What is great about Joseph Stalin and Ivan Tsar?

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1. weirdo says

   Stalin brought the Russians and the USSR into the modern era.

   “Arguably Ivan’s most important legacy can be found in the political changes he enacted in Russia. In the words of historian Alexander Yanov, “Ivan the Terrible and the origins of the modern Russian political structure [are]… indissolubly connected.” At the core of this political revolution stands the newly adopted title of Tsar. By being crowned Tsar, Ivan was sending a message to the world and to Russia: he was now the one and only supreme ruler, and his will was not to be questioned. “The new title symbolized an assumption of powers equivalent and parallel to those held by former Byzantine caesar and the Tatar khan, both known in Russian sources as Tsar. The political effect was to elevate Ivan’s position.” The new title not only secured the throne, but it also granted Ivan a new dimension of power, one intimately tied to religion. He was now a “divine” leader appointed to enact God’s will, “church texts described Old Testament kings as ‘Tsars’ and Christ as the Heavenly Tsar.” The newly appointed title was then passed on from generation to generation, “succeeding Muscovite rulers…benefited from the divine nature of the power of the Russian monarch…crystallized during Ivan’s reign.”

   A title alone may hold symbolic power, but Ivan’s political revolution went further, in the process significantly altering Russia’s political structure. The creation of the Oprichnina marked something completely new, a break from the past that served to diminish the power of the boyars and create a more centralized government. “…the revolution of Tsar Ivan was an attempt to transform an absolutist political structure into a despotism… the Oprichnina proved to be not only the starting point, but also the nucleus of autocracy which determined… the entire subsequent historical process in Russia.” Ivan created a way to bypass the Mestnichestvo system and elevate the men among the gentry to positions of power, thus suppressing the aristocracy that failed to support him. Part of this revolution included altering the structure of local governments to include, “a combination of centrally appointed and locally elected officials. Despite later modifications, this form of local administration proved to be functional and durable.” Ivan successfully cemented autocracy and a centralized government in Russia, in the process also establishing “a centralized apparatus of political control in the form of his own guard.” The idea of a guard as a means of political control became so ingrained in Russian history that it can be traced to Peter the Great, Vladimir Lenin, who “… [provided] Russian autocracy with its Communist incarnation”, and Joseph Stalin, who “[placed] the political police over the party.” Yanov concludes that “Czar Ivan’s monstrous invention [i.e. the guard] has thus dominated the entire course of Russian history.””

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2. Blonde A says

   Stalin wasn’t russian
   Ivan Tsar – which one?

   upd
   “the first who was regarded as ‘Tsar'” was Ivan IV
   Ivan V was very ill and never really ruled and did nothing that would be well remembered, so i don’t know who can name him among greatest rulers

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