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In his speech of August 19, 1939 , Stalin prepared his comrades for the great turning point in Soviet politics, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany , which divided Central Europe into two spheres of influence, which would later generate physical and political division. and ideological of Europe in two parts, Western Europe and Eastern Europe , through an iron curtain . The exact reasons for this pact are still disputed, but it seems that neither side seemed to believe that it would last very long.
On September 1, 1939 , the German invasion of Poland triggered World War II . According to the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, eastern Poland was to remain in the sphere of Soviet influence . Given this, Stalin decided to intervene, and on September 17 , the Red Army invaded Poland. Germany and the Soviet Union agreed to change the spheres of influence slightly, and Poland was divided between the two states.
In 1941 , Hitler violated the treaty and invaded the Soviet Union as part of Operation Barbarossa . Stalin did not expect such a thing, or at least did not expect an invasion to take place so soon. The Soviet Union was not prepared to deal with aggression. Until the last moment, Stalin sought to avoid any obvious defensive training that would have provoked the German attack, hoping to gain time for the modernization and strengthening of the armed forces. Even after the attack began, Stalin did not seem able to accept reality and, as some historians say, was too amazed to react properly for several days. A controversial theory stated by Viktor Suvorovclaims that Stalin was preparing an invasion of Germany, while neglecting preparations for the defensive war that left Soviet forces vulnerable despite the large concentration of people and equipment near the borders. Such speculation is difficult to sustain, as long as information about the Soviet army for the period 1939-1941 remains classified, but it is known that the Soviets had detailed warnings made in advance by the vast network of foreign spies (such as Richard Sorge ). with German intentions.
Initially, the Nazis advanced tremendously, killing and taking millions of Soviet soldiers prisoner. The execution in 1937-1938 of many experienced generals of the Red Army had a devastating effect on the USSR's ability to organize its defense. Hitler's experts expected a maximum of eight weeks of war.
In response, on November 6, 1941 , Stalin addressed the Soviet population for the second time during his 30-year rule (the first time was earlier, in the same year, on July 2 ). He claimed that although 350,000 Russian soldiers had been killed during the German attack, the assailant would have lost 4.5 million soldiers (an exaggerated figure) and the Soviet victory would be close. The Red Army put up fierce resistance, but in the early stages of the war it was largely ineffective in the face of better prepared and equipped German forces. Eventually, the invaders were stopped and then repulsed from Moscow in December 1941. Stalin later collaborated with the intelligent Soviet marshal.George Konstantinovich Zhukov for the decisive victory over the Germans in the fight to defend Stalingrad .
Stalin's inexperience in strategy matters is often mentioned in connection with the massive Soviet losses and defeats at the beginning of the war. (In his autobiography, Khrushchev claimed that Stalin was trying to make tactical decisions using a globe.) It must be said, however, that Stalin ordered the rapid relocation of factories east of the Volga River , outside the range of the German air force, the Luftwaffe . From here, the Soviet industry supported the Red Armywith remarkable efficiency. In addition, Stalin realized that the other European armies were completely disintegrated when they had to deal with the very militarily efficient Nazis, and so he subjected his army to both propaganda and patriotic-revolutionary firing and a overwhelming terrors.
Order no. 227 of Stalin of July 27, 1942 illustrates the lack of scruples with which he tried to increase the fighting determination of the military: all those who withdrew or left their positions without order were shot on the spot. Other orders concerned the families of those who surrendered, families who became targets of NKVD terror . Barriers to the SMERȘ forces were soon put behind the front lines to machine-gun anyone trying to retreat. The surrendering Soviet soldiers were thrown into the Gulag after being released from prison camps .
In the early stages of the war, the retreating Red Army sought to deny the enemy access to any resources before the Germans could take control of them, applying the " scorched earth " tactic and infrastructure destruction. Unfortunately, these measures, together with the abuses of the German army, caused unimaginable suffering and famine to the civilian population left behind.
The Soviet Union suffered the brunt of the fighting and suffered the greatest casualties of the military and civilians in World War II. About 7 million Red Army soldiers and nearly 20 million civilians died. The Nazis considered the Slavs "subhumans" and so the latter became a target of ethnic genocide . This concept of Slavic inferiority was also the reason why Hitler did not accept into the German army until 1944 (when the war was practically lost by Germany), many Russians who wanted to fight against the Stalinist regime.
In the Soviet Union, World War II left a huge shortage of men in the generation of those who fought in the conflict. To this day, World War II, the Great War for the Defense of the Fatherland , is alive in the memories of citizens of Russia , Belarus and other republics of the former USSR, and May 9 , Victory Day , is the largest national holiday in Russia. .
Stalin was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 1945 and 1948. [30]
After World War II , the Red Army occupied most of the territory previously occupied by the Axis countries: there were Soviet occupation zones in Germany and Austria and Hungary and Poland were practically under military occupation, although formally, later. , were allied countries. Pro-Soviet governments were brought to power in Romania , Bulgaria and Czechoslovakia, and governments led by local communists came to power in Yugoslavia and Albania . Finlandit formally maintained its independence, but was politically isolated and economically dependent on the Soviet Union. Greece , Italy and France were under the strong influence of local communist parties, which looked sympathetically at Moscow. Stalin hoped that with the withdrawal of the Americans from Europe, the entire continent would remain under Soviet rule. American aid to the anti-communist camp in the Greek civil war has changed the situation. East Germany was proclaimed a separate country in 1949, being ruled by local communists. Moreover, Stalin decided to have direct control over satellites in Central Europe: all countries were to be led by local communist parties, which were to try to introduce Soviet models in the area.
In 1948 this decision led to the establishment of Stalinist governments in Poland , Czechoslovakia , Hungary , Romania and Bulgaria , countries later called the "communist bloc". Communist Albania remained an ally, but Yugoslavia, under the leadership of Joseph Broz Tito , broke away from Soviet influence. Stalin saw the consolidation of Soviet power in the area as a necessary step in protecting the USSR with a belt of friendly governments that would act as a buffer zone against a possible invasion.
This action shattered Western Europe's hopes that Eastern Europe would have a friendly attitude towards the West and that it would form a "sanitary cordon" against communism. The fears of many Western politicians that the Soviet Union continued to want to spread communism around the world were also confirmed. Relations between the Soviet Union and former Western allies in World War II deteriorated rapidly and paved the way for a long period of tensions and mistrust between East and West, known as the Cold War . (See also Iron Curtain .)
In the country, Stalin presented himself as a great military commander, who led the USSR to victory in the war against the Nazis. Since the end of the fifth decade, Russian nationalism has grown. For example, some inventions and scientific discoveries have been attributed to Russian researchers. These included: the steam engine whose invention was attributed to Cherepanovs (father and son), electric bulb of Iablocikov and Lodîgin , radio CPC to Popov , the plane of Mozhaisk , etc.
The policy of internal repression continued and intensified (including in the newly conquered territories), but did not reach the extremes of the 1930s-1938.
According to some sources, the anti - Zionist campaign of 1948-1953 (see also Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee , Plot of Doctors , Cosmopolitan without a Country ) were only the forerunners of the subsequent great repressions, but if such plans really existed, Stalin died before putting them in practice.
Stalin had very few contributions to communist (or rather Marxist-Leninist) theory, but the few he made were accepted during his lifetime by all Soviet researchers in the political science.
In 1936 , Stalin declared that Soviet society was made up of two non-antagonistic social classes: the workers and the kolkhoz peasants . These corresponded to two different forms of ownership of the means of production that existed in the Soviet Union: state ownership (for workers) and collective ownership (for the peasantry). In addition, Stalin distinguished the social stratum of intellectuals . The concept of non - antagonistic classes was entirely new in Leninist theory.
Stalin and his supporters, during his reign and from then until today, emphasized the idea that socialism can be built and consolidated in a single country, even in an underdeveloped one, such as Russia at the turn of the century.
As Khrushchev states in his autobiography, Stalin often attended night parties with his aides, after which he slept all day, waiting for them to stay awake and lead the country. On March 1, 1953 , after an all-night dinner with Interior Minister Lavrenti Beria and future prime ministers George Malenkov , Nicolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev , Stalin gave in, suffering a stroke that paralyzed his right side. He died four days later, on March 5, 1953 , at the age of 73. Officially, cerebral hemorrhagewas declared the cause of death. His body was mummified and kept in Lenin's Mausoleum until October 3, 1961 , when de-Stalinization began in the Soviet Union. Stalin's body was later buried near the Kremlin wall .
It has been suggested that Stalin was assassinated. Former communist exile Avtorhanov raised this hypothesis in 1975. Viaceslav Molotov , in his political memoirs published in 1993 , states that Beria boasted in front of him that he had poisoned Stalin. In 2003 , a group of Russian and American researchers hypothesized that Stalin had ingested a powerful poison used against rats, which causes fluidization of the blood and hemorrhages and strokes. As this type of poison is tasteless, this variant is plausible. How Stalin died will only be known with certainty if an autopsy is performed on the embalmed corpse.
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