"... He has deep knowledge, a fantastic ability to go into details, mental alertness and a strikingly subtle understanding of human nature ... I found that he is better informed than Roosevelt, more realistic than Churchill, and in a sense, the most effective of military leaders."
Averell Harriman, US Ambassador to the USSR
Averell Harriman, US Ambassador to the USSR
Joseph Stalin left an indelible mark on the Russian, and the world stories. Its value was so great that the people idolized him during life, and after debunking the “personality cult”, he retained respect for him, despite the mountains of informational rubbish that his enemies piled on the grave of the leader of the nation.
This is not surprising, it is difficult to completely turn white into black and vice versa. Traces of the Stalin era are still visible throughout the country. During the years of his reign, Stalin completely transformed the country. He took the country ravaged, destroyed, lost all the landmarks. The enemies were able to tear off part of its suburbs from Russia. However, during the years of his reign, Stalin was able to turn Russia into a superpower, which the peoples of the world viewed with respect and hope. Stalin rebuilt the national economy. While the world was experiencing an economic crisis, the USSR was booming, new industries were created in the country. Under Stalin, the Soviet army became the most powerful force in the world, defeating the Third Reich and most of Western Europe. The Soviet army defeated the Japanese troops washing away the shame of the lost Russian-Japanese war 1904-1905. The Soviet army won twice over the Finnish armed forces. The power of the Stalinist army so frightened the leaders of England and the USA that they did not dare to carry out Operation Unthinkable and attack the USSR immediately after the defeat of Nazi Germany. The Baltic states, Vyborg, Western Ukraine and Belarus, Bessarabia, the territories seized by the Japanese were returned to Russia-USSR. Russia received a new stronghold on the Baltic Sea - Königsberg.
In the USSR, a new generation of people was brought up, immensely loyal to the Fatherland and socialism, technically literate, capable of taking humanity to a new level of development. Education, health, cultural institutions, children's creativity under Stalin became free and accessible. It must be said that under Stalin, the best system in the world for educating and educating people was created in the USSR. She allowed to bring up people who exceeded the citizens of other countries in terms of morality, intelligence, volitional and physical qualities.
After the victory over the Reich, Stalin not only did not flinch before the atomic threat when the USA tried to blackmail the Soviet Union, but also took a number of retaliatory measures. The USSR quickly achieved great success in the nuclear field: 25 December 1946 of the year in Moscow under the leadership of I. V. Kurchatov launched the first Eurasian reactor F-1; 29 August 1949 at the test site in the Semipalatinsk region was successfully tested the first Soviet atomic bomb; 27 June 1954 was put into operation the world's first nuclear power plant with an electrical capacity of 5 MW in the city of Obninsk.
G. K. Zhukov, a man who knew Stalin closely and saw him in the most difficult and crucial moments of his life, gave the leader of the Soviet people a very good description in his memoirs. According to JV Stalin, he made a strong impression. Deprived of posturing, he bribed the interlocutor with the simplicity of communication. The free manner of communication, the ability to clearly formulate the thought, the natural analytical mind, great erudition and rare memory even made very well-trained people during a conversation with Stalin internally to gather and be alert. During the reports at GHQ, Stalin did not tolerate answers at random, demanding exhaustive completeness and clarity. Stalin possessed a tenacious memory and well remembered what was said, he strictly punished the guilty for vague information.
Stalin did not like to sit during a conversation, walked slowly around the room, from time to time he stopped, coming close to his interlocutor and looking directly into his eyes. His gaze was clear and piercing. He spoke quietly, with a noticeable Georgian accent, but he knew Russian very well and loved to use figurative literary comparisons, examples, metaphors. Stalin rarely laughed, but he understood humor and was able to appreciate wit and good joke. I read a lot, and was a man with a wide knowledge in various fields. He had an amazing performance (worked on 12 - 15 hours per day), the ability to quickly grasp the material, which allowed him to learn a lot of very different factual material in a day. Stalin was a talented and versatile man with a strong will.
JV Stalin dealt a lot with questions of weapons and equipment. Often summoned the main aviation, tank and artillery designers, talked with them for a long time about the details of the design of military equipment in our country and abroad. He demanded to produce weapon in due time and in such a way that it is not only of the quality of foreign samples, but also superior to them. Stalin mastered the organization of front-line operations and operations of front-line groups and led them with great knowledge, well-versed in large strategic issues. He knew how to find the main link in a strategic situation and, grasping at it, to provide the necessary opposition to the enemy, to carry out this or that major offensive operation. Undoubtedly, Stalin was a worthy Supreme Commander and proved himself an outstanding organizer (GK Zhukov. Memoirs and reflections).
The foundations of Stalin's worldview were laid in his youth. In 1888, he entered the Gori religious school. From all students demanded unquestioning obedience, obedience and compliance with the rules. They taught Christian virtues, patience, the ability to forgive offenses, and at the same time severely punished for the slightest offense. Joseph saw this contradiction and told the teachers. He was accused of freethinking. So, in his soul there appeared a doubt about the correctness and justice of the world order, where in words one thing, but in fact another. There is one of two things: either the order is unsuitable, or it is taught that which is not in real life. Perhaps these doubts became the grain from which the future fate of this person was born.
Upon graduation, the teachers were picky about the free-thinker student. However, they could not find fault with anything. Joseph had an extraordinary memory and could recite entire pages from the Bible by heart. For diligence and impeccable knowledge, he received an excellent rating. In 1894, Joseph entered the Tiflis Orthodox Theological Seminary. He was continued to be tormented by undivine, and worldly questions, which led him to underground groups of revolutionary Marxists, expelled by the government in Transcaucasia. Here he gained access to underground Marxist literature, including the works of Ulyanov-Lenin. Joseph received the first Marxist education.
Young Dzhugashvili was very eager for knowledge. He studied philosophy, political economy, history, natural sciences, was fond of poetry and even wrote poetry himself. Among them is the prophetic poem “The Death of the Savior”:
In this country he was a shadow
A guest missing.
He touched eternal strings,
He sang unusual songs.
Songs born of light.
Songs born of pain.
Everything about them was the truth itself.
Everything about them breathed love.
Songs worried him
Even cold souls
Clear thoughts
To the light from the gloom of the going.
But not able to listen
Singing those wonderful songs
People poured poison
And, blinded by arrogance,
Drink, damn! - shouted. -
This is your rock, the angel of hell:
But why do we need this?
We do not need such songs!
In many ways, Stalin himself was a prophet. In his youthful years, Joseph saw the injustice of social order. At one extreme, a small group of rich people who were furious with fat, where the rich allowed themselves gifts to their mistresses at a cost of several states for ordinary families, on the other the masses of the disadvantaged, living from hand to mouth and the poor. Almost no one lived according to the commandments of the Savior, whose teachings were perverted and everyone interprets, as it is convenient for him. The contradictory nature of the biblical commandments was obvious. Here and the Old Testament hatred, examples of complete genocide of enemies, and non-resistance to evil, angry condemnation of the idle and the rich, and the requirement of humility and humility, because there is no other power on earth than from God. And the seminar teachers gave one answer to all the questions: “We must believe.”
Stalin led Russia far ahead of his time, creating a unique, new socialist civilization. As a result, he became the "enemy number 1" for the masters of Western civilization, which was based on exploitation, parasitizing a small group of people over all others. And inside Russia, he had many hidden opponents. Some hated him, others were jealous, others did not understand. Everyone was waiting for the right moment to strike, which was supposed to stop the breakthrough of Russia, and therefore humanity in the future.
Understanding the injustice of social order led to the fact that Joseph was headlong into revolutionary work. In 1899, Joseph was expelled from the seminary with official motivation "for failing to appear for exams for an unknown reason." Apparently, the real reason for the exception was the fact that Dzhugashvili was actively engaged in the propaganda of Marxism among seminarians and workers in railway workshops and was taken note by the police.
After graduation from the seminary, Joseph is interrupted by tutoring, then goes to work as a calculator-observer at the Tiflis Physical Observatory. It was an amazing time for him. He continued to master Marxism, read forbidden literature, wrote leaflets and proclamations. And at night he loved to look at the stars. In April 1902, Joseph was arrested and sent into exile in Eastern Siberia. In January, 1904, he fled and appears in the Caucasus, first in Batumi, then Tiflis. Behind the first reference will be the second, third, fourth, and shoots, shoots ... In total, from 1902 to 1913, Joseph's year was arrested seven times. Stalin had a lot of pseudonyms - Koba (“indomitable), Besoshvili, Nejradze, Chizhikov, Ivanovich, etc. In 1912, Joseph finally adopted the pseudonym“ Stalin ”, this was the name of the translator of the poem“ The Knight in a Tiger Skin ”. During this time, Joseph very well recognized Russia, its people.
In December, Marxists of Transcaucasia delegated Joseph Dzhugashvili to 1905 for the first All-Russian Bolshevik conference in Tammerfors in Finland. There he first met Lenin, with whom the most important period of his life would be associated. The mind of Vladimir Ilyich, his energy, broad outlook and powerful will conquer Stalin. Together they will fight the Mensheviks, uphold the unity of the Social Democratic Labor Party, organize and direct the Bolshevik newspapers Zvezda and Pravda. Stalin and Lenin were at the sharpest turns of historical events: the struggle against the internal opposition, the preparation of an armed uprising, the Civil War, the conclusion of the Brest Peace, etc.
Stalin sustained a hard struggle after the death of Lenin in January 1924. The "international" wing of the party planned that Trotsky would get power. However, Stalin was able to seize the strategic initiative from the opposition. To begin with, he took steps to eliminate supporters of Trotsky from the armed forces. Instead of Sklyansky, Lev Davydovich's favorite, the chairman of the Revolutionary Military Council and the people's commissar for military and maritime affairs of the USSR became Frunze. He updated the staff in the military.
In 1920, the country was on the verge of death. Russia barely got out of the bloody pit of the Civil War, was able to restore statehood and save most of its territory. But, the governments of many states were disposed towards the USSR with hostility. The economy was barely breathing. The issue of Russia's future was resolved. The half-ruined country, which had lost all previous foundations, had to be led into the future through radical reforms. Any mistake could lead to a catastrophe. Inside the party, three main directions were defined: Bukharin, Trotsky, and Stalin.
“Right deviation” of Bukharin was essentially small-property, “kulak”. The leaders of this trend underestimated the external threat and did not see any danger in restoring the former capitalist relations in the country. If Stalin insisted on accelerated industrialization, carrying out reforms in agriculture, on the tough state monopoly of foreign trade, then Bukharin demanded that the life of the capitalist elements in the city and village be simplified, and the NEP course continued. He threw the slogan “Enrich yourself!” To the masses. “Rightists” pushed the problem of industrialization into the background, not considering it a vital necessity. If Bukharin had won up, Russia would have been waiting for a new catastrophe. His proposals strengthened those strata who wanted to restore the old order in the country, which could be the cause of the new Civil War. And the neglect of industrialization would have made Russia-USSR easy prey during the new big war, the beginning of which was inevitable.
The left direction in the party was headed by Trotsky. He argued that without the victory of the proletarian revolution in Europe, which automatically led to its victory throughout the world, socialism could not be built in Russia. Russia, in his opinion, should have thrown all the resources to prepare for a revolution in European countries, inciting revolutionary sentiment. The Russian people in his plans turned into a kind of "fuel", which was supposed to kindle the flames of the world revolution. Therefore, Trotsky proposed "super-industrialization", the country had to live in a constant state of military mobilization.
Stalin was convinced that the doctrine of "the victory of socialism in one country" is true. At the XIV Congress of the CPSU (b), which was held in Moscow from December 18 to December 31 1925, the historic decision was taken on the course towards building socialism in one country. The task was to industrialize the country and strengthen the defense capability of the USSR. It was a decisive decision in the history of Russia-USSR, our civilization got good chances of survival and victory over external enemies. If Stalin had faltered before the pressure of the opposition, it is very possible that the Victory Parade did not take place and the Wehrmacht’s motorized columns triumphantly marched in Moscow and Leningrad, and the Japanese occupied the Far East. The development of world history would have taken a different, more dark scenario for us ...
My oath
Girded with ribbons
Moscow plunged into silence,
Deep her sorrow for the leader
Heart pain squeezes melancholy.
I am walking among the stream of people
Woe unto my heart
I'm going to take a quick look.
On the leader dear brow.
My eyes burn terrible fire
And I do not believe the black trouble
A constant groan presses the chest,
Crying heart about a wise leader.
There is a funeral march
The violins groan and the hearts moan,
I at the tomb swear not to forget
Dear leader and father.
I swear: I will keep up
With a friendly, strong and fraternal family,
I will carry the bright banner
What did you give us, Stalin native.
In these sorrowful days
I swear at your grave
Do not spare their young strength
For my great fatherland.
The name Stalin will live for centuries,
It will fly over the earth
Name Stalin will shine for us
The eternal sun and the eternal star.
V. Vysotsky. 8 March 1953