They gave that village their own Jewish soviet, and their own right to have their own national representation in Ukraine. When there's no person, there's no problem.". What are the advantages and disadvantages of freedom? It made the country stupider by decapitating the party and decapitating the intelligentsia, and turning people into cogs, or little screws, as Stalin put it. Secondly, they were being challenged not only by social and class prejudices but by the ethnic prejudices promoted by the regime. Ronald Suny has devoted his life to studying the history of the Soviet Union and the countries of the South Caucasus. Some might say he was a good. Churchill, the United Kingdom's prime minister, was a bullish aristocrat famous for his brandy and cigars while . Explanation: No, Stalin was not a fair leader. That is, that you develop a sense of who you are as a nation, you revolt against colonialism, and you make your new state. During World War II became the Party 's leader and absolute ruler of the Soviet Union. 2023 BBC. Stalin really seemed to imbibe the idea that social-democratic worker-intellectuals had a very important and special role to play in building the movement and bringing their message to the masses. Well see. Thats what made Stalin successful. He left a legacy of death and horror, even as he turned a backward Russia into a world superpower. Why or why not? Why was the leader of nations so afraid of his former ally? It also sheds light on the underappreciated legacy of Georgias social democrats, who played a leading role in the 1905 and 1917 revolutions and established an independent, Menshevik-led republic in 19181921. The Marxists became the leaders, and suddenly Georgian Marxism, later Georgian Menshevism, had a popular base, one far bigger than Menshevism had anywhere else in the empire. We strive for accuracy and fairness. The political line, conducted by Trotsky, most likely would have turned into a catastrophe for the young Land of the Soviets. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stalin reversed the Bolshevik agrarian policy by seizing land given earlier to the peasants and organizing collective farms. One of the closest associates of Lenin and the leader of the October Revolution was killed in Mexico by Soviet agent Ramon Mercader. Joseph Stalin is having a bit of a moment. It was a bloody, ruthless period. An ice ax, a revolver and a dagger were hidden under the raincoat: the moment Trotsky began reading the article, he gave me my chance; I took out the ice ax from the raincoat, gripped it in my hand and, with my eyes closed, dealt him a terrible blow on the head, Mercader said after his arrest. Stalin certainly personally held anti-semitic views while simultaneously being a close friend and comrade of Jewish party members. In 1902, Lenin wrote a pamphlet called Chto Delat, or What Is to Be Done?, This pamphlet, which has been much misunderstood, was a polemic within the small circles of Russian social democracy arguing against what Lenin and others called economism. Economism was a kind of reformist approach that focused on supporting workers in their efforts to reduce working hours, improve working conditions, and raise wages, not the political struggle against the regime itself. Distinguished University Professor of History at the University of Michigan, Emeritus Professor of Political Science and History at the University of Chicago, and Senior Researcher at the National Research University Higher School of Economics in Saint Petersburg, Russia. He was good at backroom political maneuvering. 2. After escaping from exile, he was marked by the Okhranka, (the tsar's secret police) as an outlaw and continued his work in hiding, raising money through robberies, kidnappings and extortion. Which then, as you say, in the extra-European world becomes more of a model. Stalin at a young age he endured smallpox when he was only 7. Or as Trotsky put it, a river of blood separated Lenin from Stalin. Roosevelt died that April and was replaced by President Harry S. Truman. It took a long time to get all this stuff done. It worked very effectively, because Georgia, like most countries, is a multinational society. In his letter to the 1922 Party Congress, called Lenins Testament, the leader feared that there will be a split within the party, because of the conflict between Stalin and Trotsky: Stalin is too coarse and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealing among us communists, becomes intolerable in a Secretary-General. But eventually these Georgian Marxists who later become Mensheviks, the more moderate wing of the empires Social Democratic Party linked up with these revolutionary peasants. Stalins great talent was what a friend of mine, Paul Gregory, called the ground game. Rather than just writing articles (which he did) or speaking to crowds, he worked at organizing and getting to people in the factories, working with people and trying to agitate them into action on the streets. In the Soviet army, it takes more courage to retreat than advance. The death of Joseph Stalin leaves the Soviet Union without a leader. He wrote poetry, he loved singing, he loved Georgian music. But this is no ordinary party. Then I came back to Stalin and worked in the Russian and Georgian archives, and in Armenia, and got the book that you see today. Lenin resolved this conflict in favor of Trotsky. This website uses cookies. Latest answer posted October 06, 2019 at 11:40:56 AM. The Russian Mensheviks wanted to ally with bourgeois liberals and were worried about scaring them off into reaction. To attempt to give a simple answer to this question is tempting but not really useful. HOME; ABOUT; EQUIPMENT; SERVICES; CONTACT; was stalin a fair leader Some scholars have argued that Stalin's record of killings amount to genocide and make him one of history's most ruthless mass murderers. Lets say you have a Jewish village in Ukraine somewhere, and theres a majority of Jews there, and its fairly coherent. The first signs that the Soviet. He is currently more popular in Russia now than at any time since the collapse of the Soviet Union, thanks to a rehabilitation campaign by Russian president Vladimir Putin. Coming to pick his girlfriend up after work, he slowly began to gain the trust of the inhabitants of the house: he was invited in, he showed interest towards Trotskys ideas and brought presents for his grandson. Millions were killed in forced labor or starved during the ensuing famine. When it comes to use of the word "genocide," public opinion has been kinder to Stalin than Hitler. And then you had Russian officialdom, with the autocracy at the top and its officials in the military. What was the DRG? Read about our approach to external linking. In February 1917, the Russian Revolution began. He wasnt a flamboyant and eloquent orator like Trotsky. Convinced of the Allies' hostility toward the Soviet Union, Stalin became obsessed with the threat of an invasion from the West. Stalin Collapses . Libr. In general, lots of people think that there is something of a natural tendency to move from empire to nation. The people who count the votes decide everything. After his death in 1953, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's remains were embalmed and put on display next to those of Vladimir Lenin. To be fair, it needs to be noted that fear of competition was far from the only reason for Stalin to fight Trotsky. Stalin and the few Georgian Bolsheviks who remained loyal to Lenin were left high and dry, generals without an army. Subscribe today and get a yearlong print and digital subscription. Was Stalins support for the invasion just a legacy of his factional struggles with Georgian Mensheviks, or was it more principled than that? Later on, in 1905, Lenin put the argument of What Is to Be Done? Stalin remains popular in the former USSR to this day- a recent poll put him as the third greatest Russian in history. Chapter 3-4 review. I havent taken a kind of Freudian point of view, because I dont think, as a historian, I can psychoanalyze Stalin one hundred years after the fact. Despite some of its achievements, it shouldnt be celebrated. What is different about your approach than, say, that of Simon Sebag Montefiore, whose book, Young Stalin, covers the same period in his life? In all of these ways, its a different kind of book, and it doesnt deal with Stalins journalistic writings, his theory of nationalities (which is key to his success), the intricacies and nuances of Russian social democracy. Which of these was Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's primary goal during negotiations with Britain and the United States at Yalta and Potsdam? Around 1913, he produced a pamphlet which is sometimes called Marxism and the National Question it has various titles. Ronald Suny is the William H. Sewell Jr. Our website and social media accounts are under threat of being restricted or banned, due to the current circumstances. Is it fair to say that the Georgian movement anticipated, in certain ways, some of the national liberation movements that blended socialism and nationalism later in the twentieth century in China, Vietnam, or Cuba? But Stalinism was the nadir of the Soviet experiment. 1 March, 2023 09:00 am IST. Eventually, Stalin had to abandon Georgia and go to Baku, the oil-producing center on the Caspian Sea, today the capital of Azerbaijan, where the Bolsheviks had some meaningful support from the workers. Stalin suffered another foreign policy defeat after he encouraged North Korean Communist leader Kim Il Sung to invade South Korea, believing the United States would not interfere. And that war victory is a symbol of national pride for all Russians, even for those born in the post-Soviet period.". What were the 34 most significant differences between ideas of regional identity in the North and in the South during the Civil War? First of all, the seminary was run by the most ruthless and repressive Russian Orthodox priests who looked down on the Georgians and were intent on Russifying them. Yet he is increasingly paranoid and purges the Communist party and Army of anyone who might oppose him. By March, the tsar had abdicated the throne and was placed under house arrest. Ramon Mercader, aka Frank Jackson, Aug. 31, 1940. It went from being a very backwards country to being a world power. Danh mc . I believe in one thing only, the power of human will. Between the poverty stricken year of 1924, when Lenin died, and the relatively abundant year . So he was a worker-intellectual, and Lenin promoted him for that reason. Stalin is seen as the main figure who defeated fascism, who gets the honours for victory in the Great Patriotic War. Rose to power, promising equality, then took over private industry, leading to mass poverty and famine. Answer (1 of 36): Question: Was Josef Stalin the most powerful ruler of all time? January 8, 2015. Stalin was opposed to the views of others like the Georgian Mensheviks, or the Jewish Bund, or the Austro-Marxists, who argued for something that you can call extraterritorial national cultural autonomy. This would mean that citizens of the state carry their ethnicity and nationality around with them wherever they live in the state. On December 18, 1879, in the Russian peasant village of Gori, Georgia, Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili - later known as Joseph Stalin - was born. 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was stalin a fair leader?