Stalin's leadership leading up to WWII was primarily made up of dismissing, arresting, and killing anyone suspected of treason, but more about that later. He had some other noteworthy actions that he took and decisions that he made:
Stalin and Hitler seemed to become pretty close, and I think they affected each others decisions during the start of WWII. Stalin and Hitler made secret negotiations in 1939 concerning Poland. Stalin had no interest in helping Poland, and Hitler wanted to crush them. Stalin was allowed to annex its eastern provinces, which was great because Stalin wanted control of the three Baltic States. the Nazi-Stalin pact was signed on August 23.
Another important action of Stalin's was concerning the Spanish civil war. Stalin didn't want to support Spain in any way, and the Russians who had led the Russian effort in Spain were arrested, imprisoned and shot.
Although those two actions of Stalin's were certainly important, my questions are more about this next action:
Stalin was obsessed with conducting purges of 'enemies of the state' in 1937. Most of those enemies were charged with treason and spying, and were sent to execution, prison or labor camps. Surprisingly, even Stalin's close friends were at risk, and many were accused of high treason. According to the reading, "Of the eleven non-Russian Republics of the Soviet Union, ten had their heads in government removed from office during 1937." Stalin appointed successors for the heads that were removed, but within a few months they were arrested, and also charged with treason. My question is, why would he appoint all these people and then go and arrest them a few months later? Was he so paranoid and suspicious that he couldn't trust anyone? Basically, what was going on in his head?!
Then, in 1938, the Trial of the Twenty-One occurred, which lasted 10 days, and was basically the height of all the other purges and show trials.
"In the course of two years, according to the precise records of the Soviet secret police, 33,514 'enemies of the people' had been shot and 5,643 imprisoned." That's a lot of people!! Once again, I'm asking why he was so crazy psycho about killing all those people?
After a quick Google search, 180 million was the average number of the population of Russia in 1940 that I found. This means that out of 180 million people only roughly 40 thousand were found to be enemies of the state, going by your number, that seems like a small number to me. I feel that in any totalitarian government a good mass killing is needed. If he only killed that small of a number, again going by your number, then I feel that he was pretty kind to the masses. The removal of heads of state, my guess would be that if they ever did anything he did not like, he would remove them. If you mess up once you get removed then several months sounds like a good amount of time.
ReplyDeleteStalin was a leader of a totalitarian state. He was the "great Russian bear". He needed to be merciless to mantain power. Anyone who disagreed with him, who represented a threat to his power, naturally had to be removed. As for the heads of state, they weren't even Russian, they probably resented Stalin controling their country, so they also probably spoke out more. Generally, I think that there were the same problems in Russia then as there are today- it's a giant country with a very large bureacray. Things, and (sadly) people get lost in the system (like the Magnitsky case of today). Stalin was scared of revolt (there had recently been one to put his regime in power so why not another?). So maybe he just wanted to wipe out any possible threat.
ReplyDeletewell i would just like to say that yes compared to 180 million 40,000 isn't giant, but it is still 40 THOUSAND people. That is significant. I think Stalin was super paranoid, i don't think he was nearly as smooth as Hitler or Mussolini in being confident and arrogant in how to handle things. I think this has to do with the size of Russia and what would happen if it went on revolt. He wouldn't be able to handle it for sure. But i think all this killing was just to temporarily ease his paranoia.
ReplyDeleteIn physic we learn about Maslow and his hierarchy of needs (for all of you that aren't aware the first to sections of his theory are that 1) you need food and shelter and 2) you need safty and comfort. And without these basic needs met you are essentially a little crazy.) This may be far stretched but I think Stalin was missing out on the safty and security part which left him suspicous of every one. Thats why he was so paranoid! And i agree with Lauren Stalin wasn't even close to as smooth as Hitler and Mussolini and i think thats all because he was missing out on the basics to Maslows hieracrchy of needs.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Melissa on this one. Stalin felt like he needed to maintain absolute, complete and total power and if it was to kill anybody that objected to him even from his own country then so be it. I guess Hitler didn't have to worry about there being a revolt while on Stalin's case he did which is were Hitler was different from Stalin despite being both dictators. Same thing could be said about Mussolini he didn't have to fear about revolt because his people trusted him but not with Stalin.
ReplyDeleteOk yeh Stalin.... LOVE HIM! Psych! He was such a power crazed, over violent leader! i mean he had no probable cause but still felt the need for mass murder. I also agree with alex and Melissa, he just needed absolute power. And to him I think constantly exerting that power was just a show, so he jus kept killing in order to show his control. I think it back fired completely because it just made everyone not only fear him.... but also think he was a complete loon!
ReplyDeleteI believe that Stalin killed all of those people as a sweeping show of force designed to dissipate any possible uprisings against his rule. Also, the numbers of people killed and imprisoned in Russia may be skewed by the sheer number of people living there. The percentage of people killed compared to the population may put into a better light the actual extent of "purging" carried out by Stalin.
ReplyDeleteAJ, how would we feel if our government randomly decided to kill even 1,000 people, just because they didn't agree with the government? Those people had lives, besides apparently plotting against Stalin. Like Lauren said, it was just to temporarily help him feel safe. As a thought, he probably would have felt safer if he had been doing things that the majority of the populace agreed with.
ReplyDeleteShannon,(all statistics are done with very little factional evidence other then i picked a rough number of the number of people i personally know and used the censuses total population of us number)Well I have a 3.2*10^-4 chance of it being me personally, and a 1.6*10^-3 chance of it being someone I know or whose death would affect someone I know, so statistically I have a pretty good chance. After all "A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic" -Stalin.
ReplyDeleteIsn't it terribly interesting, that Hitler and Stalin would be planning secret negotiations before WWII even though one was Communist and one was Fascist, and Hitler persecuted any Communists in his country, as Stalin surely punished any Fascists? I guess what I'm wondering here is, would Hitler and Stalin have gone against each other if negotiations had not fallen through, and had been successful? And the fact that Stalin was having "secret" negotiations with Hitler shows he didn't want what would come to be the allied powers to know he was negotiating with Hitler. Another question; when did the allied powers find out that Hitler and Stalin had been negotiating, and if they'd found out earlier, would they have allied themselves with Russia?
ReplyDeleteIf he's a totalitarian leader it's basically a job requirement that he kill all of these people because they were going against the government. For the most part this is the only way that a totalitarian government can function. Yes, all those deaths are wrong and shouldnt've happened, but it was necessary for Stalin to retain control. And I agree with Alysa on that he was a little bit crazy, leading a country (no matter how immorally) is alot of pressure and that type of stress can make anyone crazy.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Lauren. I think Stalin was trying to handle things and solve waht he saw as the problems, but he was mostly just paranoid. He was not as charismatic as Hitler was and not as convincing.
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