Josef Stalin: Difference between revisions

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.

 

 

After coming to power, Stalin changed his "official" birthday to 21st December 1879 (Old Russian- December 9th). He was actually born on 18th December 1878 (Old Russian- December 6th), and there are extensive records to prove it, including in his own hand. To date, nobody can agree on exactly why he decided to change it, but that was when his birthday was celebrated (at least in public) from then on.

 

* [[Abusive Parents|Abusive Father]] - [[Generation Xerox|Had one, and]] ''[[Generation Xerox|was]]'' [[Generation Xerox|one.]]

** After his biological son attempted suicide, reportedly his only response was to note with disgust, "He can't even shoot straight".

** Upon learning that one of his sons had been made a PoW by the Nazis during WWII, he is noted as [[I Have No Son|denouncing him as being any relation]]. This was in line with Soviet policy that retreat or surrender was cowardly, so the only acceptable outcomes for a Soviet soldier were death or victory - being captured implied he surrendered, and was [[You Have Outlived Your Usefulness|no longer of any value to the revolution]]. Still, refusing to rescue or ransom PoWs (or compensate their families) is one thing - ignoring your own son (and severing ties with your daughter-in-law) is another...

** Like Hitler, also, most of his Inner Circle consisted of men at least 10 years younger than him, which likely helped create this image even at the highest levels. Almost all of his contemporaries had been purged. He probably was planning to purge that lot too and make way for the next generation to keep everyone on their toes, and he may have done this earlier had not the war got in the way of things.

* [[Affably Evil]] - Possibly more so to foreign leaders and ministers such as Churchill and Joachim von Ribbentrop than his henchmen. Then again, diplomacy usually works that way, and it would be used to his advantage on what side it was better to wage war with. On the other hand, he was usually crude, cruel and sadistic with his lesser minions.

** After Stalin, the General Secretary office became the office with real power, not the Premier. Everyone you may possibly know as a "Premier" was in fact a General Secretary and may or may not be also a Premier.

** The short [[Alternate History]] story "The Wheels of If" by [[L Sprague De Camp (Creator)|L Sprague De Camp]] (written in 1940) mentions Stalin's brilliance at realising 'the man who writes the minutes of the meeting determines the reality of what happened there', and the main character is able to use the same tactic when plunged into another world - as no-one there had thought of it yet.

* [[Bad Boss]] - [[You Have Failed Me|Take one guess why.]]

* [[Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work]]: It is rumored when the Soviet Union was invaded by Nazi Germany, leading to Stalin's retreat, several of his generals discussed whether to eliminate him due to foreground knowledge of the invasion anyway, and Stalin responsible [[Villain Ball|for many of their best to be purged on little more than a whim]], leading to obvious problems during the war. The rumor ends with them ultimately deciding against this because: 1) Stalin was ''also'' responsible for turning the USSR into a glorious nation powerful enough to rival the U.S.A., and 2) They'd much rather keep him and probably win, then remove him and likely lose due to a weaker leader, and them being conquered by the Germans. Basically, Stalin was a ruthless dictator, but he was [[We Want Our Jerk Back|''their'' ruthless]] [[Save the Villain|dictator]].

* [[Better the Devil You Know]]: Many people in the Soviet Union were willing to fight for Stalin despite everything; he may have been a ruthless tyrant, but he was ''their'' ruthless tyrant.

* [[Black and Gray Morality]]: The way the Soviet Union treated its citizens under Stalin was indeed horrible, and most United States citizens were treated far better, but you've got to remember both countries supported cruel dictators in other countries.

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

* [[Disproportionate Retribution]] - His regime is not only full of this, it's choking on the blood of its victims.

* [[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.

** Ironically, by naming that city Stalingrad after himself, he made it an inviting target to the ''other'' ego-driven monster Hitler, who threw entire armies at the city the second he found out who Stalingrad was named for. As a result, [[Idiot Ball|Hitler ignored the more valuable oil fields]] to the south his armies needed while turning Stalingrad into a death trap for German troops.

* [[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.

** Other sources claim that Stalin also spoke Georgian with Beria, the Georgian head of the secret police, just to keep the conversations private, no other Georgian-speakers being present in the top clique.

** Stalin was not only fond of his mother, he was also kind of scared of her too; he supposedly left the Georgian Orthodox Church relatively untouched mostly because he was afraid of the tongue-lashing he'd get from Mom (she was a devout Georgian Orthodox Christian and had, after all, wanted him to be a priest).

* [[Gasshole]]: Inverted. Stalin had no real gastrointestinal problems, yet had a phobia of farting in public. When attending meetings, he would always have two water glasses in front of him, that he would clink together to mask the sound.

** Though he did once take a crap in the middle of the road towards the end of [[WW 2]]. He and some of his ''posse'' drove out to examine operations were proceeding, and while in the country the ''Vozhd'' had a call of nature, much to the (silent) embarrassment of his entourage. No toilets in the countryside, and no shame either. Hey, nobody else saw it.

* [[Historical Villain Downgrade]]: If you visit the Stalin museum in his hometown of Gori, Georgia, be prepared to hear a lot about how excellent a poet and political leader he was, and check out the supercool train he had shipped from Russia because he refused to fly. There will be ''no'' mention of the millions of people who died either directly or indirectly from his "reforms". [[Sarcasm Mode|But hey, his swag from the Chinese delegation to Moscow is sure cool!]]

* [[Hoist By His Own Petard]]: Whether or not the rumors of his being poisoned are true, the fact remains that the very terror he put in his underlings kept them from going in to check on him after he had a stroke and could have gotten the doctors in time to save his life. There were rumors (and lots of evidence) that he was going to initiate another round of purges in the weeks before his death, and after seeing what he'd done to their predecessors, it's possible that one of his minions decided not to let the same thing happen to them.

* [[Kicked Upstairs]]: Debate rages as to whether he won his job through actual talent and hard work or by being [[Kicked Upstairs]] by officials who were just trying to reward a loyal, unintelligent subordinate.

** As mentioned above he was on the Politburo from the beginning to his death, and outlasted every other member (albeit by his own design). The former is more likely.

* [[Lack of Empathy]]

* [[Large and In Charge]]: Actually subverted. He wasn't as tall as paintings, statues or his personality cult in general would have you believe. He was likely around 5'6", making him a sort of [[The Napoleon|Napoleon]].

** There is a theory that his machinations led to the rise of Nazism and the start of Second World War, [[Spanner in The Works|derailed]] only by Hitler's last-moment attack on USSR right as it was preparing to attack ''Hitler''. If taken as true, this would be the pinnacle of Stalin's manipulation.

* [[The Master]]: Was often referred to as "Vozhd." Vozhd roughly translates to boss, chief, or Master.

** Specifically, his biographer made it up because it, more or less, "sounded like something he could've said".

** He also surrounded himself with woefully inept military advisors. For example, his Artillery Commissar once angrily asked a subordinate [[Too Dumb to Live|what would they need artillery for]]. To be fair though, Stalin really did know that Hitler was going to invade sooner or later- his mistake was thinking it was going to be later.

*** However, he also surrounded himself [[Death World|with Russia.]] Do ''not'' invade Russia.

* [[Nietzsche Wannabe]]: If any dictator could be described as this, it was Stalin. Hitler had a vision for what he wanted the world be to like, albeit an evil one. Stalin was largely apathetic to all the millions of people he killed, his goals were gain as much power as he could and make others suffer as he did. He would've never been content, as he became very nihilistic and apathetic after his wife's death. See [[A Million Is a Statistic]].

** Also, Stalin's divisions of the boundaries in the Caucasus region (like giving the Armenian-populated enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan) caused several wars after the Soviet Union collapsed, and even today the conflicts haven't been settled.

* [[Not So Different]]: His rule and the tsar's rule. He even [[Lampshade Hanging|lampshaded]] it when, in a conversation with his mom, he was asked what he was like now. He replied that he was like the tsar.

** Well, paranoid as he was he didn't want to be literally backstabbed, but it isn't as fun as suggesting he was a vampire. [[Blood Plus|Incidently...]]

* [[Vetinari Job Security]]: More recent analysis by Russian playwright and historian Edvard Radzinski suggests that Stalin did this at the start of [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler's]] invasion, to see what his minions would do without him as a means of testing their loyalty. The results were fairly predictable, namely that they all came grovelling to him and asking him to lead them.

* [[Villain With Good Publicity]]- he still enjoys huge support in the former USSR. In a "Greatest Russian" poll in 2008, he came second. In another, he came third.

** And there were allegations that that last poll was rigged because lots of people thought he would have come ''first''.

** Do bear in mind that Red Army operational art was very different to that of the Western Allies. The Red Army could be and certainly was sloppy and brutal with regards to casualties, but it is a vast [[Flanderisation]] to accuse it of simply drowning its opponents in blood.

** "The violent death of a large number of people was necessary before the Communist state could be established"

* [[Wicked Cultured]]: He styled himself a patron of the arts and, while purging many intellectuals and artists, he elevated others (like [[Sergei Eisenstein]], who was a court filmmaker in all but name). Stalin's rule is the Golden Age of [[Socialist Realism]], particularly in architecture and cinema.

** He was fond of [[The Master and Margarita|Mikhail Bulgakov]], even though the latter was hardly a Socialist (or any other kind of) Realist. Critics often suspect that the character of Pilate in the [[Story Within a Story]] of ''The Master and Margarita'' is based on Stalin, particularly the scene where Pilate orders an execution without ever quite admitting that is what he is doing.

 

* In ''[[Animal Farm]]'', Napoleon is clearly meant to be Stalin. A scene where all the animals ducked from an explosion was changed to have Napoleon stand firm - Orwell hated Stalin, but acknowledged that his staying in Moscow when it would be far easier to leave showed that for all his monstrosity and enormous flaws, he did have some balls.

** Likewise, [[Harry Potter|Lord Voldemort]] is (according to [[Word of God|Word Of Goddess]]) a combination of both Stalin & Hitler's worst traits.

* The man himself shows up in ''[[Axis Powers Hetalia]]'' as Russia's leader during the [[WW 2]] strips, where he's shown as being an abusive, manipulative prick. Though Ivan does turn the tables on him by the end.

* Makes several appearances in [[Alternate History]] stories by [[Harry Turtledove]]:

** In ''Worldwar'', he's the same as the historical Stalin, leading the Soviet Union through [[WW 2]] after the aliens invade, and eventually being succeeded by Foreign Minister Molotov (who was sidelined and forced out of the Party in real life).

*** 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.

[[Category:Historical Domain Character]]

[[Category:Josef Stalin]]