Josef Stalin: Difference between revisions

{{quote|''An ungainly dwarf of a man passed through gilded and marbled imperial halls, and a path opened before him; radiant, admiring glances followed him, while the ears of courtiers strained to catch his every word. And he, sure of himself and his works, obviously paid no attention to all this. His country was in ruins, hungry, exhausted. But his armies and marshals, heavy with fat and medals and drunk with vodka and victory, had already trampled half of Europe under foot, and he was convinced they would trample over the other half in the next round. He knew that he was one of the cruelest, most despotic figures in human history. But this did not worry him a bit, for he was convinced that he was carrying out the will of history.''|Milovan Djilas <ref>Yugoslav communist theorist who later got exiled from his country</ref>, Conversations With Stalin (1962) }}

Popularly considered to be [[Overly Narrow Superlative|the most evil Georgian (not the US state) in human history]], Josef Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili) ruled the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953.

How many died as a result of his rule is a matter of debate (including whether the mass famines are counted). Estimates today range from 1 to 30 million, not counting the war. In fact, there are about as many different estimates as there are authors. This is because of conflicting statistics, but also because of deep controversies about where to draw the line between "killed" and "allowed to die".

Most of what we know about Stalin originates from the works of exiled political rival [[Leon Trotsky]] (who was eventually assassinated by Stalin's agents) and, later, from Khrushchev-era revelations - though these ended with his successors and were strictly controlled regardless. Trotsky portrays Stalin as a virtual non-entity before his rise to power, and a man of average intelligence, limited vision, and a false Marxist. Other historians, however, suggest that this was politically motivated smear, and that the real Stalin was highly intelligent and extremely charismatic, and fanatically devoted to his cause. Whether Stalin did or did not follow Marxism is a topic of huge controversy (with 3 or 4 different sides, and debates that can go on forever). What is clear is that Trotsky and Stalin really, ''really'' hated each other, and the USSR would have been a different place with Trotsky in charge. Trotsky's supporters argue that it would have been a much more democratic place, closer to the communist ideal. Stalin's supporters argue that it would have quickly turned into a German-speaking place, due to Trotsky not being [[The Determinator|ruthless enough]] to win the war with Germany. Many modern historians think it would not have been much different at all, as Trotsky was almost as ruthless, violent and fanatical as his rival.

* [[Boomerang Bigot]]: A Georgian who committed huge-scale violence against Georgia, though he was (slightly) less harsh on Georgia than he was on most of the other Soviet republics.

* [[The Chessmaster]] - Stalin engineered his coming to power by abusing a [[Almighty Janitor|previously-obscure position of Secretary General]]. His job was to recruit new Party members, and, in just a few years, he formed a majority out of newcomers, personally loyal to him, and ousted the Communist old guard from power.

* [[Deadpan Snarker]] - Well-known for his sardonic sense of humor

* [[Dirty Communists]]: Without a doubt, the Most Triumphant Example.

* [[The Dreaded]]: Stalin was obeyed without question because his cronies were simply too [[Precision F-Strike|fucking terrified]] of his wrath not to do so. It eventually indirectly caused his own death when his guards obeyed his orders not to disturb him after he went to sleep. See [[Hoist by His Own Petard]], below.

* [[Egopolis]]: Tsaritsyn, a strategically important city where Stalin first came to prominence during the Russian Civil War, was renamed "Stalingrad". Several other cities were named after him in the USSR, and Eastern European countries after Soviet influence extended to them.

* [[Enemy Civil War]]: The Great Purge, and his obsessive conflict with Trotsky. Also, [[Winston Churchill]] (a noted anti-communist) dreamed of provoking the Nazis and Soviets to fight each other until both were utterly defeated. Ironically, this is almost exactly what Stalin wanted the Western Allies to do.

* [[Enemy Mine]]: His alliance with Churchill and Roosevelt against Hitler. During the war, he also stopped the persecution of the Russian Orthodox Church to intensify patriotic support for the war effort.

* [[Evil Overlord]] - One of the [[Trope Codifier|TropeCodifiers]], especially for Western audiences.

* [[Faux Affably Evil]]: Part of the secret to his success was his image, and he was good at it.

* [[Foreshadowing]] - Many examples, including Lenin's Testament warning the Bolsheviks about Stalin's potential, ambition and what that could do to the party, conveniently been swept under the rug by...Stalin along with [[Those Two Guys|Zinoviev and Kamenev]]. Arguably, the most ominous example is when his first wife died in 1907. Apparently, he said to one of his close friends at her funeral: "[[Start of Darkness|With her death, goes any warm feelings for humanity]]." The latter [[Freudian Excuse|could explain a hell of a lot about him]] as a person.

** "Lenin's method leads to this: the party organization substitutes itself for the party as a whole; then the Central Committee substitutes itself for the organization; and finally a single 'Dictator' substitutes himself for the Central Committee." ''-Trotsky''

* [[Kill'Em All]]: Punished the Old Bolsheviks, the Left Deviation, the Right Deviation, the speculators, the NEP men, the old military officers, the dissidents, the Jews, the ethnic Germans, the seditious, the saboteurs, and anyone speculated of belonging to the above. Over twenty million people went through in the Gulags, a full ''tenth'' of the Soviet population. More than a million died.

* [[Lack of Empathy]]

** Amusingly, Napoleon was around 5'7", making Stalin even more of a Napoleon than Napoleon was.

* [[Man Behind the Man]]: Lots of people across Europe, esp. on the Right, thought that almost every Communist party took directions from Moscow. Turns out this was true, to the point where he was forcefully directing party policy, though not necessarily for the better (like getting his Stalinists to turn on the Troskyists in the Spanish Civil War, despite being on the same side; and telling German Communists that fighting the Nazi Party wasn't a big priority). Advised [[Mao Zedong]] against revolution, though probably due to the fear of having a fellow communist rule a country almost as big and powerful as Russia (this time, he was ignored).

*** Which is a fairly accurate picture of what he was really doing at the time. Stalingrad was in fact named after him BEFORE his rise to power due to his command of the city's defense and his eventual victory over the besieging Whites.

** In the short story "Joe Steele", his family emigrates to America and he becomes a dictatorial politician in the USA.

* Appears as Froggo's big buddy in ''[[Histeria!]]''

* Similarly, he's the title character in [[Michael Moorcock]]'s ''The Steel Tsar.''