These facts about Joseph Stalin and his regime will blow your mind!
If you’re a subscriber to our page, you probably noticed that we wrote a lot of articles about nazism and mainly focused on Adolf Hitler. But world history is a huge book of wonders, and we only managed to scratch just a bit of its surface. That’s why in today’s article we will turn our attention to an opposite topic that also focuses on a famous figure who needs no introduction, Joseph Stalin.
He was, after Adolf Hitler, one of the most notorious leaders of World War II. Stalin is remembered as a tyrant who committed mass murder and as a Communist icon.
At the end of the 19th century, Stalin was born into poverty. After rising through the ranks of the Communist Party to the position of General Secretary, he installed himself as dictator following the passing of Vladimir Lenin. After bringing Russia into the modern era through fast industrialization, which unintentionally caused a famine that claimed millions of lives, he used his renowned Red Army to defeat the Nazis.
Stalin’s politics and values are well known, as is his role in World War II. On the other hand, some facts are not as well-known so we invite you to continue reading the following lines and find more about communism, the atrocities that happened but also a bit more insight about who Joseph Stalin really was.
He wanted to become a priest
The fact that Joseph Stalin nearly chose not to enter politics is not widely known. If his initial goal had come true, he would have been a Russian Orthodox Church priest. He was so passionate that he received a full scholarship to attend the Tbilisi Theological Seminary. But he began to question and eventually lose his faith as a result of the corruption and lack of religious sentiment he saw.
He changed his name to a more fitting one
He was actually born Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili, but the name was too long and without any strong resonance, so later on he decided to change it into Stalin, which in Russian means steal, the man of steel. So he was the so-called “Superman of the USSR.” Oh, we get it…!
Was the leader of a crime gang called “The Outfit”
Stalin led a criminal organization known as “The Outfit” while he was living in Baku, Azerbaijan in 1907. The gang operated stealing and protection rackets. They also abducted the children of rich residents and committed a ton of robberies.
He was never suitable for military training
Stalin suffered the misfortune of being struck by a horse-drawn carriage when he was twelve years old. His father severely abused him during his early years, so his childhood was not easy to begin with.
Because of the extensive surgery he had to have on his arm after the accident, his left arm is now much shorter than his right. His accident ended up saving his life in the end. Stalin was not sent to the front lines, where he would have undoubtedly died like so many other Russians, because he was deemed unfit for military service.
Furthermore, it was also believed that he had brain damage, more specifically atherosclerosis. Psychologists believe that this, along with a lot of other things, is the root cause of all the crimes and atrocities he committed during his time as a communist ruler.
Continued the work of Lenin with the Gulags
As we previously mentioned, we won’t state only facts about Joseph Stalin as an individual but also about communism and how we often tend to minimize how bad it was and be horrified only by the Nazis.
Vladimir Lenin founded the first Soviet camps for forced labor in 1919, but only under Stalin’s leadership, these camps—known as the Gulags—did not fully gain notoriety until the early 1930s. The Gulags called for inmates to perform physically taxing work for at least 14 hours each day. These jobs included manually mining coal and copper or felling trees and excavating frozen Soviet territories using crude implements.
Prisoners were given food according to the amount of work they did each day, but even a full ration was worthless. Robbers, rapists, murderers, thieves, and political rivals made up this labor force. However, the vast majority of the inmates were those who had been arrested by the Soviets for minor offenses like tardiness, petty theft, or unexcused absences from work.
Stalin designed and nurtured a famine throughout Ukraine
About 7 million people died as a result of that between 1932 and 1933. Ukraine was singled out by the Communist Party for its attempts to break away from Soviet domination. Stalin imposed restrictions on Ukrainian farmers who supplied the Soviet Union with agricultural goods. Until there was insufficient food to support Ukrainian populations, the restrictions kept rising.
Stalin employed military force to expel the Ukrainian Communist Party after Ukrainian Communists appealed to the Soviet government. He then closed Ukraine’s borders to stop food supplies from entering the nation. Soviet troops also seized all food supplies from private Ukrainian homes.
His son died in Nazi Germany
The term “tough love” was taken very seriously by Joseph Stalin. When the Nazis captured Stalin’s son Yakov during World War II, Hilter realized who he had taken and made an absurd demand for a payment. Yakov’s release was the subject of nearly continuous negotiations, but Stalin would not accept any of the demands. In the future, Yakov would pass away while incarcerated.
Church and religion weren’t part of his plan
Once a man who desired to be a priest transformed into a different Joseph Stalin who ruled the USSR, in which there was no place for religion.
The communist government encouraged the eradication of religion by stealing church property, mocking religious doctrine and supporters, and encouraging atheism to be taught in schools. Most members of the Russian Orthodox Church were either sent to the Gulags or expelled by the Soviets. Up until 1941, the communist government systematically suppressed Islam and virtually outlawed the practice of Judaism.
He was named ‘Man of the Year’
Joseph Stalin, both hated but also appreciated by a lot of people at that time, managed to go above and beyond for Russia by doing various horrible things. However, he received two Time Man of the Year awards. The choice to feature him on the front cover for a second time in 1948 was indeed weird, even though it was before the full scope of his crimes against humanity were known, or at least this is how it is presented in historical files.
He might have been poisoned
Even though it may sound like a conspiracy theory, some historians think Stalin was assassinated to avoid a nuclear conflict with the United States, rather than dying of a stroke. During a dinner with Politburo members, the dictator is said to have been poisoned with the blood-thinning medication warfarin.
Even though communism is still present in today’s world in a couple of countries, not many people know its history and how it got to its present form. Beginning with the founder Karl Marx and continuing to all the menacing rulers, this book might help us understand better this regime.
It’s a great lecture for those who want to improve their general knowledge and beat others at trivia games. Marxism and the National Question is available on Amazon at the price of $5.50.
Are you new to the page and missed reading all the articles we wrote about Hitler? Here’s one that stirred the pot quite a lot: Adolf Hitler: 6 Facts That Will Give You Goosebumps.
