Stalin's role in Russian victory celebrated

jonniebgood1 · 03-02-2013 10:45pm #1

During recent commemorations the Russian city of Volgograd has been temporarily renamed Stalingrad.

Reuters report

The memory of the world war II experience in Russia is inextricably linked to Stalin which seems to present a problem to many people.

So should Russians be proud of Stalin for his role in WWII or should they see him in the context of the many crimes, including war crimes which he was responsible for. Should there be shame in his name or can positives be taken from Stalingrad that see him remembered in a partially positive light.

pinkypinky · 04-02-2013 12:13pm

Very difficult thing to call...without the Russian input, WWII would have ended very differently but the Soviet Union was destroyed by Stalin. Once you go outside Moscow & Petersburg, it's a different Russia, where Communist statues still stand and people haven't seen that much change since 1991.

It's a bit like equating Hitler's efforts to restore the economy in Germany in the early 30s (autobahns, jobs programs, Volkswagon, etc) and saying "ah, he did some good".

Thomas_I · 04-02-2013 12:43pm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

During recent commemorations the Russian city of Volvograd has been temporarily renamed Stalingrad.

Reuters report

The memory of the world war II experience in Russia is inextricably linked to Stalin which seems to present a problem to many people.

So should Russians be proud of Stalin for his role in WWII or should they see him in the context of the many crimes, including war crimes which he was responsible for. Should there be shame in his name or can positives be taken from Stalingrad that see him remembered in a partially positive light.

That´s really a difficult question and one can´t avoid to acknowledge that he was the "leading figure" of Russias resitance and counterattack against the invading Germans in WWII. He was made to this figure by the Soviet propaganda, but when he was told that the Germans invaded in 1941, he has been in agony for far too long a time when it was necessary to give plain and quick orders to the Red Army to counter the invading German forces. He even has been warned by Churchill himself that the Germans will invade Russia, but he disbelieved that.
Some historians say that it was to the advantage of the Red Army that Stalin himself didn´t interfere with his Generals too much in strategic matters, but one should not forget that he also brought many Generals to executions in the 1930s. Despite his efforts during WWII and the victory of the Red Army in 1945 to capture Berlin, Stalin was a cruel mass murderer through all the decades while he was leading the USSR.

There seems to be some nostalgia in Russia by looking back to these times and the way Putin is changing his office as PM and President of Russia doesn´t leaves one to believe that Russia has become a democratic country. On the contrary they are rather getting backwards and one has just to bear in mind the office Putin held in the Soviet era while serving for the KGB.

It´s a tricky thing to "commemorate" the fallen of WWII and paying respect to Stalin, but it´s the decision of the Russian people how they think but the oppressed people there, fighting for democracy in Russia surely have a clear and different view on such matters.

grenache · 05-02-2013 9:53am

Soviet generals won victory, not Stalin. Zhukov was the primary reason behind the Russian victory in WW2.

If anybody warrants having a city in their name, it's Zhukov.

Snickers Man · 05-02-2013 3:32pm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

So should Russians be proud of Stalin for his role in WWII or should they see him in the context of the many crimes, including war crimes which he was responsible for.

The Russian people and indeed everyone else should see the war in its proper historic and strategic context before they/we can start attributing responsibility and blame to the constituent players.

The war against Hitler was, if we look at it objectively, clinically and honestly a death struggle between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. Other countries' fates, including those of Britain France and even the USA were all dependent on their relative importance to that titanic struggle.

It was a struggle big enough to overwhelm the British and French Empires, especially when Japan got in on the act and became the catalyst for the decolonisation of South East Asia by the Western Imperial powers.

Not to mention the smaller older empires of such as the Dutch and Portugese.

Every country was entitled to see their own situation in their own terms. Plenty of good decent people fought on the side of the Axis for good and defensible reasons.

If, that is, you look on the war as a clash between massive economic and strategic imperial titans and not a moral crusade between goodies and baddies.

Of course you can get into trouble for thinking like that......:)

Reekwind · 06-02-2013 4:56pm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

So should Russians be proud of Stalin for his role in WWII or should they see him in the context of the many crimes, including war crimes which he was responsible for. Should there be shame in his name or can positives be taken from Stalingrad that see him remembered in a partially positive light.

I think the problem is in how that discussion is framed: 'Stalin the Hero' or 'Stalin the Monster'. Neither leaves much room for 'Stalin the Generalissimo'

It shouldn't be Soviet war crimes that detracts from Stalin's war record, rather his own performance is damning enough. The best that can be said of his leadership in the war is that he eventually learnt to trust his generals and step back from day-to-day management of military operations. Less flatteringly, this came too late to save approx 3-4m Soviet casualties

The effective destruction of the Red Army in the Border Battles was largely the fault of Stalin. It was he who insisted on a forward defence along the border, it was he who refused to believe field reports of an impending invasion and it was he who prevented Red Army formations moving to combat readiness until it was too late. The near complete tactical and strategic surprise that led to the devastating defeats of the summer of '41 was largely the fault of the Stalinist high command. The Soviet soldiers fought bravely and where their commanders had the initiative to disobey Moscow's directives they fought with some success

That the USSR just about survived and went on to ultimately win the war should be seen as something achieved in spite of Stalin, not because of him

jonniebgood1 · 06-02-2013 8:42pm

Snickers Man wrote: »

The Russian people and indeed everyone else should see the war in its proper historic and strategic context before they/we can start attributing responsibility and blame to the constituent players.

The war against Hitler was, if we look at it objectively, clinically and honestly a death struggle between the Third Reich and the Soviet Union. Other countries' fates, including those of Britain France and even the USA were all dependent on their relative importance to that titanic struggle.

Reekwind- That the USSR just about survived and went on to ultimately win the war should be seen as something achieved in spite of Stalin, not because of him

I suppose what I am getting at is the question of what is the Russian perspective on the war. There was a Russian series on the military history channel over the last few years now and it focused on the war in the East almost exclusively. Emphasis was always given to the man at the top, i.e. Stalin or Hitler and lesser then to the western allied leaders. Most western views are disproportionate in focus on the whole war when judged by the numbers at battle so the fact that this move has been made in Volvograd perhaps carries some weight than can be cast as poorly guided fans of Stalin who don't understand what he really did. His military purges of the late 30's decimated the armies command structure and this meant disaster early in the war. Undoing some of these wrongs went some way to recognising the problem and could quite easily not have taken place. It is too simple to say that the war was won in spite of him, if that was the case I dont think the city renaming would take place.

Reekwind · 06-02-2013 9:47pm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

Undoing some of these wrongs went some way to recognising the problem and could quite easily not have taken place

So we laud Stalin for salvaging something from a disaster of his own making? I don't see the logic in that

Stalin's flawed policies allowed German armies to reach the gates of Moscow (and later Stalingrad); the Soviets only recovered when he relaxed his grip on the military. His later reputation is not due to any military accomplishments

It is too simple to say that the war was won in spite of him, if that was the case I dont think the city renaming would take place.

I don't follow. The city was renamed Stalingrad (amongst other places in 1925. It became Volgograd in 1961 during the period of de-Stalinisation

jonniebgood1 · 06-02-2013 11:51pm

Reekwind wrote: »

So we laud Stalin for salvaging something from a disaster of his own making? I don't see the logic in that

The alternative to 'salvaging something' in this case would be losing world war II. It is entirely logical that he receive some credit for the eventual outcome of the Red army defeating the Germans. I would note that the lauding in this case is from the Russians and citizens of Volvograd. They obviously see logic evidenced by the renaming for commemorations.

Reekwind wrote: »

I don't follow. The city was renamed Stalingrad (amongst other places in 1925. It became Volgograd in 1961 during the period of de-Stalinisation

Same point as above- The city is temporarily referred to as Stalingrad by choice for these commemorations. The point to be clear is that the Russian perspective seems to give more credit to Stalin than most western viewpoints (including yours it seems).

Reekwind · 07-02-2013 10:25am

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

The alternative to 'salvaging something' in this case would be losing world war II

Only because Stalin's failed policies had led the USSR to the point of defeat. The purging of the Red Army, the regression of military doctrine, the Nazi-Soviet NAP, the disaster of Barbarossa, the flawed deployments prior to Case Blue... all of these were costly errors and all of these have Stalin's personal hand in them. This is what's Stalin's reputation should rest on, not the desperate efforts of others to recover from these

To an analogy, if a football team is 0-3 down at half time and then the manager gets sent off then no one would credit the manager with the subsequent comeback that sees it finishing 4-3. Quite the opposite: the manager would be eviscerated for his flawed formation and team selection, while the players receive credit for the result. The opposite seems to happen too often in Soviet history

So I reject entirely efforts to frame the discussion as 'how Stalin saved the USSR from the nadir of 1941'. That's akin to starting a discussion on the early 1930s famines in 1933 and lauding Stalin for increasing grain production

The point to be clear is that the Russian perspective seems to give more credit to Stalin than most western viewpoints (including yours it seems).

The lesson clearly being that it is easier to build a cult of personality than it is to tear one down

It should not be surprising that the Soviet/Russian narrative of the GPW has never dwelt overly on the various disasters that preceeded the triumphs. That's partly a natural tendency to play down defeats and ply up victories (as the British focus on N Africa and the transformation of Dunkirk demonstrates) but also a product of the Soviet state's obsession with propaganda and perception. Soviet casualties figures are notoriously unreliable and entire offensives were effectively erased from the history books. A good chunk of what we know about the Eastern Front, and Stalin's role in it, was not available even twenty years ago

Besides, the GPW was pretty much the climax of Stalin's cult of personality, the point at which his font of authority became not Lenin, not the divisive cultural/economic revolution of the 1930s but rather the far more popular and unifying triumph over fascism. Nothing confers legitimacy like victory. When Soviet soldiers cast down captured Nazi standards before Stalin it was the crowning moment of this narrative; a narrative that portrayed victory over Germany as the product of Stalin's genius

The unfortunate reality is that the de-Stalinisation process that followed his death was largely superficial and failed to challenge such myths. Now the Russian state finds it convenient to pander to such patriotic nonsense. As I said, it's little surprise that the myth of Stalin's leadership lives on in Russia

jonniebgood1 · 07-02-2013 1:46pm

Reekwind wrote: »

...p[;
So I reject entirely efforts to frame the discussion as 'how Stalin saved the USSR from the nadir of 1941'. That's akin to starting a discussion on the early 1930s famines in 1933 and lauding Stalin for increasing grain production
...

The unfortunate reality is that the de-Stalinisation process that followed his death was largely superficial and failed to challenge such myths. Now the Russian state finds it convenient to pander to such patriotic nonsense. As I said, it's little surprise that the myth of Stalin's leadership lives on in Russia

What do you put the events in the Reuters story in the OP down to?

Whilst there are hardliners that would sing Stalins praises in Russia his purges and other actions have been opened to scrutiny in recent years. Is it not simplistic to say that the Russians are just supporting a myth but we in the west are able to see through it? Perhaps this is the case?

Reekwind · 07-02-2013 2:54pm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

What do you put the events in the Reuters story in the OP down to?

Pretty much what the story itself put it down to: "...a decision by the city council intended to please the veterans".

Whilst there are hardliners that would sing Stalins praises in Russia his purges and other actions have been opened to scrutiny in recent years. Is it not simplistic to say that the Russians are just supporting a myth but we in the west are able to see through it? Perhaps this is the case?

I'm certainly not claiming any Western superiority here: the counterpoint to 'Stalin the Hero' is the 'Stalin the Devil' trope. Both are wrong. But it is true that the Eastern Front has never loomed large in the Western imagination and as a result Stalin's image benefits less from that association than in Russia. That just means that the popular conception of Stalin in Europe is flawed in a different way

(And of course it is simplistic to talk merely in terms of Stalin - as opposed to the Stalinist elite or even Team Stalin - but this is somewhat acceptable in the context of WWII, where Stalin himself did drive many of the initial key strategic decisions/policies/disasters)

laoch na mona · 07-02-2013 7:20pm

id be inclined to say Russia's positive contribution to the war effort was despite Stalin. He didn't help but then again if there were no five year plans would Russia have held on? It could also be said if the Bolsheviks never came to power Hitler wouldn't have either.

Jolly Red Giant · 07-02-2013 11:51pm

There has been a major effort underway in Russia to rehabilitate Stalin. This is being done in order to create a safe pair of hands out of the old Communist Party in case Putin's chickens come home to roost. Most of the oligarchs are former henchment in the CP and they know the CP can be made toe the line. As has been pointed out - capitalist restoration has been a disaster for Russia, particularly outside the main urban centres and the CP still has somewhat of a political base.

jonniebgood1 · 03-03-2013 8:06pm

RTE's history show had a small piece on the temporary renaming of Volvograd tonight. The referenced a poll that sought out the greatest Russian a few years ago.

Stalin came third

"The younger generation is fed with myths about Stalin. It knows nothing about the millions who died in Gulag camps but well knows he was a strong leader who defeated (Nazi) Germany," human rights activist Lev Ponomaryov told Reuters.

He said a whiff of Stalinism was felt in Russia's harsh tone with the West which has accused Moscow of backtracking on democratic reforms and keeping a tight lid on dissent.

"Again, foreign enemies are to blame for all internal problems, so you need to rule with an iron fist -- it's a purely Stalinist method."

Stalin's nostalgic supporters like to repeat that he defeated Nazi Germany, industrialized the Soviet Union and achieved total literacy across a backward peasant nation.

"Of course, there were also dark pages...and coming along with his genius there were also destructive moments, but in general he is remembered mostly as a great leader," Viktor Ilyukhin, a leading member of the Communist party, told Reuters. http://www.reuters.com/article/2008/12/28/us-russia-stalin-idUSTRE4BR17620081228

And I think this summary is very accurate:

Any unequivocal assessment of Stalin’s role leads to conflict: a focus on the achievements of the USSR under Stalin is interpreted as an attempt to justify his crimes, while the emphasis on his guilt is seen by those Russians who want to be proud of their past as damaging their identity. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/sponsored/russianow/features/9335008/josef-stalin-revered-reviled.html

ejmaztec · 04-03-2013 12:54pm

jonniebgood1 wrote: »

RTE's history show had a small piece on the temporary renaming of Volvograd tonight. The referenced a poll that sought out the greatest Russian a few years ago.

Stalin came third

And I think this summary is very accurate:

Am I missing something? When was it called Volvograd?

Reekwind · 04-03-2013 2:04pm

Heh, I'd missed that. It's 'Volgograd', as in the river, not 'Volvograd'. As entertaining as it is picturing a city dedicated to producing Volvo's, a la Tankograd

Edit: And yes, Stalingrad was renamed as Volgograd in 1961 as part of Khrushchev's de-Stalinisation campaign. Going back even further, the town had been called Tsaritsyn until 1925 when it was renamed in honour of Stalin

ejmaztec · 04-03-2013 2:13pm

Reekwind wrote: »

Heh, I'd missed that. It's 'Volgograd', as in the river, not 'Volvograd'. As entertaining as it is picturing a city dedicated to producing Volvo's, a la Tankograd

Edit: And yes, Stalingrad was renamed as Volgograd in 1961 as part of Khrushchev's de-Stalinisation campaign. Going back even further, the town had been called Tsaritsyn until 1925 when it was renamed in honour of Stalin

If anything, it would have been Ladagrad.

jonniebgood1 · 04-03-2013 2:30pm

Spelling schoolograd for me.

La_Gordy · 04-03-2013 2:34pm

I lived in southern Russia for a while and victory day is one of the biggest celebrations in Russia. We in the west seem to focus on Stalin and anything that seems to praise him as backward and negative. Any victory day celebration I've seen has always been about veterans and the war dead, not dictators or marshalls or even, as they call him, Gitler!

Stalin's role in Russian victory celebrated

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