Lenin and Stalin
Pre- Stalin era
Despite his notoriety and corruption to his state, Russia had experienced tremendous trauma prior to Stalin’s reign. Stalin’s predecessor was Vladimir Lenin. Although Lenin was famous for his methods and his ideals during his rule like the creation of the Gulag system. He did encourage the creation and production of art with the condition that “it aimed serving the goals of a new society” (Roseberry, 1982: 10).
Maes (2002) explains that although Stalin was open to the concept of creating art, he still kept a grip on the process by saying “the relative liberalization had been ushered in by the regime itself and was carefully controlled” (Maes, 2002: 243). Maes (2002) also discusses Lenin’s involvement in culture and the arts as it was his belief that “culture was subordinate to politics” (Maes, 2002: 239). Lenin enforced the communist regime and was inspired by ruling through fear. Harris (2013) clarifies Lenin’s methods by displaying his approaches to keeping control of his country. This meant that Lenin “viewed terror as a legitimate and necessary instrument of political struggle” (Harris, 2013: 50). Harris showcases Lenin’s methods of controlling his population through fear by establishing “the Gulag system, mass deportation, mass strengthening of the Soviet Police State” (Harris, 2013: 53). Lenin was responsible for the formation of the Gulag system which was a series of labour camps located in various areas of Russia. Stalin maintained this practice after Lenin’s death in 1924. From the literature reviewed, the recurring
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Stalin ruled through unbridled terror and no members of society were safe, members of Stalin’s inner circle succumbed to this terror and the question must be asked how did Shostakovich survive? How did this affect his relationship with his
Following the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1914, Joseph Stalin took up his position as leader of the Soviet Union. After rising to power, Stalin made drastic changes to Russia that was still torn from war at the time. With his power, Stalin aimed to bring Russia to the top of the world. In the end, while he pushed the Soviet Union’s economy to new heights, his methods were cruel and had negative impacts. After the war, Stalin was determined to turn Russia into a great industrial power.
Similar to the Tsars before him, Stalin caused the death of anyone who opposed his way of ruling, especially the Kulaks. He violated the rights of the people by launching an extensive campaign on deporting ethnic groups that opposed his leadership. Stalin’s years of “great terror” through much unneeded purges caused him to more and more act as a “Red Tsar”. The only difference was Stalin was ruling under Marxist ideologies with communism being the end result as opposed to adherence to the Russian Orthodox Church. However, just like Stalin, Alexander II was very similar in that the secret police was at the centre of dealing with outside issues towards his power.
Although Russia won, many Russian civilians and soldiers died (“Joseph Stalin – Powerful Communist Ruler”). After World War 2, Stalin continued to dictate. Various examples of this were the initiation of purges, executions and exiles to labour camps to rid him of any opposition or other influences (“Joseph
The Soviet Union in Russia used violence to govern their people by exiling or exucuting the bourgeois. The Bourgeois, during that time, had major influence on Russia because of their status, power and wealth. Stalin was the ringleader, as he controlled the population through his swordsman called the KGB. When the Soviet Union was in power twenty million innocent Russain citizans died, and for the people who survivied they lived in famion, fear and fatigue. Therefore, because Stalin killed over twenty million people for his lust of power, Russia was governed by
Throughout Russia’s history, there have been many rulers that tried to manage their country in different ways. Even though, all of these rulers had their own unique ways of ruling, all of them were seen as terrible by the people. This eventually led to a tipping point for the Russian citizens and the Russian Revolution took place. The goal for these people was to gain freedom from their oppressive czar but instead, they got an even worse leader. Joseph Stalin was a leader of the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1953 and he was known for his ability to strike fear into people.
Joseph Stalin instilled a totalitarian government into Ukraine’s society. Moreover, Stalin tried to cut any threats that would affect his plan in making Russia a communist utopia, by using the secret police. (document 1) But, the Ukrainians were independent, rebellious people who believed strongly in their culture and
Many works have been written on Stalin’s cult of personality, but none of them seemed to focus on the role of paintings specifically. This topic is thus worthy of investigation as it might shed a new light on Stalin’s cult of personality in terms of the visual arts. It is also worthy of investigation in general because his cult of personality was not an isolated phenomenon, but rather a phenomenon that has existed around many of the world leaders, and continues to exist around some today. Therefore, it is interesting to investigate the relative importance and influence of the visual arts, especially painting, in one of such cults as it may allow for the extrapolation of the conclusion to many others. Following the recommendation of Anita Pisch, Stalin’s image will be divided into three main parts that Pisch in her book The Personality Cult of Stalin in Soviet Posters refers to as archetypes.
The Russian government treated the working class terribly, leading to several protests and boycotts. S.I. Somov was a Russian Soviet who shared his emotions on his overwhelming experience in the demanding Soviet working class. At a protest, he wrote that there was a “...mystical, religious ecstasy...” that peppered the angry workers who fought for their freedom from the exhausting chains of overwhelming labor and inhumane working conditions (Document 4). He added that the working class was deprived of a lively human soul, and their bitterness and dissatisfaction had “overflowed.” Somov was a worker himself, who first hand experienced the cruelty described and developed his own reasonable emotions towards the topic.
Post WWl, Russia was still not industrialized, suffering economically and politically and in no doubt in need of a leader after Lenin’s death. “His successor, Joseph Stalin, a ruthless dictator, seized power and turned Russia into a totalitarian state where the government controls all aspects of private and public life.” Stalin showed these traits by using methods of enforcement, state control of individuals and state control of society. The journey of Stalin begins now.
Process of Findings The first part of this report will discuss the evidence pertaining to the “genuinely concerned, pragmatic” side to Joseph Stalin’s leadership. Stalin was a leader who was honoured and praised by many of his people in the USSR for various reasons. He was portrayed on propaganda posters as a kind, caring and genuinely concerned leader particularly towards children who were the future of the USSR (Source A). By Stalin being portrayed as a leader who shows genuine concern and care for the children of his country, it propagates the message that children and the entire population of the USSR will have an “enlightened future” under his leadership13 (Source A), and would in turn help Stalin gain more support for himself.
Lenin continued to give Stalin power and the people could not do anything to stop it. After Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin had complete control over the communist party. By the late 1920s, he was the dictator of the Soviet Union. Stalin kept finding way to get more power and the people were not able to do anything to fix
When the time came, and Lenin felt that it is suitable to take action, it can be argued that he did not look at Marx for answers, but due to his practical nature, preferred looking at the state that Russia was in, and based his actions on that. This was because Lenin felt that the world had changed since Marx’s time, primarily due to the development of
One of the biggest questions people ask is how can one person influence hundreds of people to kill. Many people think of Joseph stalin, Adolf HItler, and Jim Jones. According to ibtimes.com, Joseph Stalin killed about 35-49 million people. Adolf HItler killed roughly 11 million people (historyrocket.com). And lastly, Jim Jones killed around 900 people (jonestown.sdsu.edu).
However, this only scratches the surface of what Stalin put the Soviet Union through. Stalin was a very persuasive man, his writings make it seem as if he is in the right and is innocent. To support this statement, two pieces of Stalin's writings were
There was much political insecurity within the Russian society. Lenin desired to capitalize the political structure. This would eventually take authority from the provisional political structure, and replace it with the authority of the