So the rubber has finally met the road for me as far as starting the research for my semester-long paper which is going to deal with the rise of Stalin and Stalinism in Russia both before and after the Revolutions of 1917. I figure making this thread will keep me encouraged regarding continuing to actually do my research and maybe garner some nice discussion if there is anyone else who has any knowledge regarding/is interested in learning about this particular topic. Personally, I have somewhat of a background with this as I've written and researched a few papers about Stalin since High School, but I've never really gotten down into the nitty gritty of his rise to power in particular. However, I'm definitely looking forward to learning about this fascinating aspect of young Stalin's life since he was seemingly able to rise from obscurity as a Georgian minority to the feared ruler of the Russian state in very little time at all.

I'm admittedly a little behind so far, so before I throw some sort of topic or subtopic out for discussion, if anyone has read a particular book, article, etc. about Stalin or has any particular insight that they'd like to share that would be relevant to this topic, I would most certainly appreciate it. I'm sure I'll be updating this thread pretty often, so hopefully there's a few of you out there who can get me thinking in the right direction.

Thanks!

Whats the paper called/foccusing on? Do you have an argument as of yet?
IMHO it seemed alot like his drive for power, as oppposed to the joy of what came with power, the philosophies behind the movement etc. gave him the motivation and drive for taking control than say Trotsky, or my fave Bukharin.

Bro, as of right now I've got diddly squat. Though from what I understand there has been a lot of recent research published regarding Stalin because of access to Politburo documents that as of a few years ago had not been released to the public. Primarily, I think I'm just going to look at some of the previous interpretations of his rise to power compared to what some of these newer studies have revealed, and maybe talk about the differing interpretations or something.

I've got about 8 books that I need to go through and will be able to figure a lot of this out once I do. Will post results soon.

I read a book years ago, "Stalin" by Alex De Jonge, which I thought was pretty good. I don't remember a lot but if I recall correctly, one reason he rose to prominence before the revolution was his involvement and leadership in robberies which helped keep the party financed.

He mastered a technique in party meetings - which he hated - whereby he would just sit and listen while everybody else exhasted themselves with talk. Finally, when the time was right, everybody would be wondering what Stalin would have to say. Having listened to all the positions, Stalin would skillfully find the Center position - which he might or might not really give a damn about - and pronounce that as his position. Being centrally placed it was the only position the group could come together on as Bolshevik. And in coming together around that position they found themselves coming together around Stalin.

During the revolution Trotsky commanded the Red Army so with the loyalty of the army was clearly second most powerful in the Politburo behind Lenin. Had Trotsky leveraged that advantage skillfully he most probably would have succeeded Lenin. But when he was asked if he wanted the position of party secretary he and others in the politburo declined saying, let Stalin do it. He's a workhorse. Stalin gladly took the position which involved the screening of prospective new party members. Stalin realized that those who were recruited by Stalin would be loyal to Stalin. Decades later the party secretary was automatically the Soviet Leader. But in the beginning only Stalin recognized how power would naturally accrue to the man in charge of party membership. Stalin was happy to do that work.




I've thought that Stalin was one of the greatest thieves of all time. As a young man he preferred the company of thieves to the intellectuals of the party. Before he was done he had stolen the entire Russian Empire. It all belonged to him and whatever anyone else was allowed it was just on loan from Stalin.


PairTheBoard

I'd like to read his full bio. From the shows I've seen on him and other sources that reference him he seems to be thoroughly diabolical. One author I read claimed he led his family to self destruction.

Would you really?

Here's a good place to start.

Stalin WiKi page

Lenin hated Stalin and never wanted him to ever take over. The fact that Lenin died when he did, combined with Stalin's shrewd political manouvering (for example misinforming Trotsky of Lenin's funeral date so he didn't turn up and thus looked bad) shifted him into a position where he could attain power after Lenin's death. These amongst other factors of course - i learnt that these were the most important in his actual rise to power. Hope this helps.

I recall a story from a Stalin biography by Edward Radzinsky of his time in prison before he ever called himself Stalin (Man of Steel.)

The political prisoners were very hated both by the prisoner's and the guards. The guards used to make the pols "run the gauntlet" which consisted of all the guards standing parallel to one another in two lines. The prisoner was then forced to walk down the line receiving rifle butt blows to the head.

Everyone that did this naturally covered their heads with their arms to soften the blows. When it was Stalin's turn he arrived holding a copy of the Communist Manifesto and preceded to walk through the gauntlet without covering his head freely taking all the blows. When he got the end he was still holding the book, smiling, blood streaming down his entire face. After this incident all the prisoners and even some of the guards did whatever the Man of Steel told them to do.

Here is another story verbatim of him just fu*cking with Khruschev. For those that don't know, Stalin has total political power at this time and can put anyone to death at anytime for no reason at all.



The writer E Gabrilovich recounted a story told by Khruschev, about how he was once the Boss's guest at his dacha near Gagry, in Georgia, where he was on holiday:


Stalin was sitting in a summer house in the garden. They were drinking tea and chatting. Time passed. It got dark. And Stalin became gloomy. Khruschev said, "Well I'd better be going home, Joseph Vissarionovich, my wife must be wondering where I am."

"You won't go anywhere," Stalin said abruptly. "You'll stay here."

"My wife will be expecting me, Joseph Vissarionovich." Stalin looked up at Khruschev. With that look of his: his yellow eyes full of rage. Khruschev, of course, stayed. But slept badly. Next morning he dressed and went into the garden. Stalin was sitting in exactly the same position, in the summer house, sipping tea. Khruschev asked him about his health.

"Who are you? How did you get here?" Stalin asked peremptorily, between sips.

"I'm... Khruschev, Joseph Vissarionovich."

"I shall have to go and find out exactly who you are," Stalin said. He pushed the tumbler away, and the left the summer house. Trembling with fear Khruschev walked along the garden path toward the exit. He was overtaken by one of the guards and prepared himself for the worst.

"Nikita Sergeevich. Comrade Stalin is asking for you. He's been looking everywhere for you." Khruschev hurried back to the summer house. Stalin was sitting there drinking tea.

"Wherever were you, Nikita Sergeevich?" he asked affectionately. "You shouldn't stay in bed so long. I've been waiting all this time for you."

I wouldn’t be shocked if this was somewhat embellished.
Stalin set up quite a pr. machine when he took power, there were even allegations of historical forgery on his part.

Nice

I think I may have gone through this book at some point or another and don't really remember it for being too exceptional, but you're right - he was a sort of money-making machine for the Bolsheviks because he was really good at racketeering and robbing banks. This, coupled with his expertise on the nationalities question and on running general propaganda schemes in general got him noticed by Lenin in the first place.

Overall, I'd say this is a pretty nice post, PTB. I'm obviously going to have to start looking into this further, but I believe some of this new information that's been released from the archives in recent years is somewhat contradicting to the 'Stalin just placed minions wherever there was an opening since he was General Secretary' theory. He obviously had a say, but from what I've read he was oftentimes too busy to have his focuses in this area exclusively, and as a result made mass and impersonal appointments. He also had doubts as to whether these men were going to carry out the will of the party once they were transferred to their new posts.

Regarding Trotsky's incompetence, you're right in that he never leaned on the military in a way that would ensure him power and seemed to try and get too politically radical at the wrong time. I mean, he doesn't use the opportunity to attack Stalin using the Testament because he doesn't want to seem divisive, yet launches an attack on Stalin and the NEP soon thereafter? Perhaps he thought that Stalin would trip over his own two feet if he chose to stir up dissent within the party publicly, but it only gave Stalin the chance he needed to "look [Trotsky] in the eye and smack him politically in the face" at the Thirteenth Party Congress.

Most of the Wikipedia stuff about Stalin is decent, especially the stuff that's taken from Service and Montefiore - those are two fairly good biographies. I don't know much about many of those other sources, but definitely pay attention to when they were published as anything before the '90s is probably going to suffer from some sort of the built-up inaccuracies and biases that we saw before the ending of the Cold War. Since then, there's been a lot more discovered about the inner-workings of the party during the time of Stalin and the planet's security isn't perceived to be in jeopardy if a historian publishes a work adding legitimacy to the USSR anymore.

Stalin certainly had an interesting relationship with Lenin. Service talks about Lenin as a man who despite everything he did to centralize Stalin within his circle of power still was blinded by the standard Russian prejudices against minorities (because Stalin was of course Georgian) until the 11th hour of his life, really. Lenin shared with close associates that he felt Stalin wasn't smart and too shrewd to run the party on many occasions, but nearing the end of his life Stalin was his only link to the government in Moscow as he suffered from recurring health issues so he really had no choice but to keep him around. Once he realized what he'd done, however, it meant little since Stalin was more or less the leader of the developing faction against Trotsky's Left Opposition. This, coupled with the fact that many of the leaders were against the sure-to-develop instability of removing Stalin from the party meant that Lenin's words would fall on deaf ears, and only give Stalin a chance to strengthen himself against Trotsky.

Haha, I would venture to say that Stalin's propaganda machine most likely conjured that story up. Once he had become the central figure in the party by the mid-1930s, Stalin began to re-write the history of the revolution to develop a 'personality cult' around him that would contribute to the Great Terror. Make no mistake, the historical forgery claims were more than allegations.

how r u guys so smaaarrtt?

He became the leader of russia but then had a war then he died later you can put that in the paper

Wow, really nice thread.Ive read it all and rly liked it.before germany and russia start a war he and hitler were friends

I read Stalin: Breaker of Nations for a class on Russia Area Politics.

What types of things are going to focus your paper on?

Interesting Stalin story:

Stalin's wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva went to work in a textile factory at some point because she was "bored" at home and she felt it would be a good thing to use her excess time with.

At this point, the lower class in the Soviet Union was being virtually starved by Stalin, and had an overwhelming food shortage. The people reaction was that "Comrade Stalin must not know about what is happening, if only we could let Comrade Stalin know, he would be able to save us from starvation."

So when his wife started working at this textile mill the workers were very excited by the opportunity to inform her of their troubles, to reach word to Stalin. When Stalin's wife (Nadezhda Alliluyeva) heard about the suffering of the people, she was very surprised. When she went home from the factory, she told Stalin about all of the suffering she heard about during the day. She told him how the people had a great food shortage and were looking toward him for leadership and assistance.

Stalin's response is still not exactly known. Some reports say he beat her, others say he only verbally reprimanded her, but the general consensus is that he was furious with her. He was so angry that she had said these things to him, he forbid her from ever working in the factory again.

That night, they were at a dinner with government leaders, and Stalin was incredibly rude to her. He insulted and embarrassed her throughout the entire night. There are also accounts that his wife went home by herself that night and he slept with another woman (I believe a subordinate's wife) in a guest house.

Soon after this night, Stalin's wife (Nadezhda Alliluyev) wrote a letter to Stalin, and then committed suicide.

The day after the funeral, Stalin went to see his wife's grave. While looking down at her headstone, tears streamed down Stalin's face. It is said that this was the only time he was ever seen crying. After he left her grave site that day, he would never return.

Here is a solid link for some of the doctored images from the Russian propaganda machine:

http://englishrussia.com/index.php/2...os-correction/

Interesting anecdote.

The Russians have a history of barbaric rulers/leaders. It seems to be the norm with them. I studied some Russian history and once did a research paper on Boris Godunov. Many of the Tsars were flat out crazy. Particularly Ivan the Terrible.

Ha, you've just got to read what smart people have to say on the subject. Figuring out who is smart and who is full of it is the tricky part.

Looks like our library has that book, I'll check it out. I definitely recognize the author's name, can't seem to figure out what of his I may have read though. Regarding what I'm going to focus on - I think I'm going to try and chart his relationships with certain key figures - Lenin, Molotov, Zinoviev, Trotsky, etc. from the early 1900s through the 20s and 30s and see how they develop and evolve over time and relate it to what that tells us about what actually went into Stalin himself during these years and in turn his grasping of power. How did he treat these people? Why? Depending on whether we're dealing with one of his inner-circle, why did he feel it was necessary that they were around? If he removed them, why did he feel it necessary they were executed? Things like these. Also, regarding what I said earlier about looking into the varying interpretations of his historiography has kind of evolved into my inevitable section about his 'cult of personality' since the edited history that he was pumping out obviously affected the biases that other authors couldn't start sifting through until after 1991. I'm trying to get an outline going and finished within the next couple days, so I'll have a better idea then but that's about where I'm at right now.

Trotsky himself wrote quite a bit about the fall and the rise of Stalin. All of it is available online; just off the top of my head there is a bio of Stalin he was writing when he died, he talks about it in the relevant part of his autobiography (my life), writes about it in the Revolution Betrayed, and writes about it in the Stalin School of...

Obviously Trotsky hated Stalin so take this with a grain of salt, but Trotsky is a master of prose and himself an actor in the events so it should be enjoyable even if you decide it is not informative. Robert Service, who utterly despises Trotsky's politics and character, considers him one of the 2 best political writers of the past century. For what it is worth I think Trotsky's account is a largely accurate and also largely incomplete account of the rise of Stalin.

We had our second progress reports last Tuesday, and after finishing going over my outline my professor made a suggestion that I take my idea of charting exactly when Stalin met certain leaders and looking into how their relationships developed over time and run with it. Therefore, I'm going to be looking less into the broad history of Stalin's life and more into his personal relationships and see what they tell us about his ascent to power. Unfortunately, I'm going to have a lot more primary sources to go through in the coming few weeks, but hopefully I'll be able to actually say something about Stalin when I'm finished.

Yeah, I've read a little bit of what Trotsky had to say and it's definitely very interesting. I'm going to have to go through a lot more considering the focus that I've taken, but you're definitely right in that he was writing from the losing perspective so his words are going to have more of a deep-rooted bitterness than others, especially post-ousting and exile.

He was a very cunning individual as evident throughout his childhood and the scholarship he received. He then rebelled. He was an extremely ruthless man as evident by the purges, the famine inflicted on the Russian people due to his collectivization programs. The greatest evidence which highlights his ruthlessness, is the fact he allowed his son to be murdered by the Nazis. The Nazis offered his son in return for a German General the Soviets had arrested, but it was refused outright by Stalin.

I always find it interesting that the two main dictators of WW2 wanted to join the Christian priesthood when they were younger. A doctrine which teaches peace and love, yet these two men went on to murder 50 million people + between them.

Stalin was forced into priesthood by his mother