Stalin: Hero or Villain?
Overview: From 1928 to 1953 Joseph Stalin was dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialists Republics.
During Stalin’s time in power the Soviet Union experienced many transformations in many parts of society.
Under Stalin the Soviet economy was changed, farms were collectivized, women were given more
freedoms, many people were sent to gulags or murdered and the Soviet Union helped defeat the Axis Powers
in WWII. This Mini-Q will explore these many complex issues of Joseph Stalin’s leader of the Soviet
Union and asks you to decide if Stalin is a hero or a villain.
The Documents:
Document A: Collectivization
Document B: The Five Year Plan
Document C: Stalin, a Totalitarian Dictator
Document D: The Great Purge
Document E: Women’s Rights
Document F: The Gulag
Hook Exercise: Stalin
Hymn to Stalin
O great Stalin, O leader of the peoples,
Thou who broughtest man to birth
Thou who fructifies the earth,
Thou who restorest the centuries,
Thou who makest bloom the spring,
Thou who makest vibrate the musical chords…
Thou, splendor of my spring, O thou,
Sun reflected by millions of hearts
-A.O. Avidenko
Source: Modern History Sourcebook
*Note: Ossete was a reference to the rumor that Stalin was from a people of Iranian descent that lived in an area north of Georgia.
We live, deaf to the land beneath us,
Ten steps away no one hears our speeches,
All we hear is the Kremlin mountaineer,
The murderer and peasant-slayer.
His fingers are fat as grubs
And the words, final as lead weights, fall from his lips,
His cockroach whiskers leer
And his boot tops gleam.
Around him a rabble of thin-necked leadersfawning half- men for him to play with
The whinny, purr or whine
As he prates and points a finger,
One by one forging his laws, to be flung
Like horseshoes at the head, to the eye or the groin
And every killing is a treat
For the broad-chested Ossete*
-Osip Mandelstam
*Note: This poem, written in November, 1933, resulted in Mandelstam being sent to a NKVD labor camp, where he died. The
NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs) controlled the police, criminal investigation departments, fire brigades,
internal troops, and prison guards.
Source: http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/RUSmandelstam.htm
Questions to Answer:
1). What words/images catch your eye in each source? List them here:
2). Who do you believe was responsible for the Hymn to Stalin?
3). What happened to Osip Mandesltam? Why?
4). Do you believe the Hymn to Stalin is biased? Why/why not?
5). Would you speak out if you knew that your words could end your life? Why/why not?
Background Essay
Stalin: Hero or Villain?
Born in 1878, Joseph Stalin was among the
Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the
1917 November revolution and later held the
position of General Secretary of the Communist
Party in the Soviet Union from 1922 until his
death in 1953. Stalin managed to consolidate
more and more power in his hands after the death
of Vladimir Lenin in 1924 which made him the
undisputed leader of the Soviet Union by the late
1920s. In 1928, Stalin replaced the New
Economic Policy of the 1920s with a highlycentralized command economy and Five-Year
Plans that that launched a period of quick
industrialization and collectivization of the
farmlands. As a result, the USSR was
transformed from a largely agrarian society into a
great totalitarian industrial power, the basis for its
emergence as the world's second largest economy
after World War II.
Therefore, Stalin transformed his nation into a
Communist, totalitarian state. Totalitarianism
describes a government that takes control of
almost all parts of people's lives. A very powerful
leader led this type of government. Usually the
leader brings security to the nation and the
government stays in power by using different
ways to keep control. Stalin kept a very tight
control over the Soviet Union. He did this by
creating a powerful secret police.
Stalin built a command economy in which the
government makes all the decisions about
economic life. He tried to make the economy
fully industrial through two five-year plans which
he began in 1928. All resources went to this
effort. As a result, there were shortages of food,
housing, and clothing while the country did
increase its large-scale production (like
electricity, coal, and iron) significantly. This was
evidenced by the 25% increase in industrial
production that was achieved by 1938.
Stalin's government also started to
collectivize, or take control of people's farms,
starting in 1928. He put them to work into large,
government-owned farms called collective
farms. By 1939, almost 90% of farmers lived on
these collective farms. From 1928 through 1939
between five and ten million people died because
of the resistance to the farms and because of
famine. Wealthy peasants, called kulaks, resisted
because they had earned money through Lenin's
New Economic Policy and did not want to see
their farms taken away. Many destroyed livestock
or burned farms in order to resist the movement
to collective farms. As a result, millions were
killed and millions more were exiled to gulags
located in Siberia and other remote places. The
gulag- the prison system that arose in the Soviet
Union after 1929 served primarily as a way to
gain control over the entire population, rather
than punish criminal acts. The incarceration of
millions of innocent people in the gulag system is
correctly seen as one of the worst and most
shocking episodes of the twentieth century.
Millions of innocent people were incarcerated in
the gulag, serving sentences of five to twenty
years of hard labor.
Stalin completely changed Soviet society. In
the mid-1930s he turned against enemies-both
real and imagined- within the Communist Party.
Thousands were arrested. Many were sent to exile
or killed. It is estimated that, between 1936 and
1938 between eight and thirteen million people
died in the Soviet Union. This was known as the
Great Purge. Stalin also used propaganda to
keep control over his people, He controlled
newspapers, radio, and other soured of
information. He used the newspaper "Pravda" to
spread his propaganda. Stalin's government also
moved against religion, forcing people to be
Atheists, while destroying churches throughout
the country. Church leaders were also killed or
sent to gulags. Women enjoyed equal rights and
filled all kinds of jobs on farms and in factories.
They studied for careers, such as in medicine, that
before had been closed to them. People in general
were more educated. By the mid-1930s Stalin
was in complete control of all economic and
political affairs in the Soviet Union. The Soviet
Union had been transformed into a major political
and economic world power. Your task is to
examine the documents, then answer the
question, Stalin, hero or Villain?
Background Essay Questions
1. By what year did Stalin manage to rule as the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union?
2. In what ways did Stalin create a command economy?
3. What is a gulag?
4. Who died in the Great Purge
5. What benefits did Stalin's rule bring to women?
6. Define each of the following:
Totalitarianism
command economy
Collective farms
Kulaks
Great Purge
Timeline
1917- Bolshevik Revolution
1924- Lenin died
1928- Stalin becomes undisputed leader of the Soviet Union
1928- Stalin launches the first Five-Year plan
1928- Stain creates collective farms throughout the country
1937- Stalin launches the Great Purge
1939- World War II starts
Document A
Source: “Forced Famine in the Ukraine: A Holocaust the West Forgot” Adrian Karatnycky. Wall Street Journal July 7, 1983
Today, reliable academic estimates place the number of Ukrainian victims of starvation at 4.5 million to 7 million…The
famine was in part the by-product of Stalin’s relentless drive to collectivize Soviet agriculture. The famine was a clear
result of the fact that between 1931 and 1933, while harvests were precipitously declining, Stalin commissars continued
to…confiscate grain. Peasants were shot and deported as rich, landowning “kulaks”…While the drive to collectivize
agriculture was a wide-ranging phenomenon common to the entire USSR…only in the Ukraine did it assume a
genocidal character. Indeed there can be no question that Stalin used the forced famine as part of a political strategy
whose aim was to crush all vestiges of Ukrainian national sentiments.
Source: www. Famine Genocide.com
Document Analysis:
1. What kind of treatment were Kulaks subjected to during Stalin’s drive for collectivization of
agriculture?
2. Describe the images in the newspaper. What kind of emotions do the images evoke?
3. Do the gains from Document A outweigh the human toll?
4. Does this document show Stalin as a hero or a villain? Explain
Document B
Source: Speech made by Stalin to the First Conference of Workers in 1931
If we are backward and weak, we may be beaten and enslaved. But if we are powerful, people must beware of us.
We are 50 to 100 years behind the advanced countries of the West. We must make up this gap in 10 years. Either
we do this or they crush us.
Soviet industrial Production figures, 1921-1940
Document Analysis:
1). Why, according to Stalin, does the USSR need to become advanced?
2). By how much were the Soviet able to increase their production of Oil, Steel and Electricty?
3). Why would these materials be important to a country?
4). Does this document show Stalin as a hero or a villain? Explain
DOCUMENT C
Source: F. P. Reshetnikov. Stalin's Great Oath (at the All-Union Congress of Soviets, 1/24/1924). 1949.
Document Analysis:
1.
Why do you think Stalin is so large in this picture?
2.
Besides Stalin, what else is sown in this picture?
3.
Does this cartoon make Stalin look like an effective leader of the Soviet Government? Explain.
4.
Does this document show Stalin as a hero or a villain? Explain
DOCUMENT D
Source: Nikita Khrushchev, 20th Party Congress, February, 1956
Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation, and patient cooperation with people, but by
imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed
this concept or tried to prove his viewpoint, and the correctness of his position-was doomed
to removal from the leading collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation.
This was especially true during the period following the 17th party congress, when many
prominent party leaders and rank-and-file party workers, honest and dedicated to the cause
of communism, fell victim to Stalin's despotism. . .
Source: In this excerpt, the French ambassador to the Soviet Union described the public trials that were part of the “great purges”
of Stalin.
I personally attended the second and third Moscow trials, those of 1937 and 1938. . . . Pyatakov [another
defendant] arose . . . confessed . . . to a number of crimes. Did these “confessions” carry any share of
truth? It is possible that the accused were hostile to Stalin’s regime. . . . But the lessons they recited must
have been forced from them . . . it is more likely that the GPU [secret police] touched each at his weak
point. It is also probable that the accused gave in to some form of pressure. . . . Some would give in to
save their families, others in the hope of saving their own lives.
Document Analysis:
1.
How does Khrushchev describe Stalin’s leadership methods?
2.
According to Khrushchev, who was affected by Stalin’s policies?
3.
According to Khrushchev, what would happen to a person if they opposed Stalin’s policies?
4.
According to the French ambassador, in the second source, what were the defendants forced to do at the
Moscow second and third trials?
5.
Does this document show Stalin as a hero or a villain? Explain
Document E
Source: Statement on International Women's Day written on March 8, 1949 by Joseph Stalin
The glorious work of Soviet women, builders of socialist industry, collective farming, socialist culture, will
go down in history forever. With every year the role of women in all spheres of life of Soviet society
increases.
Soviet women are playing a more and more important part in socialist industry. Millions of women workers
have mastered highly skilled trades, and are untiringly improving their qualifications and perfecting their
skill: 280,000 women are engineers, technicians and skilled factory workers. Hundreds of thousands have
been awarded Orders and medals. Women collective farmers are waging an active struggle for the further
advancement of agriculture. Many thousands of women have charge of collective farms, or lead field teams
and manage stock-raising farms. Women collective farmers are successfully mastering advanced
agricultural technique. Tens of thousands of women drive tractors, harvester combines and other complex
agricultural machines.
Soviet women are active leaders in Soviet socialist culture, the most advanced in the world. Together with
the men, they work untiringly to increase the spiritual wealth of our people. Widely exercising their right
to education, women have grown into a great cultural force of Soviet society. Forty-four per cent of the
total number of graduates from higher educational establishments are women. For outstanding work in the
sphere of science, inventions, literature and art, 237 women have been awarded Stalin prizes.
Women are playing an enormous part in public education and in public health. The Soviet State highly
values the fine work of women teachers, who are educating our youth in the spirit of high ideals, of love
for our Motherland, and of women doctors who safeguard the health of the population. Scores of thousands
of women teachers and public health workers have been awarded Orders and medals.
The education of the children is the honourable social duty of mothers. Motherhood and the rearing of
children in the U.S.S.R. are honoured and respected. The Soviet State assigns enormous funds to aid
mothers with large families and unmarried mothers: 2,500,000 mothers have been awarded the Order
"Motherhood Glory" and the "Motherhood Medal". The title "Mother Heroine" has been conferred on
28,500 women.
Women’s Education
Source: Chart of “Women in the Soviet Union and Capitalist Countries.” In Zhenshchina v SSSR (Moscow, 1936).
Document Analysis:
1. What role did women play in industry and on collective farms?
2.
In what ways did women serves as active leaders in Soviet culture?
3.
How did the Communist party treat motherhood?
4.
Does this document show Stalin as a hero or villain? Explain.
Document F
Source: “Gulags- Soviet Prison Camps and Article 58” by David Hosford, Pamela Kachurin and Thomas Lamont. Presented in A
Project of the National Park Service and the National Resource Center for Russian, East European and Central Asian Studies,
Harvard University
Political Prisoners
This was a group which included opponents of the Soviet regime, but most of these people were arrested
and sentenced based only on the suspicions of being “anti-Soviet.” Political prisoners were charged under
Article 58 and were known in the GULAG system as “58ers.”
ARTICLE 58
Article 58 was approved as part of the Soviet criminal code in 1928, and was the main code used to
charge and sentence “political” prisoners, those supposedly engaged in counter-revolutionary or antiSoviet activities. However, the language was so vague and was interpreted so widely that it could be
applied in almost any case. There are many examples, especially during the “Great Terror” of 1937 and
1938, of people being charged under Article 58 who were clearly not engaged in anti-Soviet activity:
> Man sentenced for three years for smiling “in sympathy” while drunken soldiers in a restaurant
in Odessa told anti-Soviet anecdotes
> Thousands of innocent people who happened to be family members of suspected “traitors.” These
people received minimum sentences of five–eight years of hard labor
Most people arrested under Article 58 were forced to confess to some bogus counter-revolutionary
activity, such as a plan to poison wells or speak out against grain collection. Criminal code stated that
counter-revolutionary activities are committed when “the person who committed them, although not
directly pursuing a counter-revolutionary aim, knowingly entertained the possibility of this arising or
should have foreseen the socially dangerous character of the consequences of his actions”
Document Analysis:
1. What was article 58?
2. Because the language was vague in the criminal code, how was article 58 used in soviet society?
3.
How could this law make it difficult for people in the Soviet Union to participate in the freedom
of speech or assembly?
4. Does this document show Stalin as a hero or villain? Explain.
From Thesis to Essay Writing
Mini-Q Essay Outline Guide
-
-
-
-
-
Working Title
Paragraph # 1 (Intro)
o Grabber
o
Background on topic
o
State question with terms defined
o Thesis with roadmap
Paragraph # 2 (first body paragraph)
o Topic sentence- baby thesis for bucket one
o
Details/background – supports topic sentence
o
Evidence- Supporting details from evidence with internal document citation
o
Argument- Connect the evidence to the thesis
o Concluding sentence/transition
Paragraph # 3 (second body paragraph)
o Topic sentence- baby thesis for bucket two
o
Details/background – supports topic sentence
o
Evidence- Supporting details from evidence with internal document citation
o
Argument- Connect the evidence to the thesis
o Concluding sentence/transition
Paragraph # 4 (third body paragraph)
o Topic sentence- baby thesis for bucket three
o
Details/background – supports topic sentence
o
Evidence- Supporting details from evidence with internal document citation
o
Argument- Connect the evidence to the thesis
o Concluding sentence/transition
Paragraph # 5(Conclusion)
o Restatement of main idea along with possible insight
Stalin: Hero or Villain Essay Rubric
Category
Intro
Paragraph
4
2
Includes the
Following:
Is missing one of the
following:
Is missing two of the
following:
o Attention Grabber
o Identify key
aspects of Stalin’s
rule, including:
Command
economy, 5 year
plan, great purge,
collective farms.
o Thesis Statement
o Road map
o Attention Grabber
o Identify key aspects
of Stalin’s rule,
including:
Command
economy, 5 year
plan, great purge,
collective farms.
o Thesis Statement
o Road map
o Attention Grabber
o Identify key aspects
of Stalin’s rule,
including:
Command
economy, 5 year
plan, great purge,
collective farms.
o Thesis Statement
o Road map
Is well-written
including proper
grammar,
punctuation and
spelling.
Body
Paragraph
3
Is written including
minor issues with
improper grammar,
punctuation, and
spelling.
Is written including
several issues with
improper grammar,
punctuation, and
spelling.
Includes the
following:
Is missing one of the
following:
Is missing two of the
following:
o Topic sentence
that supports essay
thesis
o Three reason,
details, facts
(RDFs) that
support thesis
o Evidence that
supports that stalin
is either a hero or
a villain
o Concluding
sentence
o At least once
source referenced
o Source correctly
cited
o Topic sentence that
supports essay
thesis
o Three reason,
details, facts
(RDFs) that support
thesis
o Evidence that
supports that stalin
is either a hero or a
villain
o Concluding
sentence
o At least once source
referenced
o Source correctly
cited
o Topic sentence that
supports essay
thesis
o Three reason,
details, facts
(RDFs) that support
thesis
o Evidence that
supports that stalin
is either a hero or a
villain
o Concluding
sentence
o At least once source
referenced
o Source correctly
cited
1
Is missing three or
more of the
following:
o Attention Grabber
o Identify key
aspects of Stalin’s
rule, including:
Command
economy, 5 year
plan, great purge,
collective farms.
o Thesis Statement
o Road map
Is poorly written
including improper
grammar,
punctuation, and
spelling.
Is missing three or
more of the
following:
o Topic sentence
that supports essay
thesis
o Three reason,
details, facts
(RDFs) that
support thesis
o Evidence that
supports that stalin
is either a hero or
a villain
o Concluding
sentence
o At least once
source referenced
o Source correctly
cited
Concluding
Paragraph
Is well-written
including proper
grammar,
punctuation and
spelling
Is written including
minor issues with
improper grammar,
punctuation, and
spelling.
Is written including
several issues with
improper grammar,
punctuation, and
spelling.
Is poorly written
including improper
grammar,
punctuation, and
spelling.
Includes the
following:
Is missing of the
following:
Is missing the
following:
Is missing the
following:
o Restatement of
thesis
o Restatement of
thesis
o Restatement of
thesis
o Restatement of
thesis
Is well-written
including proper
grammar,
punctuation and
spelling
Is written including
minor issues with
improper grammar,
punctuation, and
spelling.
Is written including
several issues with
improper grammar,
punctuation, and
spelling.
Is poorly written
including improper
grammar,
punctuation, and
spelling.