Weaknesses Of Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin was and still is universally known for his harsh leadership in the Soviet Union. To examine the extent of his cruelness, World Civilization II: The Rise and Fall of Empires© 1500-present stated, "Stalin was not a communist; he was a sociopath. He enjoyed hurting people and ordering their deaths. In his time as dictator of the Soviet Union, he was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of his people, and the cruel torture and imprisonment of millions more" (Sattler, 71). However, this only scratches the surface of what Stalin put the Soviet Union through. Stalin was a very persuasive man, his writings make it seem as if he is in the right and is innocent. To support this statement, two pieces of Stalin's writings were

Fordham University entailed, "if there were a proletarian dictatorship not only in our country but in other, more advanced countries as well, Germany and France, say.If that were the case, the capitalist encirclement could not be so serious a danger as it is now, " With these three quotes excerpted thus far, it is clear to see that Stalin played the victim card, making the Soviet Union seemed completely doomed. To fix this awful problem, the answer lied in the rapid industrialization he desperately wanted and eventually achieved (Fordham University). Stalin also explained on the Soviet Unions issues internally. Fordham University stated, "But besides the external conditions, there are also internal conditions which dictate a fast rate of development of our industry as the main foundation of our entire national economy. I am referring to the extreme backwardness of our agriculture, of its technical and cultural level. I am referring to the existence in our country of an overwhelming preponderance of small commodity producers, with their scattered and utterly backward production, compared with which our large-scale socialist industry is like an island in the midst of the sea, an island whose base is expanding daily, but which is nevertheless an island in the midst of the sea" (Fordham

He begins with the statement on how many people are happy with the achievements of socialism has achieved, but one class was not happy (Fordham University). This class was known as the gentry, Stalin described them as follows, "These gentry were guided in their evaluation of the achievements of the workers and collective farmers not by the interests of the people, who applauded every such achievement, but by the interests of their own wretched and putrid faction, which had lost all contact with the realities of life” (Fordham University). Next speeches by the gentry were analyzed, Fordham University States, “At the Seventeenth Party Congress, Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky made repentant speeches, praising the Party and extolling its achievements to the skies. But the congress detected a ring of insincerity and duplicity in their speeches” “Speeches were also made at the Seventeenth Congress by the Trotskyites, Zinoviev and Kamenev, who lashed themselves extravagantly for their mistakes, and eulogized the Party no less extravagantly for its achievements.” By the writing of Stalin, it seemed that this group of individuals were plain