Joseph Stalin

The Death of Stalin

By 1953, Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party, had been ruling the country for almost 30 years. Under his tyrannical rule, his paranoia led to him ordering the deaths of 1.2 million people in what was called The Great Purge, with a further 1.7 million dying in work camps called Gulags. It was a fearful time to be a Soviet citizen and no-one was safe from the almost nightly raids of Stalin’s Secret Police, the NKVD, who would arrest anyone even lightly suspected of having anti-Communist sentiment. However, this paranoia lead to stress and this stress soon got to Stalin.

On February 28th, members of Stalin’s Inner circle gathered for a night of drinking at one of his Dachas. The party consisted of Stalin, Lavrentiy Beria, Former Head of the NKVD, Nikita Khrushchev, Moscow Party Head, Georgy Malenkov, Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union, and Vyacheslav Molotov, Former Minister of Foreign Affairs. Once the party was over, Stalin retired to his quarters at 4am and the other 4 went home. Stalin requested to not be disturbed. By 11pm, not a sound had been heard from Stalin’s room. His housekeeper went inside, only to find Stalin unconscious on the floor in a puddle of his own urine.

Immediately, members of the Politburo, the leaders of the Central Committee of the Communist Party were called to assess the damage and to see what could be done. Whilst calling a doctor was recommended, they encountered a slight problem. The previous year, Stalin had begun to believe that Jewish doctors were plotting to poison him, which they obviously weren’t. However, he began imprisoning and executing hundreds of Jewish Doctors, which came back around to bite him. The majority of actually good and competent doctors in the Soviet Union were Jewish, meaning that only the bad ones were left. If they managed to call upon a good doctor and Stalin got better, they thought he may see the act as treasonous, so they intentionally called upon the bad doctors that Stalin hadn’t imprisoned.

They gave him a diagnosis. Stalin had suffered a stroke. Ultimately, Stalin died on March 5th of 1953, leaving the Politburo without Stalin’s guidance, while Malenkov assumed the role of acting General Secretary. Whilst many were distraught by this, some saw an opportunity. Out of those, 3 emerged from the power struggle, all vying for the top job.

Georgy Malenkov – Deputy Premier of the Soviet Union

Malenkov was the natural choice, as he was next in the line of succession due to his position in the party. While he assumed an acting role, this ultimately meant nothing without other party members. Malenkov’s position was fragile, and only needed a little brute force to bring it crashing down.

Lavrentiy Beria – Former Head of the NKVD

During Stalin’s purges, Beria was the man largely responsible for most of the killings, overseeing many of the names on the lists. Many, including Stalin himself, say that Beria was to Stalin as Himmler was to Hitler. He was an unfiltered psychopath, who would use his old position to sexually assault and rape young women, including teenagers and young girls. He knew that in order to gain power, he must ally himself with Malenkov.

Nikita Khrushchev – Moscow Party Head

Khrushchev was seen as very unambitious by many others in the party, who all believed that Stalin only kept him around because he had a good sense of humour. However, Khrushchev knew his reputation and knew that if he kept his head down, he could stay in Stalin’s good books. But, with Stalin gone, he made a quick grasp for power, fearing that he could end up dead if Beria, a long time rival of his, assumed office.

Whilst the preparations were going ahead for Stalin’s funeral, Beria began making moves. He requested of Malenkov that he become Minister of Internal Affairs, which he merged with the Ministry of State Security, an organisation that would become the KGB in 1954. He then replaced the Red Army soldiers in Moscow with his secret police he just created. Many in the committee feared that Beria was attempting to organise a coup. Beria then began releasing millions of political prisoners, reduced lengthy prison sentences and halted mass arrests. Many believe this was done as an attempt to distance himself the Stalin and increase his popularity with the Soviet people.

The straw that broke the camel’s back was an uprising in East Germany. After the uprising, Beria believed that Germany should be reunited, for American compensation. Khrushchev saw this as highly anti-communist so hatched a plot to remove Beria. He began by seeking help from the army and, at a great personal risk, began talks with Georgy Zhukov, head of the Ministry of Defence and a key figure in the Soviet victory at Stalingrad during the war. Eventually, Zhukov joined the plot, and many others in the party began to follow suit, including Malenkov.

A photo of Khrushchev (left) and Zhukov (centre)

On June 26th, 1953, 3 months after Stalin’s death, a Politburo meeting was held. At the meeting, Khrushchev proposed that Beria be dismissed from the party, due to him being anti-communist and a spy for the British. Things escalated very quickly, with Beria yelling, asking what was going on, and, before a vote could be counted, Malenkov pressed a button underneath his desk, whereupon a group of Red Army soldiers stormed the room and arrested Beria. Due to Beria’s men guarding the building, he had to be smuggled out of the Kremlin at nightfall in a truck.

On December 23rd, Beria was brought before a tribunal, where he could not defend himself. He was accused of treason, terrorism and counter-revolutionary activity. Beria, as well as his associates, were sentenced to death that same day. Beria began begging on his knees pleading for mercy, before he was shot and killed by a Red Army General. His remains were cremated and buried in the woods.

Now practically unopposed, Khrushchev ousted Malenkov as General Secretary of the Communist Party and became leader of the Soviet Union by 1956. One of the first things he did as Leader was denounce Stalin in “The Secret Speech”

A photo of Khrushchev at the Secret Speech

The negative characteristics of Stalin [which Lenin noted on] transformed themselves during the last years into a grave abuse of power by Stalin, which caused untold harm to our party.

Stalin acted not through persuasion, explanation, and patient cooperation with people, but by imposing his concepts and demanding absolute submission to his opinion. Whoever opposed this concept or tried to prove his viewpoint, and the correctness of his position was doomed to removal from the leading collective and to subsequent moral and physical annihilation.

[…]

Stalin [unlike Lenin] used extreme methods and mass repressions at a time when the revolution was already victorious.

[…]

It is clear that here Stalin showed in a whole series of cases his intolerance, his brutality, and his abuse of power. Instead of proving his political correctness and mobilising the masses, he often chose the path of repression and physical annihilation, not only against actual enemies, but also against individuals who had not committed any crimes against the party and the Soviet Government.
An excerpt from Khrushchev’s speech

Despite his speech exposing the crimes Stalin committed against his own people and the tens of millions killed under his orders, Khrushchev knew that the process of De-Stalinisation would be a long and arduous one but would ultimately be a better path for the Soviet Union than the three decades prior.

The Battle of Stalingrad

By July of 1942, Operation Barbarossa had been raging for over a year. The United States had entered the war and with no signs of Britain surrendering despite the U-Boat warfare and bombing campaign, Hitler decided to turn his back on his old ally and invade the Soviet Union. For the last 13 months, the operation had raged on and they were beginning to fall short of key objectives. One important thing that the Germans were lacking was oil. They were now over 1,000 miles into foreign territory and, with the Russian scorched earth tactic, supply lines were running thin.

In one last ditch effort to find some more oil. Hitler set his eyes on the Caucuses, an oil rich area of the Soviet Union in modern day Georgia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. However, Hitler added a new objective to the plan. He believed that in order to secure the Caucuses, they would need to capture the key city of Stalingrad.

Stalingrad, named after General Secretary Joseph Stalin, was a massive supply hub, due to its bountiful number of factories and a massive transport hub. Despite this, German High Command did not believe that Stalingrad was a very important objective, who thought that Army Group South should flank the Caucuses by pushing through to Astrakhan and then the armies would go down from there. However, Hitler believed that they should split Army Group South in half from the onset, and assigning Friedrich Paulus and his 6th Army to capture Stalingrad.

A photo of a building in Stalingrad before the war

The advance was swift and forceful, and the city was very close to being surrounded. However, due to the advance the supply line was even thinner. Some in the 6th Army resorted to eating their own horses to prevent themselves from starvation. 1/4 of the casualties from the 6th thus far had been due to disease rather than bullets.

Meanwhile, Stalin had prepped for a change of plans. Wanting to keep the city named after himself, he had built a large number of tanks, placing all his reserves in the city. On the 28th of July, Stalin issued his infamous order 227.

Not one step backward without orders from higher headquarters!
An excerpt from Order 227

Any officer or soldier who did not comply with the order would, most likely, be shot on sight. After a large Luftwaffe attack, the 6th Army pushed into Stalingrad, managing to seize much of the suburbs. The Soviet Divisions were now split in two, with the 62nd and 64th armies shipping supplies and reinforcements across the Volga River, whilst under heavy bombardment from the Luftwaffe.

The Russians are ordered to stay close to German lines, in order to stop air support out of fear that Hitler would bomb his own men. The unique urban combat of Stalingrad had begun, with most gunfights engaging within spitting distance of the enemy. The German advance slowed but pushes into the city were still made. The Soviet Divisions in Stalingrad were on their last legs, until the Russian secret weapon eventually came.

The winter soon began to set in. The already hungry Germans were also beginning to feel the effects of the cold. The German advance either halted or slowed to a crawl, allowing Soviet High Command to recuperate and form a plan of counter assault. Whilst the plan is being formed, Paulus, orders another assault. The Germans manage to push back the Soviet forces to a small sliver of land against the Volga. However, having suffered 60,000 casualties, the battered and hungry German army cannot advance. A stalemate began to set in

Barmaley Fountain in the middle of the war torn city

Eventually, Georgy Zhukov, one of the key Russian Generals in the defence of the city, unleashes his master stroke. Operation Neptune goes ahead on November 19th, with 10 entire armies, totalling 1 million men, push through the German line, managing to encircle the German 6th and 4th armies, taking out the Romanian 5th corps, inside the city in only 3 days.

With supply lines cut off, Hitler decided to airlift supplies into Stalingrad. However, for reasons unknown, only army supplies, such as ammunition, was dropped and not food and clean water, a dire resource in the war torn city. Not only that but he also ordered 500 tons of said supplies to be dropped into the city, despite Paulus claiming that they needed 700 and the Luftwaffe saying they could only manage 300. Many Germans starved whilst the wounded succumbed to the elements, dying of hypothermia as winter truly began.

Around Christmas, Erich von Manstein, head of the Wehrmacht, ordered a push through the soviet line in order to relieve the 6th and 4th Army. However, due to orders from the Fuhrer, and dwindling numbers, Paulus did not attempt to meet up with Manstein’s men. Thousands more die in this attempted breakthrough. With no ammunition or food, the Germans are offered 2 surrenders by Zhukov, both of which Hitler orders Paulus to deny. by this time only 40,000 men of the 300,000 who initially marched on Stalingrad are still alive, whilst there are 18,000 men who are injured and yet untreated due to the lack of medical supplies. The situation became even more dire once the Soviets capture the last airfield that could be used for airdrops into Stalingrad. Despite his failure, and the German force in Stalingrad being split in two, Paulus received a promotion to Field Marshal, from Hitler himself. However, Hitler knew that there has never been a single Field Marshal ever who has been taken alive. Hitler had just signed Paulus’ death warrant.

Eventually, the Russians found his base of operations in a worn out department store basement, with the southern part of the army falling not long after that. The Soviets took mercy on Paulus, who lived out the rest of his life in East Germany until 1957. He is the only Field Marshal to ever be taken prisoner. The commander of the northern pocket also subtly requested that his men surrender. 11,000 German insurgents did not surrender and it would not be until March of 1943 before Stalingrad was clear of a German presence.

Many historians cite Stalingrad as a key turning point in the war. If Stalingrad had been captured, it would’ve been a catastrophic loss of life and morale for the Red Army. Thankfully, Hitler’s forces were pushed all the way back to Berlin thanks to the Soviet victory at Stalingrad, leading to the death of Hitler in April, 1945, and the end of the war in Europe. However, it came at a heavy cost. The Battle of Stalingrad was and still is the single deadliest battle in human history.

Casualties

German Reich – 800,000-1.5 million casualties
Soviet – 1.3 million
Civilian – 40,000

The Winter War

In the aftermath of the Invasion of Poland, the USSR occupied the Eastern half of the country, now sharing a border with Germany due to an invasion that lasted a little over a month. The haste at which this was achieved was partially due to the fact that Poland, having only been birthed in the collapse of the German and Russian Empires was very behind militarily speaking, especially compared to the technologically superior Wehrmacht. Stalin believed he could achieve this again with another nation that was formerly a part of the Russian Empire.

The plans and outcome of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact

Finland, which had only gained independence 22 years prior, was number one on Stalin’s bucket list. As democracy in Finland was making bounds, he believed that the area of Karelia specifically posed a threat to the key city of Leningrad in the North. Stalin demanded that Karelia be seceded. Finland, having declared itself neutral upon the outbreak of WW2, sought help from Britain, France and Sweden after the ultimatum was received, to no avail. On November 30th, 1939, Finland refused the ultimatum, and Stalin began moving Soviet forces into Finland.

Despite the vast size and mechanisation of the Soviet Army, the Finnish largely had the upper hand. The main problem was the terrain and weather, as that winter was recorded as one of the coldest in European history, reaching as low as -40 Degrees. Not only that but, having been aquainted with the terrain, the Finnish made easy work of the Soviets with the assistance of skis and a distinctive winter camoflauge. The skis worked effectively at quickly swooping past and taking out enemy forces, especially the tanks, which were stopped when Finnish skiers lodged crowbars and logs into the tank tracks, stopping them dead. They would also use Molotov Cocktails, a tongue and cheek reference to the Soviet Foreign Minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, who worked on the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact, with German Reichsminister of Foreign Afffairs Joachim von Ribbentrop, that gave the Soviets a claim to Finland.

However, the tide of the war began to turn as Stalin appointed a new commander, Marshal Semyon Timoshenko, who sent new and improved forces into Finland. Eventually, having been overrun and tired out, the Finnish were forced into surrender, giving up multiple territories as a part of the peace deal. The Soviet Union was removed from the League of Nations after declaring the invasion illegal. It also demonstrated the hesitancy of the Allies and the weakness of the Soviets to Hitler, who would use these to his advantage in the coming years. This was not the end for Finland, however, as it would lick its wounds and come back with a vengeance.

Invasion of Poland

Gaining living space, striving for land power in the East. France’s opposition to this is unavoidable, but not that of England or Italy. […] France as an ally is possible, but undesirable. Help for South Tyrol only with Italy against France; this also means freedom of movement against the East.
Hitler writing in his second posthumously published book, 1928

After World War 1, many Eastern European countries were unified to form Poland. As such, Poland divided East Prussia from the remainder of Germany. Hitler formed a non-aggression pact with Joseph Stalin, Communist Leader of the Soviet Union. The non-aggression pact also included the East of Poland being occupied by the Soviet Union in the event of an invasion. Many people didn’t agree with this, since Hitler was heavily anti-Communist, with many anti-leftist purges taking place in Germany and in their recently annexed territories.

On the night of August 31st, 1939, 3 men dressed in Polish Army Uniforms infiltrated Gleiwitz Radio Tower, on the Polish-German border. They transmitted anti-German messages, all in Polish, to the people of Germany using a radio tower. The next day, a man in a Polish Army Uniform was found dead near the tower. His body was reported to the police. This was a staged operation by the Nazis.

The man found dead was Franciszek Honoik, a Polish man, who was legally the first casualty of the war. Franciszek was killed by the Gestapo. He was unmarried, 43 and wasn’t even a soldier. The same day, German soldiers marched on the west side of Poland, with Soviet soldiers closing in on the East.

The German tactic known as Blitzkreig, involving striking fast and hard with as many units as possible, was used in taking out many Polish divisions. Not only that, but the highly advanced Panzer Divisions combined with the Stuka Dive bombers made quick work of the Polish Cavalry. The West of Poland was captured within two weeks. On October 6th, the last Polish Division surrendered, having been encircled by the German Army. The invasion only lasted 1 month and 5 days. In accordance with the agreement, Germany occupied the West, establishing the Generalgouvernement in the southern region, with the USSR Occupying the East.

Casualties

Germany – 16,343
Soviet Union – 737
Poland – 66,000

This morning, the British ambassador in Berlin handed the German government a final note stating that unless we heard from them by 11 o’clock that they were prepared at once to withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between us. I have to tell you now that no such undertaking has been received, and that consequently this country is at war with Germany.
Neville Chamberlain’s radio broadcast to Britain, September 3rd, 1939

The Death of Vladimir Lenin

The early establishment of the Soviet Union was a very stressful time for Vladimir Lenin, a stressful time that all occurred within the span of 3 months. In those three months he had overthrown the Provisional government, had to give a lot of land to Germany which crippled the economy and had started a civil war with the White Army. Ultimately, his stress lead to his health declining. Most notably, he had a series of strokes, starting on May 26th, 1922 and ending on January 21st, 1924.

Due to that final stroke, Lenin died, opening up a power vacuum. However there were two main options when it came to replacing Lenin as leader of the Soviet Union.

Leon Trotsky

Trotsky seemed to be a relatively obvious choice. He was the Commissar for War and had lead the Red Army to victory during the Civil War. He was also a powerful speaker and a charming man. He believed that in order to maintain Communism in the USSR, it needed to spread to other countries. Many thought that Trotsky was the natural replacement, that is until we meet…

Stalin was the exact opposite of Trotsky in every way. He was not particularly charming, he wasn’t a great public speaker and his job was, to put it bluntly, lame. He was given the job of General Secretary of the Bolshevik Party. While on the surface being a secretary doesn’t seem like the world’s greatest job, once analysed, it was the most powerful job in the country. Stalin would give jobs to people who were loyal to him, giving him more power, so he could hire more people loyal to him, ending up in a cycle wherein he had ultimate power.

However, Lenin did not trust Stalin and requested that he never become leader of the Soviet Union. However, the person who had the final say on who got the jobs was Stalin, who hid any evidence of Lenin saying this. Stalin was too powerful to be stopped, and had all his enemies arrested, exiled or killed. He even exiled Trotsky to Mexico, who was then assassinated in 1940. He had Lenin mummified and embalmed to put on display in Red Square in Moscow, in a building called Lenin’s Mausoleum, where it still is to this day.

While Lenin was cutthroat and ruthless, he did truly believe that Communism was the way forward. Stalin however took the USSR down a different path, of a tyrannical rule, more akin to Fascism than Communism, setting up a secret police called the NKVD and setting up prison camps called Gulags, where many suffered, starved and, eventually, died. Due to Stalin’s actions, Lenin’s “Communist Utopia” never saw the light of day.