Question by Chrisinee: life under Stalin?
What was living life under Stalin like ?
Answers and Views:
Answer by Joe Shemo from Kokomo
In a word – Brutal.
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“Under Joseph Stalin the Soviet Union greatly enlarged its territory, won a war of unprecedented destructiveness, and transformed itself from a relatively backward country into the second most important industrial nation in the world. For these achievements the Soviet people and the international Communist movement paid a price that many of Stalin’s critics consider excessive. The price included the loss of millions of lives; massive material and spiritual deprivation; political repression; an untold waste of resources; and the erection of an inflexible authoritarian system of rule thought by some historians to be one of the most offensive in recent history and one that many Communists consider a hindrance to further progress in the Soviet Union itself.”
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Answer by John C
If you were alive you probably wished you were dead. The man was paranoid to the nth degree, actually was a worse leader for his own people than Hitler, less effect globally though.
Answer by xtraordinary2020
Domestically, Stalin was seen as a great wartime leader who had led the Soviets to victory against the Nazis. His early cooperation with Hitlerism was forgotten. That cooperation included helping the German Army violate the Versailles Treaty limitations with training in the Soviet Union, the notorious Molotov-von Ribbentrop treaty which partitioned Poland (giving Soviet Union what is now Belarus), and granted the Soviet Union a free hand in Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia, and Soviet trade with Hitler to counteract the expected French and British trade blockades.
By the end of the 1940s, Russian patriotism increased due to successful propaganda efforts. For instance, some inventions and scientific discoveries were claimed by Russian propaganda. Examples include the boiler, reclaimed by father and son Cherepanovs; the electric bulb, by Yablochkov and Lodygin; the radio, by Popov; and the airplane, by Mozhaysky. Stalin’s internal repressive policies continued (including in newly acquired territories), but never reached the extremes of the 1930s, in part because the smarter party functionaries had learned caution.
Internationally, Stalin viewed Soviet consolidation of power as a necessary step to protect the USSR by surrounding it with countries with friendly governments like the variety seen in Finland, to act as a cordon sanitaire (buffer) against possible invaders, while the “West” sought a similar buffer against communist expansion. These competing policies led to an admirable stability, where successful Soviet aggression would depend on enthusiastic cooperation by the satellite nations.
He had hoped that the American withdrawal and demobilization would lead to increased communist influence, especially in Europe. Each side might view the other’s defensive actions as destabilizing provocations and these security dilemmas frayed relations between the Soviet Union and its former World War II western allies and led to a prolonged period of tension and distrust between East and West known as the Cold War (see also Iron curtain).
The Red Army ended World War II occupying much of the territory that had been formerly held by the Axis countries:
In Asia, the Red Army had overrun Manchuria in the last month of the war and then also occupied Korea above the 38th parallel north. Mao Zedong’s Communist Party of China, though receptive to minimal Soviet support, defeated the pro-Western and heavily American-assisted Chinese Nationalist Party in the Chinese Civil War.
The Communists controlled mainland China while the Nationalists held a rump state on the island of Formosa (now Taiwan). The Soviet Union soon after recognized Mao’s People’s Republic of China, which it regarded as a new ally. The People’s Republic claimed Taiwan, though it had never held authority there.
Diplomatic relations reached a high point with the signing of the 1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance. Both countries provided military support to a new friendly state in North Korea. After various border conflicts, war broke out with U.S.-allied South Korea in 1950, starting the Korean War.
A meeting between Stalin and Mao Zedong after the CPC’s 1949 victory over the KMT in the Chinese Civil War.
A meeting between Stalin and Mao Zedong after the CPC’s 1949 victory over the KMT in the Chinese Civil War.
In Europe, there were Soviet occupation zones in Germany and Austria. Hungary and Poland were under practical military occupation. From 1946–1948 coalition governments comprising communists were elected in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria and homegrown communist movements rose to power in Yugoslavia and Albania.
These nations became known as the “Communist Bloc.” Britain and the United States supported the anti-communists in the Greek Civil War and suspected the Soviets of supporting the Greek communists although Stalin refrained from getting involved in Greece, dismissing the movement as premature. Albania remained an ally of the Soviet Union, but Yugoslavia broke with the USSR in 1948. Greece, Italy and France received enormous support from the population, which were at the very least friendly towards Moscow.
Both Superpowers viewed Germany as key. In retaliation to the Western formation of Trizonia, Stalin determined to take action.
Armed with intelligence from the British agent Donald Duart Maclean and other British and American espionage agents, Stalin was well aware that the United States had not proceeded with mass production of atomic weapons, indeed, had not even assembled any after the last was used at Nagasaki. Large numbers would have been needed to destroy Soviet or Communist land forces either in Europe or the Far East. He therefore ordered a blockade of West Berlin, which was under British, French, and U.S. occupation, to test the Western powers.
The Berlin Blockade failed due to the unexpected massive aerial resupply campaign carried out by the Western powers known as the Berlin Airlift. In 1949, Stalin conceded defeat and ended the blockade. After West Germany was formed by the union of the three Western occupation zones, the Soviets declared East Germany a separate country in 1949, ruled by the communists.
Stalin originally supported the creation of Israel in 1948. The USSR was one of the first nations to recognize the new country.[99] Golda Meir came to Moscow as the first Israeli Ambassador to the USSR that year. But he later changed his mind and came out against Israel.
Contrary to America’s policy which restrained armament (limited equipment was provided for infantry and police forces) to South Korea, Stalin also extensively armed Kim Il Sung’s North Korean army and air forces with military equipment (to include T-34/85 tanks) and “advisors” far in excess of that required for defensive purposes) in order to facilitate Kim’s (a former Soviet Officer) aim to conquer the rest of the Korean peninsula. Soviet pilots flew Soviet aircraft from Chinese bases against United Nations aircraft defending South Korea. Post cold war research in Soviet Archives reveal that the Korean War was begun by Kim Il-sung with the express permission of Stalin, though this is widely disputed by North Korea.
In Stalin’s last year of life, one of his last major foreign policy initiatives was the 1952 Stalin Note for German reunification and Superpower disengagement from Central Europe, but Britain, France, and the United States viewed this with suspicion and rejected the offer.
Answer by Tiger Toy
Life under Stalin depended on who you were. Loyal party members had it marginally better than people who hadn’t joined. Russians had it better than Belorussians or Ukranians. But one of the key points of a totalitarian regime is that the rules don’t always applied. Anyone could be arrested, interrogated, jailed, sent to labor camps or killed. All it took was suspicion or a commissar who wanted what that individual had.
Uncertainty was the rule. Despite some very ambitious five year plans, Russian was not growing enough food to feed all the Russians. There was rationing and corruption. No one dared complain. There was no assurance that your friend, your neighbor, even your children would not denounce you to the secret police.
What made things a little worse was that high ranking party members had luxuries like big apartments, cars, even summer homes (dashas). The ordinary citizen knew these things could be had, but had no access to them. Broadcasts from Radio Free Europe kept the Russian people informed of what was happening in the outside world. But getting caught listening, even to western music meant all the bad things I mentioned.
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