Miles J.

Joseph Stalin and the Holodomor

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was born on December 18, 1878 in Gori, Georgia which, at the time, was a part of the Russian empire. Over the course of his career, he emerged as one of the most powerful and controversial dictators, arguably, of all time. His three decades in power covered rapid industrialization, World Wars, and famines that killed millions. Stalin’s reign is one that is marked by tremendous controversy, and insights into his psychology suggest that he was obsessed with the elimination of his enemies, intellectual self-aggrandizing, and promoting his own Marxist ideologies while breaking down intellectual progress of others (Tucker 351). It should also be noted that Stalin is credited with transforming Russia into a global superpower, however, at a tremendous human cost. 

The legacy of Stalin is one of the most controversial of any Soviet or Russian leader. Some historians like “Kotkin argue that Stalin is the “gold standard for dictatorships” in regard to the amount of power he managed to obtain and wield throughout his lifetime. Stalin stands out because not only was he able to build a massive amount of military power, he managed to stay in power for three decades, much longer than any comparable dictator.” (Kotkin 2018) Stalin came up through the political ranks as a member of the Bolshevik party. He was the successor of Vladimir Lenin, a revolutionary and the founder and leader of the Bolshevik party that ultimately won the Civil war and unified Soviet Russia under the Communist party. Stalin, originally Lenin’s “Commissar for Nationalities” (Davis, 2022) was first driven into politics thanks to his interest in Marxist literature. He himself was a vocal Marxist thinker and wrote many essays pondering his own brand of Marxism that would ultimately go on to shape his governing style of the Soviet Union. Later in his career, “Stalin was assuming the role of the premier living Marxist philosopher.” (Tucker 351)  In one of his essays titled “Marxism and the National Question of 1913, Stalin argued that “A nation has the right freely to determine its own destiny. It has the right to arrange its life as it sees fit, without, of course, trampling on the rights of other nations. That is beyond dispute.” (Davis, 2022) This kind of thinking, originally, was very much in line with his predecessor’s, who ultimately denounced the first World War and argued that it was “imperialist (that is, an annexationist, predatory war of plunder) on the part of both sides; it was a war for the division of the world, for the partition and repartition of colonies.” (Davis, 2022).

Stalin ultimately won the power struggle that emerged after Lenin’s death in 1924, and with the help of the loyalists, consolidated power and started exiling his opponents, like Leon Trotsky in the late 1920s. (Hampton Roads Naval Museum). Once he was in power as the supreme leader of the Soviet Union, he began a period marked by rapid industrialization, turning Russia from an agricultural society to a major industrial power. Another goal of his was to increase collectivization, primarily of the agricultural output of the nation, bringing the nation closer to true communism and further away from the encroachment of capitalism. It has been said that “Stalin’s regime believed it had to eradicate capitalism within the USSR even in regions where capitalism was bringing economic success to the peasants, with the potential of destabilizing the regime. 

This led to the Great Purge, a campaign of political repression that resulted in the exile and execution of millions of people.” (Kotkin 2018) As a result of Stalin’s attempts to consolidate power, eliminate opposition, and maintain ideological control, the Soviet government began to “purge” the nation of those who stood in direct violation of the leading ideology. The government held “show trials” where those accused of violating the laws of socialism were forced to give confessions of their crimes under duress, which ultimately helped Stalin justify their execution. (Kuromiya 712) Stalin has been compared to Hitler in his role in The Great Terror, which ultimately resulted in the torture, execution, and deaths of millions of people.  “Whether Stalin played a central role in the Great Terror (or even whether Stalin knew its extent) has been a contentious issue. Robert Thurston, for instance, strongly questions Stalin's role itself.” (Kuromiya 713) Recent literature and released archives leave very little room for doubt on this matter. Stalin was the key decision maker on things related to the Great Terror. He “identified groups of people to be physically liquidated, defined the numerical limits (targets), and in the course of the Terror operations raised the limits sharply.” (Kuromiya 713).

One of the other major elements of Stalin’s regime was the Holodomor, also known as The Great Famine of 1932-1933. While Stalin’s role in the Holodomor is also, at times, contested, the outcome is not. Stalin’s move to forced agricultural collectivization was one of the most expensive failures of his regime in terms of human cost. There was tremendous resistance to his policies by Russian farmers and peasants, and Stalin’s response was brutal. The government consolidating and holding grain reserves, paired with unseasonably poor harvest led to millions of people dying of famine in 1933, mostly in Ukraine. (Davies 246). With that being said, the recent release of a trove of archival soviet files put into question whether the millions of starvation-related deaths were truly a result of Stalin’s cruelty, or a combination of poor bureaucratic planning and bad luck in terms of low harvest numbers. The newly uncovered information contradicts the claims that Stalin deliberately withheld grain supplies that could have stopped widespread famine. Following the data and records within these new supplies, the data shows that the government was not actually sitting on massive grain reserves and chose to withhold them, intentionally allowing millions of peasants to die of starvations. Historians actually argue that “a Soviet grain handbook published in 1932 noted that "all attempts to create a large grain reserve did not have positive results," even though "the difficulties experienced in 1927/28 and 1928/29 revealed the categorical necessity of creating such a reserve.” Whether Stalin’s role in The Holodomor showed cruelty or bureaucratic failure, the millions of deaths from starvation are a permanent mark of Stalin’s regime.

Joseph Stalin's regime as the supreme leader of the Soviet Union was marked both by its rapid growth into an industrial superpower and by several catastrophic events that led to the deaths of millions of people. Stalin is one of the most polarizing figures of all time and his legacy is deeply complex. Modern research, including the partial opening of Soviet archives, allows for greater insight into the kind of dictator Stalin was, and the legacy that he left behind. 

Works Cited

Davies, R. W., et al. “Stalin, Grain Stocks and the Famine of 1932-1933.” Slavic Review, vol. 54, no. 3, 1995, pp. 642–57. JSTOR, Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.

Davis, Jonathan. “The Birth of the Soviet Union and the Death of the Russian Revolution - JSTOR Daily.” JSTOR Daily, 2022, . Accessed 7 Nov. 2024.

Hampton Roads Naval Museum. “The Russian Revolution and the Rise of  Joseph Stalin.” Navy History,  Accessed 7 Nov. 2024.

Kotkin, Stephen. “Why Does Joseph Stalin Matter?” Hoover Institution, 7 June 2018.

Kuromiya, Hiroaki. “Stalin and His Era.” The Historical Journal, vol. 50, no. 3, 2007, pp. 711–24. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20175118. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.

Shearer, David. “Stalin at War, 1918-1953: Patterns of Violence and Foreign Threat.” Jahrbücher Für Geschichte Osteuropas, vol. 66, no. 2, 2018, pp. 188–217. JSTOR. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.

Tucker, Robert C. “The Rise of Stalin’s Personality Cult.” The American Historical Review, vol. 84, no. 2, 1979, pp. 347–66. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/1855137. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.

Uldricks, Teddy J. “Stalin and Nazi Germany.” Slavic Review, vol. 36, no. 4, 1977, pp. 599–603. JSTOR. Accessed 10 Oct. 2024.

Artist Statement

I chose to research Joseph Stalin because I found him to be a fascinating historical figure. I knew a bit about him going into the this assignment, but I really tried to take this project as an opportunity to learn more about him. During my research, I learned about the Holodomor, which was a terrifying period of Soviet history where millions of people died from starvation. There was a fair amount of disagreement regarding Stalin's role in the great famines, with some historians arguing that he intentionally led millions of people to starvation. 

I enjoyed writing the script and found the creative process of script-writing a lot of fun. The editing of the video was challenging at times, especially in terms of making sure that everything lined up perfectly for the video to have a good flow. This project overall was incredibly informative and I'll always remember practicing my lines as Stalin. Playing Stalin gave me an glimpse into the tremendous power he wielded during World War II, one of the most chaotic times in human history. It is hard to think about someone with that much authoritative power these days, though a few current world leaders come to mind as they seem to be trying to grasp it.