Joseph Stalin

{{Audio|ru-Stalin.ogg|Joseph Stalin}} (Russian, in full: ????? ????????????? ?????? (Josef Vissarionovich Stalin), real name: ????? ????????????? ?????????? (Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvilli), Georgian: ????? ????????? (Ioseb Jughashvili); December 6 (OS)/December 18 (NS), 1878{{ref|Register}} – March 5, 1953) was the leader of the Soviet Union from mid-1920s to his death in 1953 and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922-1953), a position which had later become that of party leader.

World War II

After declining Franco-British missions to Moscow in hopes that the USSR would enter a treaty of Polish defense with them, Stalin began to negotiate a non-aggression pact with Hitler's Germany. In his speech on August 19, 1939, Stalin prepared his comrades for the great turn in Soviet policy, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany which divided Central Europe into the two powers' respective spheres of influence. The exact motivations behind this pact are disputed, but it appears that neither side expected it to last very long.

Related Topics:
Speech - August 19 - 1939 - Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact - Nazi Germany - Central Europe

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

On September 1 1939, the German invasion of Poland started World War II. According to the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, Eastern Poland was in the Soviet sphere of influence. Hence, Stalin decided to intervene and on September 17 the Red Army invaded Poland as well. Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to modify the spheres of influences slightly and Poland was divided between these two states.

Related Topics:
September 1 - 1939 - Poland - World War II - Sphere of influence - September 17 - Red Army

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

According to the pact, the Soviets were promised a slice of Poland, the annexation of Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and an undisturbed military advance on Finland, which the Soviets acted on almost immediately. In November, 1939, Stalin sent troops over the Finnish border provoking war. The Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland proved to be more difficult than Stalin and the Red Army was prepared for, and the Soviets sustained high casualties. The Soviets finally prevailed in March, 1940, but their inferior army had been revealed to the rest of the world, including Germany.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In June 1941, Hitler broke the pact and invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. Stalin had not expected this — or at the very least, he had not expected an invasion to come so soon — and the Soviet Union was largely unprepared for this invasion. Until the last moment, Stalin had sought to avoid any obvious defensive preparation which might provoke German attack, in the hope of buying time to modernise and strengthen his military forces. Even after the attack commenced, Stalin appeared unwilling to accept the fact and, according to some historians, was too stunned to react appropriately for a number of days. A controversial theory put forward by Viktor Suvorov asserts that Stalin had been preparing an invasion of Germany while neglecting preparations for defensive warfare, which left Soviet forces vulnerable despite their heavy concentration near the border. Such speculations are difficult to substantiate, as information on the Soviet Army from 1939 to 1941 remains classified, but it is known that the Soviets had advanced and detailed warnings of the German invasion through their extensive foreign intelligence agents, such as Richard Sorge.

Related Topics:
1941 - Hitler - Soviet Union - Operation Barbarossa - Viktor Suvorov - Richard Sorge

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Nazis initially made huge advances, capturing and killing millions of Soviet troops. The 1937–38 execution of many of the Red Army's experienced generals had a severely debilitating effect on the ability of the USSR to organize defences. Hitler's experts had expected eight weeks of war, and early indications evidenced their prescience.

Related Topics:
1937 - 38 - Red Army

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In response on November 6 1941, Stalin addressed the Soviet Union for only the second time during his three-decade rule (the first time was earlier that year on July 2). He claimed that although 350,000 troops had been killed by German attacks, the Germans had lost 4.5 million soldiers (an inflated figure) and that Soviet victory was near. The Soviet Red Army did put up fierce resistance, but during the war's early stages was largely ineffective against the better-equipped and trained German forces, until the invaders were halted and then driven back in December 1941 in front of Moscow. Stalin then worked with independent-minded Soviet Marshal Georgy Zhukov to orchestrate the decisive German defeat at the Battle of Stalingrad.

Related Topics:
November 6 - 1941 - July 2 - Moscow - Georgy Zhukov - Battle of Stalingrad

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stalin met in several conferences with Churchill and/or Roosevelt in Moscow, Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam to plan military strategy. His shortcomings as strategist are frequently noted regarding massive Soviet loss of life and early Soviet defeats. (In his autobiography Khrushchev claimed that Stalin tried to conduct tactical decisions using a world globe.) Yet Stalin did rapidly move Soviet industrial production east of the Volga river, far from Luftwaffe-reach, to sustain the Red Army's war machine with astonishing success. Additionally, Stalin was well aware that other European armies had utterly disintegrated when faced with Nazi military efficacy and responded effectively by subjecting his army to galvanizing terror and unrevolutionary patriotism.

Related Topics:
Conferences - Tehran - Yalta - Potsdam - Military strategy - Volga - Luftwaffe - Red Army

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Stalin's Order No. 227 of July 27 1942 illustrates the ruthlessness with which he sought to stiffen army resolve: all those who retreated or otherwise left their positions without orders to do so were to be summarily shot. Other orders declared that the families of those who surrendered were subject to NKVD terror. Barrier forces of SMERSH were soon set up behind advances to machine-gun anyone who retreated. The surrendering Soviet troops of the first years of Barbarossa were sent to the Gulag after their release from POW camps.

Related Topics:
Order No. 227 - July 27 - 1942 - NKVD - SMERSH - POW camp

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In the war's opening stages, the retreating Red Army also sought to deny resources to the enemy through a scorched earth policy of destroying the infrastructure and food supplies of areas before the Germans could seize them. Unfortunately, this, along with abuse by German troops, caused inconceivable starvation and suffering among the civilian population that were left behind.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

After the tide of war had changed in the Soviet Union's favor, the Red Army in its 1945 conquest of eastern Germany took revenge for German depredations and genocide by embarking on a systematic program of pillaging, expropriation, rape and murder against the remaining German civilian inhabitants. This program was officially urged on Red Army men by Soviet propagandist Ilya Ehrenburg, who among other things wrote: "Follow the words of Comrade Stalin and crush forever the fascist beast.... Break the racial pride of the German woman. Take her as your legitimate booty." Millions of German women were raped, often gang raped, repeatedly. German sources estimate the number of civilians killed in the final days of the war, and in the process of expelling Germans from lands to be annexed to Poland and the Soviet Union, at 1.5 million to 2 million.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

The Soviet Union bore the brunt of civilian and military losses in World War II. Approximately 7 million Red Army personnel and 20 million civilians died. The Nazis considered Slavs to be "sub-human," and many people believe the Nazis killed Slavs as an ethnically targeted genocide. This concept of Slavic inferiority was also the reason why Hitler did not accept into his army many Russians who wanted to fight the Stalinist regime until 1944, when the war was lost for Germany. In the Soviet Union, World War II left a huge deficit of men of the wartime fighting-age generation. To this day the war is remembered very vividly in Russia, Belarus, and other parts of the former Soviet Union as the Great Patriotic War, and May 9, Victory Day, is one of Russia's biggest national holidays.

Related Topics:
Genocide - Belarus - Great Patriotic War - May 9

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~