Illustrates Felipe Cachopa
Edition Felipe van Deursen
CRIMINAL RECORD
Name – Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (1878-1953)
place of business – Former Soviet Union
deaths – 20 million people (estimate with all atrocities added together)
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1. Ioseb Jughashvili was born on December 18, 1878 in the Tbilisi region, the capital of present-day Georgia, which at that time was part of the Russian Empire. Son of a merchant and a maid, he was educated within the Orthodox Church. Young Ioseb was seen as an intellectual and idealistic minded person.
2. In 1903, Ioseb joined the Bolsheviks, a faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. He distributed propaganda, participated in the organization of strikes and raised funds through extortion, robbery and even murder. His “productivity” and charisma caught the attention of the party, which earned him a lightning-fast rise. In 1910, he changed his name and started to sign texts like Stalin
3. In 1917, Stalin was one of the key organizers of the Russian Revolution, which overthrew tsarism in the country. Bolshevik leader Lenin installed a new government, and in 1922 the Soviet Union was created. He died two years later and was succeeded by Stalin, which launched a policy of repression. Most former Bolshevik leaders such as Trotsky were assassinated between 1936 and 1940
4. The paranoia of Stalin it extended to his subordinates and sympathizers embedded in Soviet society. Political persecutions across the country became commonplace. Those who expressed an opinion against the government could be arrested, executed or sent to forced labor camps.
5. These areas were controlled by the Central Administration of Camps (Gulag). The main ones were in almost inaccessible regions and with extreme climatic conditions. Isolation, intense cold, heavy work, minimal food and precarious sanitary conditions raised death rates among prisoners
6. Parallel to the repression, Stalin played an aggressive development platform. In 1928, he initiated a plan that intended to transform the country, agrarian and backward, into an industrial power. The following year, he abolished private farms and formed agricultural collectives, replacing peasants with field experience with urban ideologues who did not know the land. Soon, the plantations felt the impact and production became scarce.
7. In 1932 and 1933, Ukraine, which functioned as the breadbasket of the USSR, suffered the horrors of this policy. The Soviets had diverted all of Ukraine’s production to feed the rest of the country. The problem is, there’s nothing left for them. About 5 million people died. The famine was so severe that there were reports of cannibalism. The tragedy is known as “Holodomor” (“extermination by starvation” in Ukrainian)
8. During the 2nd War (1939-1945), in Red Army attacks, atrocities such as mass rape and execution of prisoners and deserters were fairly common (incidentally, they were common on both sides of the confrontation). Even in war, Stalin he did not spare those closest to him. Government officials and military commanders were executed after pompous trials. They were public demonstrations of a regime from which no one could escape.
9. The dictator’s health deteriorated after the end of the war. In 1945, he had a cardiac arrest. On March 1, 1953, Stalin it was found on the floor of his bedroom, soaked with urine. He suffered a brain hemorrhage and was rushed to the hospital.
WHAT END DID IT TAKE?
Stalin died on March 5, 1953 of a heart attack accompanied by gastrointestinal bleeding. His remains are buried in Moscow.
SOURCES Reuters, The Independent, BBCNews, The New York Times It is Cambridge Journal of Economics; books Stalin: A Biographyby Robert Service, Berlin: The Downfall 1945by Anthony Beevor, and A Century of Violence in Soviet Russiaby Alexander Yakovlev