STALIN’s RISE: FOR THE MASSES OR BY THE MYTHS

"Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?"

This is just one of the many authoritarian musings of the former general secretary of Communist Party of the Soviet Union(CPSU) and Premier of the Soviet Union of Russia– a man who rose to redeem his war torn, side casted, rustic nation with his paradoxical protocols of primacy and paranoia, ambition with annihilation and calculations amidst controversies.

ACT 1

The trackers of time witnessed the resurrective voyage of loseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili to become what the world remembered him as- Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. This journey began on 18 December 1878, when Besarion Jughashvili and Ekaterine Geladze after losing two infants, saw their third offspring as the only one to survive past infancy. Stalin’s tender years were tainted in destitution as his father’s shoemaking business tattered, leading to Besarion turn into an abusive alcoholic, often defiling his family’s evenings. After his Папа abandoned the family, Stalin’s mother was determined to educate him well and enrolled him as a trainee Russian Orthodox priest at the Tiflis Theological Seminary in 1894, where ironically he was introduced to banned books like “What Is To Be Done?”, “The Patride” or the famous “Das Kapital” which sparked him towards Marxism and disillusioned his religious belief, stripping him off the path to pursue priesthood. This marked the arrival of a young blood in Bolshevik politics, revolutionary upheavals and most importantly Lenin’s view.

ACT 2

During the beginning of 20Th century when the world was busy scrutinizing the ingredients of First World War like The Second Boer war, The Boxer Rebellion or the Italo- Turkish War, our young Strannik was fully absorbed in revolutionary activities and had joined the Russian Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP). Between 1902 and 1913, Stalin survived several arrests and was even exiled to Siberia for spreading Marxist propaganda, orchestrating underground movements and evading Tsarist police. All these relentless resilience petrified his adamant image and thus, he adopted the name “Stalin” (meaning “man of steel”). Finally, around 1912 the domino effect of his efforts brought him in Lenin’s attention and he gradually rose the ranks. After the catastrophic experience of world war 1 the people of Russia were eager to topple the Tsarist regime and thus, the October Revolution of 1917 came as a symphony of chaos and change, where Stalin played a low-profile yet crucial role. As the editor of Pravda, he cultivated revolutionary narratives and catalysed the Bolshevik movement consequently leading to his appointment as Commissar for Nationalities.

“He was a great man. He could be ruthless, yes, but that was because history demanded it.” Stalin’s ally Molotov must have said this reminiscing his friend’s pragmatic yet coercive approach during the early 1920s. Stalin was appointed by Lenin with the task and trust to consolidate the ethnic groups, many of whom sought independence after the revolution. Stalin, though assured some groups the right to self-determination even secession, but this was done with sense and strategy to supress the anti-Bolshevik’s movement. Later he allowed selective cultural and linguistic freedoms but quelled political uprisings or murmurs in regions of Ukraine, Georgia and central Asia with force. He encouraged tensions between ethnic groups to prevent any unified opposition and redrew borders in Caucasus and Central Asia. Finally, he helped to shape the USSR’s Federal system and created tightly controlled republics like Ukrainian SSR, Georgian SSR etc. with the motive of centralized power under the facade of ethnic representation.

ACT 3

Lenin saw Stalin’s rise as calamitous and tried to warn the party, but his concerns were silenced – both by illness and Stalin himself. Lenin wasn’t able to speak after his 1923 stroke and passed away on 21st January 1924. He had stressed his worries in his Political Testament, which Stalin ensured was muzzled at the moment of truth. Stalin then outmanoeuvred his rivals like Trotsky and formed alliances with Zinoviev and Kamenev, who later were also expelled too as he turned to Bukharin and right faction in 1926. However, after defeating the left wing he rejected Bukharin’s pro-market economic policies and in 1929 he too was ousted and overthrown and he emerged as the absolute leader.

“We are 50 to 100 years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this lag in ten years. Either we do it, or they will crush us.”

Somewhere in some office or archive a speechwriter or propaganda chief must have had drafted this which Stalin delivered after his ascension. However, underneath the same desk the crumpled pages of Lenin’s last Testament might were crammed which contained concerns for the then unknown upcoming series of totalitarian authority and aspects for the damn sake to elevate an unstable nation as a global superpower. Stalin did armour up the Russian Golden Eagle with metal claws , but at the cost and consequence of its own blood.

"Stalin is too rude, and this defect, although quite tolerable in our midst and in dealings among us Communists, becomes intolerable in a General Secretary. That is why I suggest that the comrades think about a way of removing Stalin from that post and appointing another man who, in all other respects, differs from Comrade Stalin only in superiority—namely, more patient, more loyal, more polite, and more attentive to comrades."(Political Testament, 1922)