Joseph Stalin - The Price of Success

Everyone knows Hitler as the embodiment of evil with the Allies as the forces of good. But within the ranks of these "good" stood an achiever but also a butcher greater than the defeated German leader. Joseph Stalin propelled the Soviet Union into the position of superpower at a great expense of lives, even larger than that of Hitler. He made planning trending, but also did the same for gulags, slave labor, and famine.

Dugashvili to Koba to Stalin

Joseph Stalin started out as an abused, insecure, yet ambitious child. The future dictator of the Soviet Union began as Josef Vissarionovich Dugashvili (Dzugashvili). Born around December 1878 with the exact day varying to a pious conservative laundress and an alcoholic cobble who under influence beat up both mother and son. Worse than bruises, he contracted small pox which left him scarred for life. Violence became a sign of authority and insecurity brought by bad childhood memories and physical appearance seemed too much for a child.

Yet he found solace and inspiration to toughen up with books. He read a lot, especially history, inspiring him with the lives of leaders who also suffered traumatic childhood, Ivan IV “the Terrible” and Peter the Great. These stories fueled him with ambition and determination to overcome challenges and achieve great things even with ruthless means. Thanks to his reading, he successfully secured a scholarship in a seminary in T’blisi. The future mass murder, thus, trained to become a priest until 1899 when he decided to miss exams and got expelled, but he spun the expulsion as caused by his new passion - Marxism.

In 1900, Joseph left God to join the Godless or the Social Democratic Labor Party later called the Bolsheviks led by Vladimir Lenin. He took the alias Koba, based on a character in a 1882 novel, and acted as Robin Hood. He used his appetite for violence to lead workers' protests, to rob banks to fund the party that “fights for the poor”, while also to survive 7 imprisonment from 1902 to 1913. This built Joseph’s reputation as tough and hard like steel, so in 1912 emerged his new alias, the man of steel - Stalin.

Joseph Stalin, 1902

Becoming the Communist Czar

Stalin served the party, editing for its famous newspaper Pravda, getting exiled from 1913 to 1917, and during the Russian Civil War fought for the Bolshevik Party contributing to the foundation of the Soviet Union in 1922 led by Lenin. Though he received only the position of Party Secretary General, Stalin used its role in controlling promotions and agenda to his advantage. Just like how Peter the Great grabbed power at the right time, Stalin had the same moment when Lenin passed away. He used his network and influence to grab the leadership of the Soviet Union from his more academically well off opponent, Leon Trotsky.

Stalin eventually became the sole leader of the Soviet Union and like Peter the Great began to modernize the country. In 1928, Stalin launched the first Five Year Plan where it aimed to industrialize Russia and transform agriculture into a collective system that shifts production from individual farming into community farming. 

By 1933, the plan stunned the world. The Soviets completed massive industrial projects like Magnitogorsk and the White Sea-Baltic Canal within the plan’s span. Coal production increased from 35.4 million to 64.3 million while steel output increased 4 million to 5.9 million. The development that took the West decades during the Industrial Revolution, took the Soviets only 5 years. It set an example for many countries to follow.

Magnitogorsk, 1930s

Just as Peter the Great fought the Great Northern War, Stalin fought World War II. In 1941, Hitler invaded the Soviet Union. The Axis came close to Moscow, but Stalin and the Red Army counter attacked and pushed back the German juggernaut out of Soviet territory. 

With 4 years of gruelling combat, Soviet forces marched into Eastern Europe liberating them from the yoke of the Third Reich. The war culminated when Stalin’s soldiers entered Berlin and waved the Soviet flag. Stalin just defeated a country with the most formidable army in Europe.

While the Red Army crossed Eastern Europe, the region fell into his influence. By 1949, communist governments took power, such as in Poland and East Germany, consolidating his hold by establishing the Warsaw Pact. While in the East, the Man of Steel held sway over the newly established People’s Republic of China and Democratic People’s Republic of Korea. Stalin sat in the middle as the don of communism while Russia no longer just stood as a backward country, but as a superpower going head to head with the United States.

By 1953, Joseph Stalin passed away with a stroke. He left a superpower, strengthened by his Five Year Plan and forged by war. He left a juggernaut holding influence from Berlin to Beijing commanding respect to many of the newly independent countries such as India. The boy beaten by his father and scarred by smallpox recreated a glory that matched one of his idols Peter the Great. But like Peter the Great, at what cost.

Stalin with communist leaders of China, East Germany, and Mongolia

The Price of Achievement

Stalin said “one man’s death is a tragedy, a million is a statistic.” This type of grim statistics plagued every achievement Stalin made. Just like Peter the Great established the Russian Empire from the backs of millions of serfs, Stalin’s economic transformation, the war, and the empire, all built on the backs of suffering Soviet and Eastern European. 

First, the Five Year Plans fast forwarded progress the West took decades in just 5 years and all because of horrific disregard of human life. Most industrial projects and production rose thanks to manual labor of millions of prisoners for being dissidents, ethnic minorities, or just arbitrary arrest by Stalin’s notorious secret police - the NKVD. About half a million perished from the slicing cold Russian winds, harsh work loads and conditions with meager food in bellies. Stalin’s industrial boom made from human suffering, but it gets worse in agriculture

Stalin starved millions to death to power his plan. The forced collectivization and collection deprived the Soviet Union’s bread basket, Ukraine and Kazakhstan, of the necessary grain to survive. Hence, famine descended and 3.5 to 5 million Ukrainians perished from hunger in what came to be known as the Holodomor while 1.5 million Kazakhs starved to death. Stalin, rather than redistribute the grain, exported it to purchase machinery and equipment necessary for industrialization. Every coal or steel output increase took Kazakh and Ukrainian lives.

Kharkiv, Ukraine, 1933

The famine fuelled the growing criticism of Stalin, but the Georgian hit back hard. He unleashed the Great Purge or Terror led by the NKVD who attacked Stalin’s rivals and allies alike, even his in-laws from his first wife. Millions found themselves in prison, half of them executed and hundreds of thousands joined the gulags to work themselves to death. A total of 2 million joined around 8 million of lives from the famines and Five-Year Plan in Stalin’s statistics of horror. 

But above and even Hitler’s count stood pale in comparison to the cost of Stalin’s so-called Great Patriotic War. In its campaign to wipe out the Third Reich, the Soviet Union sacrificed 26 to 27 million of its citizens. All because of failure during the initial defense, the ruthless human wave attacks, and the notorious Order No. 227, the “Not One Step Back” Order that shot retreating soldiers. 27 million paid the price for the hammer and sickle to fly over Berlin.

For the Soviet Empire, 275 to 280 million people would live in a police state where one wrong word meant arrest, torture, or execution. Hundreds of millions of people, for decades, lived with economic mismanagement while their western counterparts saw immense improvements in their living conditions. Questioning the state meant a strong brutal response from Eastern Europe’s worst secret police and dictators with the likes of Romania’s Nicolae Ceaucescu, and North Korea’s Kim Il Sung whose powers and apparatus all came from the support of Joseph Stalin. 

Great achievements at great cost defined Joseph Stalin’s appetite for violence and greatness. From farming to industry, around 8 million perished and questioning his method led to a purge that devoured 2 million more. His glorious war for the motherland created 27 million graves. The Empire that emerged brought 280 million in a dystopian world for decades. Is Stalin’s achievements worth it?

Summing Up

Joseph Stalin holds a mirror at the face of mankind and a reflection of achieving success. At one hand, he shows the nature of man’s achievements - great success at great cost. On the other hand his story challenges man, is there a better way to achieve success with better cost? For all his achievements and his means, Joseph Stalin takes a space in mankind’s history.

Reference:

Coalson, Robert. 2013. “Stalin's Statistical Legacy: 10 Figures That Defined An Era.” Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. March 5, 2013. https://www.rferl.org/a/stalin-russia-soviet/24903277.html.

Hingley, Ronald Francis. 2024. “Joseph Stalin: Role in World War II.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Last modified March 28, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Stalin/Role-in-World-War-II.

History.com Editors. 2023. “Joseph Stalin.” History.com. A&E Television Networks. Last modified August 11, 2023. https://www.history.com/topics/european-history/joseph-stalin.

Luker, Nicholas J.L., and Andrew B. Wachtel. 2024. “Russian Literature: The Stalin Era.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Last modified April 1, 2024. https://www.britannica.com/art/Russian-literature/The-Stalin-era.