Comrade Stalin

Was Stalin a hero or a villain? Read the introduction, then select a question below and judge for yourself.

• Stalin:  Red Terror

• Why did Stalin need to industrialize Russia?

• How did Stalin industrialize Russia?

• Success or Failure?

22 million dead. A modern, industrial USSR. Did the ends justify the means?

To some the death of Stalin was the dawn of a bright new era; the end of yet another dictator, the end of another bloody chapter in Russian history. Stalin was the man who allegedly stated:

"Beat, beat and beat again until they come crawling to you on their bellies with confessions in their teeth."

Whether as a result of his direct orders or as a result of his policies some 22 million people in the USSR died.

"All we hear is the Kremlin mountaineer,
The murderer and the peasant slayer.
His fingers are fat as grubs,
And his words, final as lead weights, fall from his lips.
His cockroach whiskers leer,
And his top boots gleam.
Around him a rabble of thin-necked leaders,
Fawning half men for him to play with."
- Osip Mandelstam, (1933)

This poem was never written down. An informer told the secret police about it. Mandelstam was arrested and died in a labour camp.

On the other hand Russians wailed in anguish when they heard of the death of "Father Stalin". We cannot escape from the fact that although Stalin was hated he was also adored on a scale that few leaders have achieved. During his lifetime he was glorified in Russian newspapers, in statues, in films and in street and city names around the USSR.

"Great Stalin, O leader of the peoples,
Thou who broughtest man to birth .
Thou who makest bloom the spring,
Thou who makest vibrate the musical chords ."
- A.O Avdienko (Pravda, 1936)

How could one of the biggest mass-murderers of his own people also be the most admired leader in his country?