2008 Poll: The Greatest Russians of All Time

World leaders are leaders with high governmental power in the world. Every leader, not just world leaders, is either great or corrupt; they are rarely both. Most of Russia’s history is filled with corrupt leaders. Joseph was one of those leaders. Stalin killed millions of people during his rule. But Stalin also led the Soviet Union almost to the top in world power. Stalin had many influences that led him to his Soviet Leadership in which gave him many admirers but even more non-supporters.

Joseph Stalin was the most controversial person in Russia who has come into power. This has come from his 5 year plan that he has assembled when Russia was in shambles, due to the civil war, the economy failing, and no industrial equipment. His job now was to restore Russia and make it into an industrial powerhouse.

Stalin’s policy priorities were not building a ‘worker’s paradise’ or a classless society, but protecting Russia from war and invasion. In 1928, Stalin launched the first of two ambitious five-year plans to modernize and industrialize the Soviet economy. These programs brought rapid progress – but also significant death and suffering. Stalin’s decision to nationalize agricultural production dispossessed millions of peasants, forcing them from their land to labor on gigantic state-run collective farms. Grain was sold abroad to finance Soviet industrial projects, leading to food shortages and disastrous famines in the mid-1930s. Soviet Russia was dragged into the 20th century, transforming from a backward agrarian empire into a modern industrial superpower – but this came at extraordinary human cost.

Soso Djugashvili, more commonly known as Joseph Stalin, ‘man of steel’, dictator of the Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) Russia, can be considered a ‘Red Tsar’ to an extent when features of Stalinism are compared to those of Tsarism and Russia ruled by Nicholas II’s autocratic regime from 1894 to 1917. A ‘Red Tsar’ is a communist leader whom follows similar principles followed under the leadership of a Tsar, that were influenced by few opinions allowing sole leadership and little opposition from others. Stalin can be considered a ‘Red Tsar’ to an extent as he ruled Communist Russia as a somewhat totalitarian state and was considered a ‘God-like’ figure sent to Earth to lead the nation and its people. From Stalin’s reign of terror from 1929 to 1953 there can be similarities seen in his regime to features of Tsarism as well as differences, this is why there are alternative interpretations for Stalin being considered a ‘Red Tsar’.

Under a backdrop of systematic fear and terror, the Stalinist juggernaut flourished. Stalin’s purges, otherwise known as the “Great Terror”, grew from his obsession and desire for sole dictatorship, marking a period of extreme persecution and oppression in the Soviet Union during the late 1930s. “The purges did not merely remove potential enemies. They also raised up a new ruling elite which Stalin had reason to think he would find more dependable.” (Historian David Christian, 1994). While Stalin purged virtually all his potential enemies, he not only profited from removing his long-term opponents, but in doing so, also caused fear in future ones. This created a party that had virtually no opposition, a new ruling elite that would be

It is plausible to suggest that Joseph Stalin was essentially a Red Tsar. Whilst Stalin was committed to communism, his ideology and authoritarian reign was reminiscent of the Tsarist autocratic rule that proceeded him. For nearly six centuries Russia was ruled under a Tsarist autocratic government until it was overthrown during the 1917 revolution that led to the introduction of the first communist government in Russia and the leadership of Joseph Stalin. During his reign, Stalin enacted a ‘cult of personality’ in which he was worshipped as a god-like being similar to that of the autocratic Tsars who ruled before him. Likewise, there were immense similarities in the social structures and quality of life for Russia’s people under the reign of the last Tsar, Nicholas II, and Joseph Stalin. There is considerable evidence therefore to support the idea that Joseph Stalin was essentially a Red Tsar.

In the book The Unquiet Ghost: Russians Remember Stalin, author Adam Hochschild entered Russia an interviewed people who had survived Stalinism. What he found was that despite the fact that Stalin has been dead for decades, he still lives as a tangible presence within the country. His memory functions as a reminder to all those who dare to criticize President Putin or other members of the current government about how bad things could be and this fear pushes them into

Stalin like Hitler “used propaganda, censorship, and terror to force his will on the Soviet people. Government newspapers glorified work and Stalin himself. Secret police spied on citizens, and anyone who refused to praise Stalin and the state faced severe punishment, even death” (“The Soviet”, n.d.).

Stalin’s unquestionable dominance over the Bolshevik party and their actions highlights the impact of Stalinism

Even in modern Russia, the atrocities that took place at the Gulags are either not understood by all Russians or not accepted. According to Anne Applebaum, a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist with The Economist and expert on Soviet history, “Tragically, Russia’s lack of interest in its past has deprived the Russians of heroes, as well as victims” (Applebaum 573). Today, many Russian citizens are not fully aware of everything that took place in Gulags. Many Westerners, however, also lack knowledge about these events. The Soviet government’s cover up of these events is still preventing the horrors of the Gulags from reaching common knowledge.

During the rule of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1989, many great and many terrible events occurred that are important and vital to our knowledge of history. The purpose of learning history is so that we as people are well-educated on different governments and ideologies and so that we, in this day and age, can do our very best to not repeat past mistakes. The USSR, while they developed culturally as a country, destroyed millions of lives all across Western Europe with their communist approach to rule and their blinded goal of total power. The history books today give a good insight into how terrible the Soviet Union really was, but these textbooks are written as objectively as possible. The future history textbooks should shed a negative light on all of the wrongdoings of the Soviet Union so that students understand that what happened this century was horrific and should never occur again.

“In keeping silent about evil, in burying it so deep within us that no sign of it appears on the surface, we are implanting it, and it will rise up a thousand fold in the future. When we neither punish nor reproach evildoers, we are not simply protecting their trivial old age, we are thereby ripping the foundations of justice from beneath new generations.” Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said in his impactful narrative that paints a picture of the Gulag labor camps in Soviet Russia through personal experience, eyewitness testimony and interviews, and primary research material. Solzhenitsyn is describing the silence that survivors of the Gulag were forced to exhibit after staring terror and fear directly in the face during their time in the Gulag. The silence Solzhenitsyn is describing, is claimed to be one of the reason the Gulag is often not given the attention in history books and in the forefront of our minds that the Gulag deserves. The Gulag is believed to be one of the most horrible and inhuman acts of the 20th century, yet western society tends to shy away from mentioning the Gulag when discussing tragedy. This paper will examine historians’ views on the Gulag and why it has been overlooked in history as the horrible tragedy it was and the impact that this silence has had, not only on the survivors, but also the impact it has had on Russia and its society as a whole.

It is undeniable that Stalin had a profound impact on the Soviet Union following Lenin’s death. His rise to power within the Soviet Union has provided historians with a hotbed of political intrigue for many years. He was an opportunist, coming to dominance by manipulating party politics and influential figures in the politburo to eliminate his opposition by recognising and exploiting their weaknesses thus becoming the dominant leader of the Soviet Union. He was severely underestimated by other members of the Politburo about his potential within the party, leading to missed opportunities to ally and stand against him- a mistake that Stalin never made. He gained support from the public by exploiting the idea of ‘the Cult of Lenin’ in 1924 at Lenin’s funeral, and then adopting this concept for himself, thereby likening himself to Lenin; and, more importantly, gained support from other party members by following the wishes of Lenin, for example, initially supporting the continuation of the NEP and supporting the idea of factionalism. This essay will also argue that he was ideologically flexible as he was able to change his ideas for the party according to who he needed as an ally, in order to achieve dominant status in the party. He sought out which individual was the biggest threat, and eliminated them before they could stand against him.

The first source to evaluate is The Great Terror: A Reassessment by Robert Conquest, written in 1990. Originating in Britain about twenty years after the Great Terror and the period of Stalin’s establishment of power, this source has great value by providing an evaluation of the events about 50 years after

Joseph Stalin was both a blessing and a curse for Russia. He ruled with an iron fist, had harsh tactics, and treated people as obstacles in his way on the path to power. While Stalin is most commonly known for killing millions of his very own people, most people also forget that he was the man who transformed Russia into an industrialized state with infrastructure and a strong military. One could even argue that without Stalin Russia might not have lasted the test of time and make it into modern times.