia, in the Russian Empire.
•
Stalin was a communist leader of the Former
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR Soviet Union). Russia
•
He is responsible for approximately 20 million
deaths, including up to 14.5 million of starvation .
At least one million people executed for political
"offences". At least 9.5 million more deported,
exiled or imprisoned in work camps, with many of
the estimated five million sent to the 'Gulag
Archipelago' never returning alive. Other
estimates place the number of deported at 28
million, including 18 million sent to the 'Gulag'.
http://www.moreorless.au.com/killers/stalin.htm
l
•
STALINISM
• The theory and practice of communism developed by
Stalin from Marxism-Leninism and marked especially
by rigid authoritarianism, widespread use of terror,
and often emphasis on Russian nationalism.
• Marxism-Leninism – belief in the necessity of a
violent overthrow of capitalism through communist
revolution.
• http://mw1.merriamwebster.com/dictionary/stalinism
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism#MarxismLeninism
HOW IT BEGAN
• Russian Revolution 1917
– Overthrow Tsar autocracy and
formation of Provisional Government
– Food shortage and inflation
– Led by Vladimir Lenin
– Weak and inefficient gov’t system
because of first World War
PEOPLE FOR COMMUNISM?
• Economy was devastated and communism
offered freedom from these troubles like:
–
–
–
–
–
–
–
Starvation
Lack of jobs
High taxes
Low agricultural productivity
Inflation
Poverty
Overcrowded housing
PEOPLE FOR COMMUNISM?
(CONT’D)
• Stalin provided:
–
–
–
–
–
–
Jobs
Education
Improvement on socio-economic status for women
Hospital care
Housing
Immunization programs  decrease in disease &
increase in life expectancy
– Universal access to health care and education
– Access to pre-natal care for women
– Transportation was improved and more railways were
built.
SOCIALISM
• Stage of society in Marxist theory transitional
between capitalism and communism and
distinguished by unequal distribution of goods
and pay according to work done.
• http://mw1.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/socialism
NAZI’S & STALIN
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
British & French thought accepting Hitler
would help avoid Communism
Stalin denied alliance with
Britain/France so he allied with Nazi
Germany.
Nazi-Soviet Pact 1939 – attempt to ward
off Nazi threat.
Secret agreement to divide up Poland.
Loyal support from Hitler until he
attacked Soviet Union (Operation
Barbarossa - 1941)
British Communist Party blamed Hitler
for war.
Stalin didn’t want World Communist
Parties to disrupt alliance and in result
seized Poland.
– John Gollan claimed Poland tried to
cause war between Germany and Soviet
Union.
•
Central Committee asked to abandon
commitment to opposing Nazism 
make moral equivalent.
WHY DID IT LAST SO LONG?
• People had “faith” in Soviet Union policies
– Belief in Soviet Union was a fixed point in Communist system – the
communist world trusted them.
– People thought Soviet Union would never do anything against
communist interest.
– Stalin considered “best anti Nazi hope”.
– World parties supported anything Soviet Union did.
– Those against policies, respected leaders.
• People feared the Soviet Union and execution
– Brutality covered up by Soviet Union.
• World more focused on Nazi regime.
• Self-deception of people
• Industrial policies by Stalin improved living standards for
majority of population, regardless of morality issues.
GENERAL PROBLEMS
• People were killed.
• Was no longer ideal for the people, Stalin was
power hungry.
• All people were
expected to support Stalin.
• Famine
• Arrested political
figures who did not support
him.
SUFFERING UNDER REGIME
• If you weren’t for him, you were considered against him
and therefore imprisonment and executions took place.
• People stripped of protective dignity and starved.
• People tortured, killed, shot, sent to camps.
• Sympathy replaced by hardness – authorities encouraged to
enforce hardness & were party members told to “throw
humanitarianism out the window.”
• Would cut heads off of people who were against Stalinism
and Communism.
• “Every way of the tongue can be overheard by someone,
every facial expression observed by someone. Therefore
every world, if it does not have to be a direct lie, is
nonetheless obliged not to contradict the general, common
sense.” – Solzhenitsyn
• Justification: “cleansing of Russian land of any harmful
insects, swindler-fleas, wealthy bugs and so on and so on” Lenin
IN THE CAMPS
Location of camps in the Soviet Union 
THE SOVIET UNION
Specially designed weapons.
Mao
• Great Leap Forward
• Cultural Revolution
“China might now be united and peaceful”
Mao Personality
•
•
•
•
•
Compared to Stalin:
Image
Attention
Fear
Ruthless
“It was hard to tell Mao something he did not
want to hear” (Glover 287).
The Great Leap Forward
• Steel and Grain
Production
• Voluntarism
• Propaganda
Cultural Revolution
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Red Book
Traditional culture left behind
Authority dismembered
Humiliation
Conformity
New Moral Identity:
“At the time, it never occurred to me that we were
being vicious” (296)