The Great Purge
Radical: Joseph Stalin 1878 - 1953
Joseph Stalin took the baton from Lenin and did it against Lenin’s wishes. Lenin wished to have Stalin removed because of his very rebel rousing personality and unpredictability. As Stalin manipulated the powers brilliantly, he placed himself in the top position governing the new Communist regime.
Stalin was extremely violent and grounded in his rebellious ways at a very early age. He was said to be involved in a banking shipment raid where 40 innocent people were killed. He organized Muslim Azeris and Persians to murder of supporters of the Tsar. He also conducted bank robberies, kidnappings, and even counterfeiting. When it boils down to it Stalin was an evil criminal animal.
During the Revolution of 1917 and after returning from exile, Stalin ousted the editors of Pravda which was the newspaper of the Soviet Union. With the help of his influence on Pravda by spreading his propaganda, Stalin supported the overthrowing of the war weakened government. He later joined Lenin to take leadership of the Bolsheviks. It was then that the coup would be planned to take over the Russian government.
Along with Trotsky, Stalin was appointed to the Politburo, which was the policy making machine of the new government. Trotsky and Stalin didn’t see eye to eye on many issues. After his rise to power, Stalin went on a violent killing spree. He had former Tsarist officers in the Red Army and counter-revolutionaries killed. He burned the villages of peasants in order to intimidate them into submission. He had huge problems with desertions on the Western front and had them executed publicly.
After a failed attempt to capture Poland, Stalin resigned his post in the military commission and was heavily ridiculed by Trotsky. This would later seal the fate of Trotsky as he would be executed by Stalin after his take over of the Soviet Union. Once Lenin had a stroke Lenin began to eye the political playing field. He would maneuver his way politically to grab the dictatorship from his peers. This political maneuvering caused a huge divide in the political powers. Stalin would soon unleash his purging campaigns.
After the political fighting due to the unstable economy and government structure, Stalin felt the enormous political threat from his former peers. Trotsky had aligned with Stalin’s former comrades and began building an opposing force to Stalin’s regime. To battle this threat, Stalin began to spy on his people, military members, and government officials. Between 1937 and 1938 an estimated 1,548,367 people were detained in the Gulags and an estimated 681,692 were executed. It has been told that there was an average of 1000 executions a day.
The important lesson to be learned is that in the best interest for the majority almost 700,000 people were executed. In a Communist regime, the individual doesn’t matter. The individual is simply a work horse or a battery. If the individual isn’t productive to the majority then the individual needs to be disposed of. The idea of Collectivism isn’t a new theory or idea. Marx just recognized it and put his name on it.
Instead of the feudal days where a serf served the divine bloodline of a king or emperor, the workers serve the greater majority of man in a Communist society. The distribution of wealth strips the power from the majority and allows no one person to rise in power to benefit from his or her innovations except for the chosen leader who remains in power until he dies or is overthrown. In a nation like the Soviet Union tyranny was the acting force to maintain order and civility.
What must be learned here is that the progression of socialism leads here. It is the social machine that is pulling us closer to a possible realization of the fears you now have after reading these facts of history. Don’t let this feeling go unnoticed.
