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THE SECOND WORLD WAR
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STALIN AND THE SOVIET ARMY
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Biography of Stalin - BBCOne of the most powerful and murderous dictators in history, Stalin was the supreme ruler of the Soviet Union for a quarter of a century. His regime of terror caused the death and suffering of tens of millions, but he also oversaw the war machine that played a key role in the defeat of Nazism.
Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili was born on 18 December 1879 in Gori, Georgia, which was then part of the Russian empire. His father was a cobbler and Stalin grew up in modest circumstances. He studied at a theological seminary where he began to read Marxist literature. He never graduated, instead devoting his time to the revolutionary movement against the Russian monarchy. He spent the next 15 years as an activist and on a number of occasions was arrested and exiled to Siberia.
Stalin was not one of the decisive players in the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, but he soon rose through the ranks of the party. In 1922, he was made general secretary of the Communist Party, a post not considered particularly significant at the time but which gave him control over appointments and thus allowed him to build up a base of support. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin promoted himself as his political heir and gradually outmanoeuvred his rivals. By the late 1920s, Stalin was effectively the dictator of the Soviet Union.
His forced collectivisation of agriculture cost millions of lives, while his programme of rapid industrialisation achieved huge increases in Soviet productivity and economic growth but at great cost. Moreover, the population suffered immensely during the Great Terror of the 1930s, during which Stalin purged the party of 'enemies of the people', resulting in the execution of thousands and the exile of millions to the gulag system of slave labour camps.
These purges severely depleted the Red Army, and despite repeated warnings, Stalin was ill prepared for Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941. His political future, and that of the Soviet Union, hung in the balance, but Stalin recovered to lead his country to victory. The human cost was enormous, but was not a consideration for him.
After World War Two, the Soviet Union entered the nuclear age and ruled over an empire which included most of eastern Europe. Increasingly paranoid, Stalin died of a stroke on 5 March 1953.
Another photo as a very Young Man:
What is interesting about this photo are the eyes. What do they say about the eyes being the windows to the soul. In this photo, Stalin's eyes have not yet become hard and evil.
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Jill, Assisting Moderator - Global NF, HF, European/Brit. Hist/Music
(last edited May 09, 2012 11:24am)
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A true tyrant, Bentley. His pogroms/mass executions/purges almost made Hitler's pale in comparison.....of course they were over a longer period of time. But, as I believe we mentioned on the Hitler thread, history seems to treat him with a little less disgust than is accorded to Hitler. This is probably due to the fact that he was on the side of the Allies in WWII and that the courage of the Russian people, especially during the siege of Leningrad, may have softened his image at that time. Additionally, who knew what was going on in the Soviet Union?...... a secretive government that kept much of the horrors of Stalin's "reign" from public knowledge.A book for those who want a look inside the life of Stalin and the people who surrounded him I would recommend:
by
Simon Sebag Montefiore
One of his many victims gets inside Stalin's head in this novel. To paraphrase one of my favorite lines: "Stalin never trusted anybody until he trusted Hitler and after Hitler betrayed him he never trusted anyone again."
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Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
Solzhenitsyn first wrote The First Circle with 96 chapters. He felt he could never get this version published in the USSR, so he produced a "lightened" version of 87 chapters. In the long version, the diplomat Volodin's phone call (chapter 1) was to the US embassy, warning them of a Soviet attempt to get atomic bomb secrets. In the short version this call is to an old family doctor warning him not to share a new medicine with some French doctors he will visit. Another difference, in the long version Sologdin is a Roman Catholic, while in the short version his faith is not described. Shortly after One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich was published, Solzhenitsyn submitted his "lightened" version for publication in the USSR, but it was never accepted. This version was first published abroad in 1968. The complete 96 chapter version (with some later revisions) was published in Russian by YMCA Press in 1978, and has been published in Russia as part of Solzhenitsyn's complete works. Excerpts from the full 96 chapter version were published in English by The New Yorker and in The Solzhenitsyn Reader.[2] An English translation of the full version was published by Harper Perennial in October 2009, entitled In the First Circle rather than The First Circle.[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Firs...It's a terrific, terrific book - it's fiction, but it's really the fictionalized biography of Solzhenitsyn's life as an imprisoned scientist under Stalin. This one competes with War and Peace -
Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn
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Leo Tolstoy as translated by
&
Larissa Volokhonsky
Bea wrote: "One of his many victims gets inside Stalin's head in this novel. To paraphrase one of my favorite lines: "Stalin never trusted anybody until he trusted Hitler and after Hitler betrayed him he neve..."Interesting quote Bea.
Becky wrote: "Solzhenitsyn first wrote The First Circle with 96 chapters. He felt he could never get this version published in the USSR, so he produced a "lightened" version of 87 chapters. In the long version, ..."Becky thank you so much for the background of the book; that adds so so much. Such scrutiny and censorship - dictators know no bounds and all they want to preserve is their power above all else.
Bentley wrote: "Hey Michael with the same photo that I saw - terrific. Have you read this title?"No its on the shelf waiting to be read. High up on the list though.
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Bryan, Assisting Moderator - Presidential Series, Military History Lead
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Michael wrote: "Here is a good back on the young Stalin I hear very good things about this book and it is also on my TBR list!
Simon Sebag Montefiore
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Jill, Assisting Moderator - Global NF, HF, European/Brit. Hist/Music
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Thanks for your fine addition, Mario.Please visit our guidelines which describe how a book is to be cited in your post. They may be found at:
www.goodreads.com/topic/show/287892
The book you mentioned should look like this:
by
Orlando Figes
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Jill, Assisting Moderator - Global NF, HF, European/Brit. Hist/Music
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No problem, Mario.....it comes as second nature once you get started. If you haven't visited the Welcome thread, please stop by there and introduce yourself to the rest of the membership. It can be found at:http://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/9...
I really enjoyed
by
Robert Serviceand
by Robert Conquest(no photo), which I finished today.Service's bio does a great job describing Stalin's infamous WWII leadership. "The Great Terror" doesn't really mention much of that, of course, but it describes in detail how the purges of the Red Army affected the war effort.
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Jill, Assisting Moderator - Global NF, HF, European/Brit. Hist/Music
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Both sound like good reads, Jerome.....thanks for your recommendations.
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Bryan, Assisting Moderator - Presidential Series, Military History Lead
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Stalin's General: The Life of Georgy Zhukov
Geoffrey RobertsSynopsis
Widely regarded as the most accomplished general of World War II, the Soviet military legend Marshal Georgy Zhukov at last gets the full-scale biographical treatment he has long deserved.
A man of indomitable will and fierce determination, Georgy Zhukov was the Soviet Union’s indispensable commander through every one of the critical turning points of World War II. It was Zhukov who saved Leningrad from capture by the Wehrmacht in September 1941, Zhukov who led the defense of Moscow in October 1941, Zhukov who spearheaded the Red Army’s march on Berlin and formally accepted Germany’s unconditional surrender in the spring of 1945. Drawing on the latest research from recently opened Soviet archives, including the uncensored versions of Zhukov’s own memoirs, Roberts offers a vivid portrait of a man whose tactical brilliance was matched only by the cold-blooded ruthlessness with which he pursued his battlefield objectives.
After the war, Zhukov was a key player on the geopolitical scene. As Khrushchev’s defense minister, he was one of the architects of Soviet military strategy during the Cold War. While lauded in the West as a folk hero—he was the only Soviet general ever to appear on the cover of Time magazine—Zhukov repeatedly ran afoul of the Communist political authorities. Wrongfully accused of disloyalty, he was twice banished and erased from his country’s official history—left out of books and paintings depicting Soviet World War II victories. Piercing the hyperbole of the Zhukov personality cult, Roberts debunks many of the myths that have sprung up around Zhukov’s life and career to deliver fresh insights into the marshal’s relationships with Stalin, Khrushchev, and Eisenhower.
A remarkably intimate portrait of a man whose life was lived behind an Iron Curtain of official secrecy, Stalin’s General is an authoritative biography that restores Zhukov to his rightful place in the twentieth-century military pantheon.
I have this book:
by Agnes Hooper Gottlieb (no photo). It ranks each of the people the author thinks of as the most important from 1000 to 2000 AD.Each gets a bio, from a paragraph to a couple pages (depending on rank). Each bio is summarized in a few words. For Stalin, the brief summary is "Monster".
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Bryan, Assisting Moderator - Presidential Series, Military History Lead
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Motherland in Danger: Soviet Propaganda during World War II
Karel C. BerkhoffSynopsis
Berkhoff addresses one of the most neglected questions facing historians of the Second World War: how did the Soviet leadership sell the campaign against the Germans to people on the home front? Motherland in Danger takes us inside the Stalinist state to witness, up close, how the Soviet media reflected—and distorted—every aspect of the war.
The History Book Club
Books mentioned in this topic
Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (other topics)The First Circle (other topics)
In the First Circle: The First Uncensored Edition (other topics)
War and Peace (other topics)
Young Stalin (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
Simon Sebag Montefiore (other topics)Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn (other topics)
Leo Tolstoy (other topics)
Richard Pevear (other topics)
Larissa Volokhonsky (other topics)
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This thread is to post books regarding this individual as it relates to World War II. Also urls and other research information can also be posted. There is no self promotion here and no glorifying Stalin. Those posts will be deleted,