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Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December [O.S. 6 December] 1878 – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who governed the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953. He held power both as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922–1952) and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (1941–1953). Despite initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, he ultimately consolidated power to become the Soviet Union's dictator by the 1930s. A communist ideologically committed to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism, Stalin formalised these ideas as Marxism–Leninism while his own policies are known as Stalinism.
Born to a poor family in Gori in the Russian Empire (now Georgia), Stalin attended the Tbilisi Spiritual Seminary before eventually joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He went on to edit the party's newspaper, Pravda, and raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction via robberies, kidnappings and protection rackets. Repeatedly arrested, he underwent several internal exiles. After the Bolsheviks seized power during the October Revolution and created a one-party state under the newly formed Communist Party in 1917, Stalin joined its governing Politburo. Serving in the Russian Civil War before overseeing the Soviet Union's establishment in 1922, Stalin assumed leadership over the country following Lenin's death in 1924. Under Stalin, socialism in one country became a central tenet of the party's dogma. As a result of the Five-Year Plans implemented under his leadership, the country underwent agricultural collectivisation and rapid industrialisation, creating a centralised command economy. This led to severe disruptions of food production that contributed to the famine of 1932–33. To eradicate accused "enemies of the working class", Stalin instituted the Great Purge, in which over a million were imprisoned and at least 700,000 executed between 1934 and 1939. By 1937, he had absolute control over the party and government.
Stalin promoted Marxism–Leninism abroad through the Communist International and supported European anti-fascist movements during the 1930s, particularly in the Spanish Civil War. In 1939, his regime signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, resulting in the Soviet invasion of Poland. Germany ended the pact by invading the Soviet Union in 1941. Despite initial setbacks, the Soviet Red Army repelled the German invasion and captured Berlin in 1945, thereby ending World War II in Europe. Amid the war, the Soviets annexed the Baltic states and then established Soviet-aligned governments throughout Central and Eastern Europe, China, and North Korea. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as global superpowers and entered a period of tensions, the Cold War. Stalin presided over the Soviet post-war reconstruction and its development of an atomic bomb in 1949. During these years, the country experienced another major famine and an antisemitic campaign that culminated in the doctors' plot. After Stalin's death in 1953, he was eventually succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev, who subsequently denounced his rule and initiated the de-Stalinisation of Soviet society.
Widely considered to be one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Stalin was the subject of a pervasive personality cult within the international Marxist–Leninist movement, which revered him as a champion of the working class and socialism. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Stalin has retained popularity in Russia and Georgia as a victorious wartime leader who cemented the Soviet Union's status as a leading world power. Conversely, his regime has been described as totalitarian, and has been widely condemned for overseeing mass repression, ethnic cleansing, wide-scale deportation, hundreds of thousands of executions, and famines that killed millions.
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (real name - Dzhugashvili, gruz., December 6, 1878 (according to the official version - December 9, 1879), Gori, Tiflis province, Russian Empire - March 5, 1953, Near Dacha, Volynskoye, Kuntsevsky district, Moscow region, RSFSR, USSR) was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet political, state, military and party figure. From April 3, 1922 to February 10, 1934 — General Secretary, then Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) (since 1952 - CPSU), from December 19, 1930, after Vyacheslav Molotov took the post of chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR instead of Alexei Rykov, the actual head of the USSR. Marshal of the Soviet Union, Generalissimo of the Soviet Union. People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR (since July 19, 1941), Chairman of the USSR Council of People's Commissars and Chairman of the USSR State Defense Committee.
In 1912, at the suggestion of V. I. Lenin, he was included in the Central Committee of the RSDLP. At the same time, Iosif Dzhugashvili finally takes the pseudonym "Stalin". During the October Revolution, the Second All-Russian Congress elected him a member of the Central Executive Committee and the SNK. In 1920, during the Battle of Warsaw, he did not fulfill the order of Commander-in-Chief Kamenev on the transfer of armies to strengthen the Western Front in a timely manner[a]. In 1922, at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), he was elected a member of the Organizational Bureau and the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), as well as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) (when Lenin was Chairman of the SNK of the USSR). After the weakening and death of Lenin, Stalin, occupying a leading role in the state, finally emerged victorious from the internal party struggle in 1930.
Joseph Dzhugashvili was born in a Georgian family (a number of sources [b] express versions about the Ossetian origin of Stalin's ancestors) in the city of Gori, Tiflis province and was a native of the lower class.
During Stalin's lifetime and for a long time after his death, it was believed that he was born on December 9 (21), 1879, but later researchers established a different date of Joseph's birth — December 6 (18), 1878 - and the date of baptism on December 17 (29), 1878[c].
Father - Vissarion (Beso), came from the peasants of the village of Didi-Lilo, Tiflis province, by profession - a shoemaker. Prone to drunkenness and fits of rage,[an unauthorized source?] he brutally beat Catherine and little Coco (Joseph)[16][an unauthorized source?]. There was a case when a child tried to protect his mother from being beaten. He threw a knife at Vissarion and took to his heels. According to the memoirs of the son of a policeman in Gori[25], another time Vissarion broke into the house where Ekaterina and little Coco were and attacked them with beatings, causing a head injury to the child.
Joseph was the third son in the family, the first two[d] died in infancy. Some time after the birth of Joseph, his father's affairs went badly, and he drank . The family often changed their housing. In the end, Vissarion left his wife, while trying to take his son, but Catherine did not give him up .
When Coco was eleven years old, Vissarion "died in a drunken brawl — someone stabbed him with a knife". By then , the Co itself
Mother - Ekaterina Georgievna - came from the family of a serf peasant (gardener) Geladze of the village of Gambareuli, worked as a day laborer. Was a hard-working Puritan woman who often beat her only surviving child,[an unauthorized source?] but was infinitely devoted to him. Stalin's childhood friend David Machavariani said that "Kato surrounded Joseph with excessive maternal love and, like a she-wolf, protected him from everyone and everything. She exhausted herself with work to the point of exhaustion in order to make her darling happy". Catherine, however, according to some historians [which?], was disappointed that her son never became a priest
Early years, becoming a revolutionary
In 1886, Ekaterina Georgievna wanted to determine Joseph to study at the Gori Orthodox Theological School, however, since he did not know Russian at all, he failed to enroll. In 1886-1888, at the request of his mother, the children of the priest Christopher Charkviani took on teaching Joseph the Russian language. As a result, in 1888, Soso did not enter the first preparatory class at the school, but immediately entered the second preparatory class, in September of the following year he entered the first class of the school, which he graduated from in June 1894.
I. Dzhugashvili's certificate of graduation from the Gori Theological College (1894)
In September 1894, Joseph passed the entrance exams and was enrolled in the Orthodox Tiflis Theological Seminary. There he became acquainted with Marxism for the first time and by the beginning of 1895 he had come into contact with underground groups of revolutionary Marxists exiled by the government to Transcaucasia. Subsequently , Stalin himself recalled: "I joined the revolutionary movement from the age of 15, when I got involved with the underground
According to the English historian Simon Sebag-Montefiore, Stalin was an extremely gifted student who received high marks in all subjects: mathematics, theology, Greek, Russian. Stalin liked poetry, and in his youth he himself wrote poems in the Georgian language , which attracted the attention of connoisseurs .
In 1931, in an interview with the German writer Emil Ludwig, to the question "What prompted you to become an oppositionist? Maybe it was mistreatment on the part of parents?" Stalin replied: "No. My parents treated me quite well. Another thing is the theological seminary where I studied then. Out of protest against the bullying regime and the Jesuit methods that were available at the seminary, I was ready to become and really became a revolutionary, a supporter of Marxism..."
In 1898, Dzhugashvili gained experience as a propagandist at a meeting with workers at the apartment of the revolutionary Vano Sturua and soon began to lead a working circle of young railway workers, he began to teach classes at the NESK
On May 29, 1899, in his fifth year of study, he was expelled from the seminary "for failing to attend exams for an unknown reason" (probably the actual reason for the exclusion was the activities of Joseph Dzhugashvili to promote Marxism among seminarians and railway workshop workers ). The certificate issued to him indicated that he had graduated from four classes and could serve as a teacher of primary public schools .
After being expelled from the seminary, Dzhugashvili was interrupted for some time by tutoring. Among his students, in particular, was his closest childhood friend Simon Ter-Petrosyan (the future revolutionary Kamo).
Koba, member of the Marxist circle (1902)
From the end of December 1899, Dzhugashvili was admitted to the Tiflis Physical Observatory as a computer observer:p.25.
On April 23, 1900, Iosif Dzhugashvili, Vano Sturua and Zakro Chodrishvili organized a workers' May day, which gathered 400-500 workers. Among others, Joseph himself spoke at the rally. This performance was the first appearance of
The Path to Power
In September 1901, the illegal newspaper "Brdzola" ("Struggle") began to be printed in the printing house "Nina", organized by Lado Ketskhoveli in Baku. The front page of the first issue belonged to twenty-two-year-old Iosif Dzhugashvili. This article is the first known political work of Stalin[36]:p.28.
In November 1901, he was inducted into the Tiflis Committee of the RSDLP, on behalf of which he was sent to Batum in the same month, where he participated in the creation of an ESDEK organization[36]. The party nickname is Koba.
After the split of the Russian Social Democrats into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks in 1903, Stalin joined the Bolsheviks.
In 1904, he organized [source?] a grand strike of oil workers in Baku, which ended with the conclusion of a collective agreement between strikers and industrialists.
In December 1905, a delegate from the Caucasian Union of the RSDLP at the First Conference of the RSDLP in Tammerfors (Finland[e]), where he first personally met V. I. Lenin.
In May 1906 , a delegate from Tiflis to the IV Congress
On the night of July 16, 1906, in the Tiflis Church of St. David, Joseph Dzhugashvili married Ekaterina Svanidze. From this marriage, Stalin's first son, Yakov, was born in 1907. At the end of the same year, Stalin's wife died of typhus.
In 1907, Stalin was a delegate to the V Congress of the RSDLP in London.
According to a number of authors, Stalin was involved in the so-called "Tiflis expropriation" of the summer of 1907 (the stolen (expropriated) money was intended for the needs of the party).
Baku, March 23, 1910.
In 1909-1911, Stalin was twice in exile in Solvychegodsk, Vologda Province — from February 27 to June 24, 1909 and from October 29, 1910 to July 6, 1911. Having escaped from exile in 1909, in March 1910, Stalin was arrested and, after a six-month imprisonment in Baku, was again escorted to Solvychegodsk. According to a number of historians, Stalin's illegitimate son, Konstantin Kuzakov, was born in Solvychegoda exile.. At the end of the term of exile, Stalin was in Vologda, otku, until September 6, 1911 Since 1910, Stalin has been an authorized representative of the Central Committee of the Party ("agent of the Central Committee") in the Caucasus.
In January 1912, at the plenum of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, held after the VI (Prague) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP held in the same month, at the suggestion of Lenin[52], Stalin was co-opted in absentia to the Central Committee and the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. His biographer Svyatoslav Rybas notes this election of Stalin as his emergence as a political figure.
In 1912, Iosif Dzhugashvili finally adopted the pseudonym "Stalin".
In April 1912, he was arrested by the police and sent into Siberian exile. This time the place of exile was determined to be the city of Narym, Tomsk province (Middle Ob). Here, in addition to representatives of other revolutionary parties, Smirnov, Sverdlov and some other well-known Bolsheviks were already present. Stalin was in Narym for 41 days - from July 22 to September 1, 1912, then he fled from exile. He managed to get to Tomsk by steamer along the Ob and Tom without being noticed by the security guards, where he boarded a train and left for the European part of Russia using a fake passport. Then immediately to Switzerland, where he met with Lenin.
After escaping from Tomsk exile, from the late autumn of 1912 until the spring of 1913, working in St. Petersburg, he was one of the main employees in the first mass Bolshevik newspaper Pravda.
In March 1913, Stalin was once again arrested, imprisoned and exiled to the Turukhansky region of the Yenisei Province, where he stayed until the end of autumn 1916. In exile corresponded with Lenin.
Later, Stalin's exile continued in the city of Achinsk, from where he returned to Petrograd on March 12, 1917.
Stalin 's role in the Civil War 1917—1924
After the victory of the October Revolution, Stalin joined the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) as a People's Commissar for Nationalities (back in late 1912-1913 Stalin wrote the article "Marxism and the National question" and from that time was considered an expert on national problems).
On November 29, Stalin joined the Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), together with Lenin, Trotsky and Sverdlov. This body was granted "the right to solve all emergency cases, but with the mandatory involvement of all members of the Central Committee who were in Smolny at that time."
In the spring of 1918, Stalin married for the second time[g]. His wife was the daughter of the Russian revolutionary S. Y. Alliluyeva — Nadezhda Alliluyeva.
From October 8, 1918 to July 8, 1919 and from May 18, 1920 to April 1, 1922, Stalin was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the RSFSR. Stalin was also a member of the Revolutionary Military Councils of the Western, Southern, and Southwestern Fronts.
In April 1918, Stalin, together with H. G. Rakovsky and D. Z. Manuilsky in Kursk, negotiated with representatives of the Ukrainian Central Rada on the conclusion of a peace treaty [~ 1].
During the Civil War, Stalin was chairman of the Military Council of the North Caucasus Military District (June-September 1918), a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Front (September-October 1918), a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic and a representative of the Central Executive Committee in the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense (October 1918- July 1919, May 1920—April 1922), a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Western Front and an extraordinary commissioner of the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense (July—September 1919), a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Front (October 1919-January 1920 G.), a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the South—Western Front (January-August 1920)
In May 1918, due to the aggravation of the food situation, the SNK of the RSFSR appointed Stalin responsible for the supply
of food in the South of Russia and seconded him as an extraordinary commissioner of the Central Executive Committee for the procurement and export of bread from the North Caucasus to industrial centers. Arriving in Tsaritsyn on June 6, 1918, Stalin took full power in the city and the district into his own hands[5].
At this time, in July 1918, the Don army of Ataman P. N. Krasnov launched the first offensive on Tsaritsyn. On July 22, the Military Council of the North Caucasus Military District was established, which was chaired by Stalin.
At the end of July, the Don Army captured the Trade (modern Salsk) and the Grand Ducal (modern Proletarsk), cutting Tsaritsyn's connection with the North Caucasus. After the failure of the Red Army offensive on August 10-15, the Don army besieged Tsaritsyn from three sides[5]. The group of General A. P. Fitzhelaurov carried out a breakthrough of the front north of Tsaritsyn, occupying Yerzovka and Pichuzhinskaya. This allowed the whites to reach the Volga and break the connection
Later, speaking at the VIII Congress on March 21, 1919, Lenin criticized Stalin for the mass executions of military experts in Tsaritsyn [7][8].
Since August 8, the compound under the command of General K. K. Mamontov has been advancing on the central sector. On August 18-20, fighting took place on the near approaches to Tsaritsyn, as a result of which Mamontov's group was stopped, and on August 20, the Red Army troops drove the enemy north of Tsaritsyn with a sudden blow and by August 22 knocked the whites out of Yerzovka and Pichuzhinskaya. On August 26, a counteroffensive was launched on the entire front. By September 7, the White troops were driven back across the Don; at the same time, they lost about 12 thousand killed and captured[9].
In September, the Don command decided on a new offensive on Tsaritsyn and additional mobilization was carried out. The Soviet command took measures to strengthen the defense and improve the management of troops [9]. By order of the Republic's RVS of September 11, 1918, the Southern Front was created, whose commander with
From October 8, 1918 to July 8, 1919 and from May 18, 1920 to April 1, 1922, Stalin was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the RSFSR. Stalin was also a member of the Revolutionary Military Councils of the Western, Southern, and Southwestern Fronts.
As noted by M. A. Gareev, Doctor of Historical and Military Sciences, during the Civil War, Stalin gained vast experience in military and political leadership of large masses of troops on many fronts (the defense of Tsaritsyn, Petrograd, on the fronts against Denikin, Wrangel, Belopolyakov, etc.)[11].
In early January 1919, Stalin and Dzerzhinsky went to Vyatka to investigate the reasons for the defeat of the Red Army near Perm and the surrender of the city to the Russian army of A.V. Kolchak. On January 13, they sent Lenin a brief report on the reasons for the defeat, and on January 31, a report was prepared by the commission of the Central Committee and the Defense Council. The Stalin-Dzerzhinsky Commission contributed to the establishment of supplies, the arrival of new units, the reorganization and restoration of the combat capability of the defeated 3rd Army [2] pp. 55-56; however, in general, the
Defense of Petrograd
During the offensive of the Northern Corps on Petrograd in May 1919, he was engaged in organizing the defense of Petrograd and the fight against the anti-Bolshevik underground. Again, as in Tsaritsyn, he stubbornly "cleaned" the ranks of military experts. June 12 - June 18, 1919, Stalin participated in the command of the operation to suppress the uprising of Fort Krasnaya Gorka in Petrograd. Participated in the suppression of the uprising at the fort "Gray Horse".
"The liquidation of the uprising on Krasnaya Gorka was one of the first joint operations of the Soviet land and naval forces with the support of aviation and significantly changed the operational situation near Petrograd. The general leadership of these forces was carried out by I. V. Stalin" - from the Great Russian Encyclopedia (2009)
In the summer of 1919, Stalin organized a rebuff to the Polish offensive on the Western Front, in Smolensk.
By the decree of the Central Executive Committee of November 27, 1919, Stalin was awarded the first Order of the Red Banner "in commemoration of all the merits in the defense of Petrograd, as well as his selfless further work on the Southern Front." In February - March 1920, he headed the Council of the Ukrainian Labor Army and led the mobilization of the population for coal mining.
Participation in the internal party struggle
At the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) on April 3, 1922, Stalin was elected to the Politburo and the The so-called "congress of victors", the 17th Congress of the CPSU(b) (1934), stated for the first time that the resolution of the 10th Congress had been implemented, and there were no more oppositions in the party. Many former opposition members were accepted back into the party after publicly "admitting mistakes". In an effort to retain their posts, such speeches at the congress were made, in particular: Zinoviev, Kamenev, Karl Radek, Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, Pyatakov, Preobrazhensky, Lominadze. The speeches of many delegates to the congress were densely filled with praises to Stalin. According to Rogovin V.Z., the name of Stalin was used 1500 times at the congress.
Zinoviev's speech was filled with servile tenderness before Stalin personally, Kamenev called himself a "political corpse", and Preobrazhensky spent a lot of time attacking his former colleague Trotsky. Bukharin, who in 1928 called Stalin "Genghis Khan", at the congress already called him "field marshal of the proletarian forces." Radek's speech of repentance stood somewhat apart from this series, densely saturated with jokes and often interrupted by laughter.Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), as well as the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). Initially, this position meant only the leadership of the party apparatus, and Lenin continued to be perceived as the leader of the party and government by everyone.
Since 1922, due to illness, Lenin actually retired from political activity. Within the Politburo, Stalin, Zinoviev, and Kamenev organized a "troika" based on opposition to Trotsky. All three party leaders at that time combined a number of key posts. Zinoviev headed the influential Petrograd party organization, while also being chairman of the Executive Committee of the Comintern. Kamenev headed the Moscow party organization and at the same time also led the Council of Labor and Defense, which united a number of key people's commissariats. With Lenin's departure from political activity, it was Kamenev who most often presided over meetings of the Council of People's Commissars instead of him. Stalin, on the other hand, united the leadership of the Secretariat and the Orgburo of the Central Committee at the same time, also heading the Rabkrin and the People's Commissariat of Nationalities.
In contrast to the "troika", Trotsky led the Red Army in key positions of the People's Commissariat of Defense and the Pre-revolutionary Military Council.
In September 1922, for the first time, Stalin clearly showed his inclination towards the traditional Russian great power. According to the instructions of the Central Committee, he, as People's Commissar for Nationalities, prepared his proposals for regulating Moscow's relations with the Sovietized national outskirts of the former Russian Empire. Stalin proposed a plan for "autonomization" (inclusion of the outskirts into the RSFSR as autonomies), in particular, Georgia was to remain part of the Transcaucasian Republic. This plan met with fierce resistance in Ukraine, and especially in Georgia, and was rejected under pressure from Lenin personally. The outskirts became part of the Soviet federation as union republics with all the attributes of statehood, however, fictitious under the conditions of a one-party system. From the name of the federation itself (“USSR”), the word “Russian” (“Russian”) was eliminated, and in general geographical names.
In late December 1922 - early January 1923, Lenin dictated a "Letter to the Congress", in which he gave critical characteristics to his closest associates in the party, including Stalin, proposing to remove him from the post of general secretary. The situation was aggravated by the fact that in the last months of Lenin's life there was a personal quarrel between Stalin and Krupskaya N.K.
The letter was read among the members of the Central Committee on the eve of the XIII Congress of the RCP(b), held in May 1924. Stalin resigned, but it was not accepted. At the congress, the letter was read out to each delegation, however, following the results of the congress, Stalin remained in his post.
After the 13th Congress (1924), at which Trotsky suffered a crushing defeat, Stalin launched an attack on his former allies in the Troika. After the "literary discussion with Trotskyism" (1924), Trotsky was forced to resign from the post of the Pre-Revolutionary Military Council.
Between 1926 and 1927, intra-Party relations became especially tense. Stalin slowly but surely squeezed the opposition out of the legal field. Among his political opponents were many individuals with rich experience of pre-revolutionary underground activities.
The so-called "congress of victors", the 17th Congress of the CPSU(b) (1934), stated for the first time that the resolution of the 10th Congress had been implemented, and there were no more oppositions in the party. Many former opposition members were accepted back into the party after publicly "admitting mistakes". In an effort to retain their posts, such speeches at the congress were made, in particular: Zinoviev, Kamenev, Karl Radek, Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, Pyatakov, Preobrazhensky, Lominadze. The speeches of many delegates to the congress were densely filled with praises to Stalin. According to Rogovin V.Z., the name of Stalin was used 1500 times at the congress.
Zinoviev's speech was filled with servile tenderness before Stalin personally, Kamenev called himself a "political corpse", and Preobrazhensky spent a lot of time attacking his former colleague Trotsky. Bukharin, who in 1928 called Stalin "Genghis Khan", at the congress already called him "field marshal of the proletarian forces." Radek's speech of repentance stood somewhat apart from this series, densely saturated with jokes and often interrupted by laughter.The so-called "congress of victors", the 17th Congress of the CPSU(b) (1934), stated for the first time that the resolution of the 10th Congress had been implemented, and there were no more oppositions in the party. Many former opposition members were accepted back into the party after publicly "admitting mistakes". In an effort to retain their posts, such speeches at the congress were made, in particular: Zinoviev, Kamenev, Karl Radek, Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky, Pyatakov, Preobrazhensky, Lominadze. The speeches of many delegates to the congress were densely filled with praises to Stalin. According to Rogovin V.Z., the name of Stalin was used 1500 times at the congress.
Zinoviev's speech was filled with servile tenderness before Stalin personally, Kamenev called himself a "political corpse", and Preobrazhensky spent a lot of time attacking his former colleague Trotsky. Bukharin, who in 1928 called Stalin "Genghis Khan", at the congress already called him "field marshal of the proletarian forces." Radek's speech of repentance stood somewhat apart from this series, densely saturated with jokes and often interrupted by laughter.
Collectivization, Industrialization, urban planning and preparation for war
Stalin clearly understood the inevitability of a new war. I knew the economy was in a bad state.
The country needed money, equipment, factories.
The five-year plan for the construction of 1,500 factories, approved by Stalin in 1928, required huge expenditures on the purchase of foreign technologies and equipment[92]. To finance purchases in the West, Stalin decided to increase the export of raw materials, mainly oil, furs, and grain[92]. The problem was compounded by the fall in the scale of grain production. So, if in 1913 pre-revolutionary Russia exported about 10 million tons of grain, then in 1925-1926 the annual export was only 2 million tons[93]. Stalin believed [92] that the collective farms could be a means to restore grain exports, through which the state was going to withdraw agricultural products from the countryside needed to finance military-oriented industrialization [92].
V. Z. Rogovin points out that the export of bread was by no means the main item of the export income of the USSR. So, in 1930, the country received 883 million rubles from the export of bread, oil products and timber gave 1 billion 430 million, furs and flax - up to 500 million. According to the results of 1932-33, bread gave only 8% of export earnings.
Industrialization and collectivization led to enormous social changes. Millions of people moved from the collective farms to the cities. The USSR was engulfed in a grandiose migration. The number of workers and employees increased from 9 million people. in 1928 to 23 million in 1940. The population of cities increased sharply, in particular, Moscow from 2 million to 5, Sverdlovsk from 150 thousand to 500. At the same time, the pace of housing construction was completely insufficient to accommodate such a number of new citizens. Typical housing in the 30s was communal apartments and barracks, and in some cases dugouts.
On February 8, 1932, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks officially canceled the party maximum. Thus, the “mutual assistance fund” was liquidated, due to which the party had the opportunity to support its least well-to-do members, on the other hand, the barrier that held back the enrichment of the party leaders was removed. From that moment on, the process of property stratification within the party acquired a legalized character. An important milestone on this path was the decision on April 19, 1936, on the creation of a director's fund, which was supposed to receive 4% of planned income and 50% of excess. Thus, one of the legal sources of accumulation was created, which played a certain role in the rebirth of the party nomenklatura[94][95].
The Stalinist model of the economy ensured high rates of economic growth. Thus, during the years of the first and second five-year plans, the GDP of the USSR grew by 14-15% per year[12]. Imports dropped sharply, which was seen as the country's gaining economic independence. Unemployment was eliminated. By the end of the second five-year plan, the USSR ranked second in the world in terms of industrial output, second only to the United States[99]. By 1941, about 9,000 new factories had been built[100]. According to N. D. Kolesov, the Soviet Union managed to eliminate the backwardness that existed before Stalin's industrialization in just 13 years[100].
In just two five-year plans, more than 5,000 large facilities were built in the country, including about three hundred such giants as Dneproges, Uralmash, Azovstal, Zaporizhstal and Krivorozhstal, KhTZ and STZ, Turksib, and the Moscow Metro. Industrial production growth rates (not in fictitious GDP, but in real tons and units) doubled every four years.
For ten years, a complete base of its own production was created: from metal smelting to the production of machine tools and machines. In 1939, the USSR became the fourth country in the world capable of independently producing any product of any complexity. And if the first factories began to be built with shovels and wheelbarrows, then a few years later Soviet bulldozers and excavators were already roaring at construction sites.
Role in World War II
The inevitability of a new big war was quite obvious to the Bolshevik Party. So, L. B. Kamenev called for the start of a new “even more monstrous, even more disastrous war” in his report “On the Capitalist Encirclement” at the X Congress of the RCP (b) in 1921. Mikhail Alexandrov, in his work “Stalin's Foreign Policy Doctrine”, indicates that speaking at the ECCI on May 30, 1925, Stalin also stated that “the war in Europe will begin and that they will definitely fight there, there can be no doubt about this.” At the Fourteenth Congress (December 1925), Stalin expressed his confidence that Germany would not put up with the terms of the Versailles Peace.
After Hitler came to power, Stalin drastically changed the traditional Soviet policy: if earlier it was aimed at an alliance with Germany against the Versailles system, and along the lines of the Comintern - at fighting the Social Democrats as the main enemy (the theory of "social fascism" is Stalin's personal setting). [148]), now it consisted in creating a system of “collective security” within the USSR and the former countries of the Entente against Germany and an alliance of communists with all leftist forces against fascism (“popular front” tactics). This position was initially not consistent: in 1935 Stalin, alarmed by the German-Polish rapprochement, secretly proposed a non-aggression pact to Hitler, but was refused[149].
In his speech to the graduates of military academies on May 5, 1941, Stalin summed up the rearmament of the troops that had taken place in the 1930s, expressed confidence that the German army was not invincible. Volkogonov D. A. interprets this speech as follows: “The leader made it clear: war is inevitable in the future. We must be ready for the unconditional defeat of German fascism ... The war will be waged on enemy territory, and victory will be achieved with little bloodshed.
Up until Hitler's attack, the Soviet Union collaborated with Nazi Germany. There are numerous documentary evidences of cooperation of various kinds, from friendship treaties and active trade to joint parades and conferences of the NKVD and the Gestapo[150]. Before signing the friendship treaty, Stalin told Ribbentrop
These measures were forced. But they helped the Soviet Union to receive from Germany before the start of the war a large amount of metalworking equipment and cash loans. It also helped delay the start of the war.
The first country in Europe to conclude a non-aggression pact with Hitler was Poland. The official name is "Declaration on the non-use of force between Germany and Poland". It was signed on January 26, 1934. In the literature, it is often referred to as the "Hitler-Pilsudski Pact".
The second country to sign an agreement with Hitler was, oddly enough, England. On June 18, 1935, the Anglo-German Naval Agreement was signed.
Following England, to please Hitler, the French hurried. On December 6, 1938, the Bonnet-Ribbentrop Pact was signed. The French politician Paul Reynaud later wrote that after negotiations with Ribbentrop, Bonnet “had the impression that henceforth German policy would be aimed at fighting Bolshevism. The Reich made it clear that he had a desire for expansion in an easterly direction ... ". What Bonnet indicated in a circular note to the French ambassadors.
On March 23, 1939, an agreement was signed between Germany and Romania. The official title is "On strengthening economic ties between Romania and Germany". The German army needed oil and the Romanians immediately made Hitler very pleased.
On May 31, 1939, an agreement is concluded between Denmark and Germany. In this agreement, the Danes most likely caved in to Germany so much that it has not yet been published.
On June 7, 1939 Latvia concludes an agreement with Hitler. On the same day, a similar treaty was concluded by Estonia. Winston Churchill commented on these events as follows: “Estonia and Latvia signed non-aggression pacts with Germany. Thus, Hitler was able to penetrate without difficulty deep into the weak defenses of the belated and indecisive coalition directed against him.
Stalin in the early days of the Great Patriotic War
See also: Stalin's reaction to the beginning of the Great Patriotic War and Executions of NKVD and NKGB prisoners (1941)
Already at 5:45 a.m. on June 22, Stalin in his office in the Kremlin received the People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the USSR V. M. Molotov, the People's Commissar of Internal Affairs L. P. Beria, the People's Commissar for Defense S. K. Timoshenko, the Deputy Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR L. Z. Mekhlis and Chief of the General Staff of the Red Army G.K. Zhukov[168].
The day after the start of the war (June 23, 1941), the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, by a joint resolution[169], formed the Headquarters of the High Command of the Armed Forces of the USSR, which included Stalin and whose chairman was appointed People's Commissar of Defense, Marshal of the Soviet Union S. K. Timoshenko. On June 24, Stalin signs a resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR on the creation of an Evacuation Council under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR, designed to organize the evacuation of "the population, institutions, military and other cargo, equipment of enterprises and other valuables" in the western part of the USSR.
In 1952, in the Military History Directorate of the General Staff of the Soviet Army, a group was created under the leadership of Colonel-General A.P. Pokrovsky, which began to develop a description of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945.
For a more complete and objective presentation of the events of the initial period of the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945, questions were formulated relating to the period of deployment of the troops of the Baltic, Kiev and Belorussian special military districts according to the "State Border Defense Plan of 1941" on the eve of the Great Patriotic War.
On the whole, all the participants in the first days of the war noted the readiness of headquarters for command and control. After recovering from the sudden blow, the headquarters took over the leadership of the fighting. Difficulties in command and control of troops were manifested in almost everything: the understaffing of some headquarters, the lack of the required number of communications equipment (radio and transport), the protection of the headquarters, vehicles for movement, broken wire communications. The management of the rear was difficult due to the supply system remaining from peacetime - the "district-regiment".
The recollections of eyewitnesses and direct participants in the first days of the war, of course, are not without subjectivity, nevertheless, their stories are proof that the Soviet government and the high command, realistically assessing the situation in the period 1940-1941, felt that the country and the army were not fully ready to repel an attack from the side of fascist Germany - a strong and well-armed enemy due to the robbery of the countries of Western Europe, with two years of experience in combat operations. Based on the objective reality of that time, by ordering the troops to be on full alert, the country's leadership did not want to give Hitler a pretext for unleashing a war in extremely unfavorable conditions for us, hoping to delay the war.
ALL EVIDENCE AND DOCUMENTS ARE PUBLISHED ON THE WEBSITE OF THE MOD
