Understanding Stalin

The Secret Speech, delivered by First Party Secretary, Nikita Khruschev, at the Twentieth Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, on the 25th of February 1956, is an important source of information that can greatly assist us in our attempts to comprehend some of the myths surrounding Josef Stalin.

Almost three years after Stalin’s death, Nikita Khruschev became the first communist party official to denounced the ex leaders actions. He spoke of the mass deportations, ( including of entire peoples ), the moral and physical annihilation of members of the collective, the repression, and the purges: All acts that had been perpetrated by Stalin himself.

He drew attention to Stalin’s considerable character flaws; Flaws that Lenin had apparently been aware of, even in their incipient stages and he pointed out that Lenin had, during the early days, voiced concern regarding some negative characteristics of Stalin’s personality. At the time, those characteristics seemed fairly innocuous and were only just beginning to emerge but, still, they were enough to start alarm bells ringing.

One of the myths later propagated by Stalin, and very successfully sown among the populace by way of media manipulation and intense propaganda was that Lenin believed, his dream of an industrious, thriving and globally respected Russia, could be best achieved under Stalin’s leadership. In fact, listening to Stalin speak on the subject would leave you utterly convinced that Lenin had nothing but praise for Stalin and that he had, in fact, been little short of Lenin’s right hand man.

Khruschev also highlighted the fact that once in power Stalin demanded absolute submission to his will and opinions. He spoke of the consequences wrought upon members of the collective who opposed those opinions; Consequences that frequently lead to removal from the collective and often culminated in “removal” full stop.

Khruschev made it known that Stalin was directly responsible for the downfall of many dedicated communist party workers. Both leaders and rank -and -file members fell victim to his dictatorial policies and there was scarcely a man, or woman, in Russia who could not , on a whim, be branded with the phrase “enemy of the people”.

The following except, from the Congressional Record: Proceedings and Debates of the 84th Congress, 2nd Session (May 22, 1956 – June 11th, 1956), C11, Part 7 (June 4, 1956), pp. 9389 – 403; Reprinted in Book 1, Chapter 5, Reading 5.1. explains the precise meaning of the phrase.

Stalin originated the concept “enemy of the people”. This term automatically rendered it unnecessary that the ideological errors of a man or men engaged in a controversy be proven; this term made possible the usage of the most cruel repression, violating all norms of revolutionary legality, against anyone who in any way disagreed with Stalin, against those who were only suspected of hostile intent, against those who had bad reputations. This concept, enemy of the people, actually eliminated the possibility of any kind of ideological fight or the making of one’s views known on this or that issue, even those of a practical character. In the main, and in actuality, the only proof of guilt used, against all the norms of current legal science, was the confession of the accused himself, and, as any subsequent probing proved, confessions were acquired through physical pressures against the accused…

Despite Khruschev’s speech the power of the Stalin myth still holds great strength to this day with many Russians still believing the country benefitted from Stalin’s leadership and that corruption originated, not from the top, but from the offices of disreputable officials and underlings.

Bibliography

http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/stalin/transcript.html Accessed 10th

May 2009

http://www.internationalviewpoint.org/spip.php?article1143 Accessed 8th May 2009

The Open University. (2008) AA100 Book One, Reputations. Chapter 5.The Alden Group. Oxfordshire