Stalin

Starvation and Violence amid the Soviet Politics of Silence, 1928–1929

“…These realities made Stalin realize that the Ukrainian peasants were a politically dangerous phenomenon, more dangerous than their counterparts in the Russian Federation. 107 According to the official data, over the course of 1927-1928, 538 terrorist acts were registered in Ukrainian villages. In 1928-1929 this number more than doubled to 1266, and from 1927 to 1929, 318 representatives of Soviet power in villages were attacked and murdered.…”

Henri Barbusse, official biographer of Joseph Stalin

“…The history of the collectivisation of agriculture in the late 1920s and early 1930s (with millions exiled, several million dead from forced famine, and massive property expropriations) shows that affection for Stalin was hardly as universal or spontaneous as Barbusse would have us believe (see Tucker, 1990: 80–145; Medvedev, 1989: 211–54). Further, while Barbusse paints a picture of natural domesticity chez Stalin, he makes no mention of his wife, a fact not incidental, as she had committed suicide in 1932, an act interpreted by some as a loyal Communist’s protest against Stalin’s policies ( Tucker, 1990: 217; Medvedev,1989: 299; Kuromiya, 2005: 108). Finally, the notion that Stalin lived a meagre life as leader of the USSR is a fallacy: for instance, although he lived in a ‘gloomy’ apartment in the Poteshny Palace in the early 1930s (Montefiore, 2004: 3), he also had a country home outside Moscow (Tucker, 1990: 215–16).…”

“…For example, in 1907, this monk of the Revolution was expelled from the Bolshevik Party for conducting an ‘expropriation’ (i.e. armed and lethal robbery at Erevan Square) against explicit party policy (Kuromiya, 2005: 16). Barbusse’s depiction of Stalin as a skilled outdoorsman is not incidental, as it is in harmony with images found elsewhere in the personality cult at that time.…”

“…Plamper writes that in 1934 Stalin began to appear in photos ‘in connection with expeditions and flights of Arctic explorers and aviators … presented as heroes and embodiments of the Soviet new man’ (2012: 40). Further, Kuromiya notes that during that same period, Stalin was a self-centred and difficult presence for fellow exiles (2005: 21). Indeed, Barbusse’s ‘Robinson of the frozen tundra’ failed to do his share of cooking, cleaning and other necessary duties.…”

“…He writes that in Tsaritsyn, ‘Cet homme qui n’avait jamais servi dans l’armée possédait un tel sens généralisé de l’organisation, qu’il savait comprendre et résoudre toutes les questions techniques les plus complexes et les plus ardues’ (2006b: 84). In reality, Stalin failed to resolve the crisis and his iron-fisted tactics rendered Tsaritsyn’s military situation chaotic, creating what Kuromiya refers to as a ‘black hole’ and a ‘murderous bedlam’: ‘Everything disappeared there: money, people, and equipment designated for other purposes were expropriated by Stalin’s orders’ (2005: 40). So bad was the situation that, at Trotsky’s insistence, Stalin was recalled to Moscow by Lenin (despite Barbusse’s ‘coups de baguette magique’).…”