MacFormat España 17/MacFormat 17 (Spain)/MacFormat 17.bin/DATABASE/SHARED.DIR/01295_167.cap.txt

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As a young man
Stalin joined Lenin's
Bolshevik Party. He
was repeatedly
arrested by the
Tsarist secret
police for revolu-
tionary activity,
and was eventually
exiled to Siberia -
a traditional rite
of passage for
Marxist radicals.
Stalin climbed the
Party hierarchy,
joining its Central
Committee in 1912
#
Civil war between
monarchist White
and revolutionary
Reds followed the
 Bolshevik seizure
of power in 1917.
Stalin was given
the new post of
'commissar for
ethnic minorities
and used Red terror
against the Whites
in Tsaritsyn, later
re-named Stalingrad
#
Lev Trotsky, brilliant and mercurial leader of the Red Army, was Stalin's chief rival
as heir to Lenin. Trotsky underestimated Stalin's ambition and mastery of the Party
machine. In 1922, the year that the Bolsheviks proclaimed the Soviet Union,
Stalin won the key post of general secretary of the Party's Central Committee
#
After Lenin's
death in 1924,
Stalin worked to
consolidate his
position within
the Bolshevik
Party. In 1927,
he successfully
rid himself of
Trotsky and other
rivals, using the
bureaucracy of
the party to do it
#
By 1929 Stalin
was effectively
dictator of the
USSR. Despite the
immense human
cost, he scrapped
the limited private
enterprise which
had been tolerated
under Lenin's 'new
economic policy',
and he moved at
once to full state
control and to
central planning
of the economy
#
As heavy industry
was revolutionised
by five-year plans,
land was taken
from the peasants
and then forcibly
incorporated into
collective farms.
The policy was a
catastrophe. By
1933 - 'Hungry
Thirty Three' -
the number of
sheep and goats
had fallen by two
thirds, and cattle
by 45 per cent
#
Propaganda gave
a rosy picture of
collective farms,
but the famine
and terror Stalin
inflicted on the
countryside killed
some 14 million
peasants, many of
them in the Ukraine.
Richer peasants,
branded 'kulaks',
were deported to
Siberia as Stalin
vowed to liquidate
them as a class
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Sergei Kirov was
the popular Party
boss of Leningrad.
He was assassin-
ated in December
1934. It is almost
certain that Stalin
ordered the murder
himself. He used it
as a pretext for
brutal purges of
opponents, and
of those people
he imagined might
become opponents
in the future
#
The original
Bolshevik elite
was annihilated
in a series of
show trials. in
Moscow. Old
comrades of
Lenin parroted
false 'confessions'
and were shot.
Most of them
had been accused
of plotting with
the exiled Trotsky,
who was later
murdered by a
Stalinist agent in
Mexico in 1940
#
The Soviet secret
police - known at
various times as
the Cheka, OGPU,
NKVD, NKGB, MGB
and KGB - was
not immune to
the terror it
instigated at
Stalin's behest.
Genrikh Yagoda,
its chief, was
himself arrested
and later shot
#
The Terror reached its height under Nikolai Yezhov, who became secret police chief
in 1936. A vast system of forced labour camps, the 'Gulag', was filled with victims
of the purges. Stalin later had Yezhov shot too
#
The cream of the
Red Army was
destroyed in the
purges. All the
commanders of
military districts
were shot, and 57
out of 85 corps
commanders in
1937 and 1938
disappeared. The
damage done to
army morale
was one factor
which convinced
Hitler that a
German invasion
would succeed
@

#
Hitler's 'Operation
Barbarossa' was
unleashed at dawn,
June 21, 1941. The
largest offensive
in history smashed
through unprepared
Soviet troops on
the frontier. Stalin
ignored repeated
warnings of Nazi
intentions. When it
became clear what
had happened he
disappeared: he
suffered some sort
of breakdown. It
was Molotov who
broke the news of
the invasion to
the Soviet people
#
The scale of the
German invasion
was colossal.
The front reached
a maximum width
of 1,900 miles
and the Germans
penetrated 1,000
miles from their
start lines in one
sector. There was
no continuous
line: army groups
clashed wherever
they met in the
Russian immensity,
like fleets at sea
#
In less than three
months, German
armies were in
sight of Leningrad,
and were soon to
surround it. Untold
numbers, hundreds
of thousands, died
in the three-year
siege of the city.
In the southern
sector, over half
a million Soviet
troops were about
to be captured
at Kiev. And worst
of all, Moscow was
open to assault
#
Georgy Zhukov, an oustanding soldier, was given command of the Moscow
front in October 1941. By December 1, the Germans had reached the western
outskirts of Moscow but were exhausted. Zhukov saved the city with a
decisive counter-offensive by fresh Siberian troops
#
The pivotal point
of the "Great
Patriotic War"
was the battle
for Stalingrad.
In the ruined city
of Stalingrad the
Red Army fought
for every street,
for every house,
and for every room
in every house.
Once the Germans
lost the city, the
rest of the war
was one long and
bloody retreat
across the plains
of eastern Europe
#
Nobody knows the
number of Soviet
war dead: it stands
at about 20 million.
The Germans shot
Jews and political
commissars as a
matter of policy.
Villages were razed
in reprisal for
partisan attacks.
And the retreating
German armies
practised a policy
of 'scorched earth',
destroying every-
thing in their wake
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The West was
full of admiration
for the Soviets'
victories over the
Germans. This, and
partisan efforts in
occupied countries,
gave communism
much prestige in
Europe. Stalin's
pre-war reputation
in the West as a
ruthless dictator
was replaced with
the new image of
kindly 'Uncle Joe'
#
German defeat
was certain by
February 1945.
The 'Big Three' -
Stalin, Churchill
and Roosevelt -
met at Yalta to
discuss the post-
war settlement
of Europe. Their
apparent unity
disguised Winston
Churchill's deep
suspicions of
Stalin, and also
Stalin's deep
contempt for
Western democracy
#
The Red flag was
hoisted over the
Reichstag in
Berlin on 2 May
1945. A huge
swathe of land
from the Balkans
to the Baltic was
controlled by the
Red Army. Stalin
imposed Soviet-
style Communist
regimes on it
as Europe was
divided into two
heavily-armed
and hostile camps
#
During Stalin's
years in power,
communism had
spread from the
Soviet Union deep
into Europe and
Asia. At his death,
it was competing
with the West in
the cold war in
Europe, and in
fighting in Korea,
Indochina and
Malaya. But the
word 'Stalinism',
was a byword
for totalitarian
inhumanity
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