Joseph Stalin (1879 – 1953)

Stalin Becomes Dictator  1922: Lenin suffers a serious stroke (he survives, but competition for Communist Party leadership begins  Two contenders: Joseph Stalin & Leon Trotsky  Lenin believes Stalin is dangerous and warns the Party. They ignore him.  1928: Stalin has total power  1929: Trotsky exiled and later murdered

Totalitarianism  Totalitarianism: The government takes total control over every aspect of public and family life.

Totalitarianism Aim: To dominate an entire nation Methods:  Police terror – instead of upholding the law, the police spy on people, intimidate them, use brute force and even murder political opponents of the government.  Indoctrination – an attempt to control people’s minds to glorify the leader and his policies.  Propaganda – biased or incomplete information that appears to be true. Government control of mass media allows this to happen.

Totalitarianism  Censorship – Any information released is under strict control of the government.  Anything which puts the government in a bad light simply is not released.  Anyone questioning information received must retract the statement or else face imprisonment or execution.  Religious or ethnic persecution – the creation of “enemies of the state” to blame for things that go wrong (i.e. Scapegoating of the Jewish race in Nazi Europe)

The Great Purge:  In order to ensure he remained in  power, Stalin eliminated anyone who opposed him politically. Thousands of former comrades from the former Bolshevik Party were rounded up and either sent to labor camps or executed for “crimes against the Soviet state”. The charges were, of course, false!

Stalin’s Rule Secret police  Stopped riots with tanks and armored cars  Monitored telephone lines and read mail  Planted informers everywhere  Encouraged children to report on their parents

Propaganda & Censorship Stalin’s government controlled all of the country’s newspapers, radio and motion pictures. The media was responsible for producing images like the one above to glorify its leader. Nothing was published unless it made Stalin and his policies look good.

Education and Religious Persecution  Under Stalin, the government controlled all education from nursery schools through the universities.  Students learned the virtues of the Communist Party.  The main religious target was the Russian Orthodox Church (but other religions also suffered).  Churches and synagogues were destroyed and religious leaders were killed or sent to labor camps.

The Economy  Command economy (government controls all economic decisions) established through use of 5-Year Plans (targets for production in industry and agriculture).  Industry focused on production of coal, oil, steel and electricity (An Industrial Revolution).  Agriculture focused on use of Collective Farms (large government-owned farms seized from private owners).

Collective Farms  Hundreds of families worked on each farm and used modern-machinery to produce food for the state.  Wheat production increased from 20 million tons in 1928 to 40 million tons in  There was much opposition to the forced possession of land (especially by the Kulaks: an ethnic-peasant group from the Ukraine).  Government response: eliminate them. By 1935, 9 million Kulaks were shot, exiled, imprisoned or starved to death in a government-engineered famine. The Kulaks no longer existed as an ethnic group (genocide).

Total Control By the mid-1930’s, Stalin had forcibly transformed the Soviet Union into an industrial and political power. He stood unopposed as dictator of a totalitarian regime and maintained his authority over the Communist Party. He ushered in a period of total social control and rule by terror, rather than constitutional government. Literally millions of opponents, some former friends and colleagues were eliminated.

In the picture above, Stalin is depicted as a kindly uncle figure supporting the children of The Soviet Union. There is a blend of strength, purity and pleasure. Stalin wears a military uniform, while the child, who is dressed in white and carries a bunch of white flowers, happily waves the flag of her country. You know, however, that the situation in The Soviet Union was far from what the propaganda piece says. Imagine that you are a political opponent of Stalin and wish to communicate what the man and the situation is really like. You can do so in whatever form you wish, but the following methods may be worth considering:  A political cartoon (see note on worksheet)  A secret letter to a friend in another country  A poem  Real images of what life was like on the inside Once you have completed your presentation, you need to give some explanations for your choice, what information you included and why.