Estimates of Stalin's personality are controversial and there is a huge range of opinions about Stalin, and often they describe Stalin with opposite characteristics. On the one hand, many who spoke with Stalin spoke of him as a broadly and versatilely educated and extremely intelligent person. On the other hand, researchers of Stalin's biography often describe his negative character traits.

Some historians believe that Stalin established a personal dictatorship; others believe that until the mid-1930s the dictatorship was collective. The political system implemented by Stalin is usually referred to as "totalitarianism".

According to the conclusions of historians, the Stalinist dictatorship was an extremely centralized regime that relied primarily on powerful party-state structures, terror and violence, as well as on the mechanisms of ideological manipulation of society, the selection of privileged groups and the formation of pragmatic strategies.

According to Oxford University professor R. Hingley, for a quarter of a century before his death, Stalin had more political power than any other figure in history. He was not just a symbol of the regime, but a leader who made fundamental decisions and was the initiator of all significant state measures. Each member of the Politburo had to confirm his agreement with the decisions made by Stalin, while Stalin shifted responsibility for their implementation to persons accountable to him.

Of those adopted in 1930-1941. less than 4,000 were public, more than 28,000 were secret, of which 5,000 were so secret that only a narrow circle knew about them. A large part of the rulings dealt with minor issues, such as the location of monuments or the price of vegetables in Moscow. Decisions on complex issues were often made in the absence of information, especially of realistic cost estimates, which was accompanied by a desire by assigned project executors to inflate these estimates.

In addition to Georgian and Russian, Stalin read German relatively fluently, knew Latin, well-known ancient Greek, Church Slavonic, understood Farsi (Persian), and understood Armenian. In the mid-1920s, he also studied French.

The researchers note that Stalin was a very readable, erudite person and was interested in culture, including poetry. He spent a lot of time reading books, and after his death, his personal library remained, consisting of thousands of books, on the margins of which his notes remained. Stalin, in particular, read the books of Guy de Maupassant, Oscar Wilde, N.V. Gogol, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, L.D. Trotsky, L.B. Kamenev. Among the authors admired by Stalin are Emile Zola and F.M. Dostoevsky. He quoted long passages from the Bible, the works of Bismarck, the works of Chekhov. Stalin himself told some visitors, pointing to a stack of books on his desk: "This is my daily norm - 500 pages." Up to a thousand books were produced this way a year.

Historian R.A. Medvedev, speaking out against "often extremely exaggerated assessments of the level of his education and intellect", at the same time warns against underestimation. He notes that Stalin read a lot, and diversified, from fiction to popular science. In the pre-war period, Stalin paid most of his attention to historical and military-technical books, after the war he switched to reading works of a political direction, such as the History of Diplomacy, Talleyrand's biography.

Medvedev notes that Stalin, being responsible for the death of a large number of writers and the destruction of their books, at the same time patronized M. Sholokhov, A. Tolstoy and others, returns E. V. Tarle from exile, whose biography of Napoleon he treated with great interest and personally oversaw its publication, suppressing tendentious attacks on the book. Medvedev emphasizes Stalin's knowledge of the national Georgian culture; in 1940, Stalin himself makes changes to the new translation of The Knight in the Panther's Skin.

The English writer and statesman Charles Snow also characterized Stalin's educational level as quite high:

One of the many curious circumstances related to Stalin: he was much more educated in the literary sense than any of his contemporary statesmen. Compared to him, Lloyd George and Churchill are remarkably ill-read people. As did Roosevelt.

There is evidence that back in the 1920s, Stalin visited the play “Days of the Turbins” by the then little-known writer M. A. Bulgakov eighteen times. At the same time, despite the difficult situation, he walked without personal protection and transport. Stalin also maintained personal contacts with other cultural figures: musicians, film actors, directors. Stalin personally entered into polemics with the composer D.D. Shostakovich.

Stalin also loved cinema and was willingly interested in directing. One of the directors with whom Stalin was personally acquainted was A.P. Dovzhenko. Stalin liked such films by this director as "Arsenal", "Aerograd". Stalin also personally edited the script for the film Shchors. Contemporary researchers of Stalin do not know if Stalin liked films about himself, but in 16 years (from 1937 to 1953) 18 films were made with Stalin.

L. D. Trotsky called Stalin "an outstanding mediocrity" who does not forgive anyone "spiritual superiority."

Russian historian L.M. Batkin, acknowledging Stalin's love of reading, believes that he was an "aesthetically dense" reader, and at the same time remained a "practical politician." Batkin believes that Stalin had no idea "of the existence of such a 'subject' as art", of a "special artistic world" and the structure of this world. On the example of Stalin's statements on literary and cultural topics, cited in the memoirs of Konstantin Simonov, Batkin concludes that "everything that Stalin says, everything that he thinks about literature, cinema and other things, is utterly ignorant," and that the hero of the memoirs - " rather primitive and vulgar type. For comparison with the words of Stalin, Batkin cites marginals - the heroes of Mikhail Zoshchenko; in his opinion, they hardly differ from Stalin's statements. In general, according to Batkin's conclusion, Stalin brought "certain energy" of a semi-educated and average layer of people to a "pure, strong-willed, outstanding form." Batkin fundamentally refused to consider Stalin as a diplomat, military leader, and economist.

During Stalin's lifetime, Soviet propaganda created an aura of "great leader and teacher" around his name. Cities, enterprises, equipment were named after Stalin and the names of his closest associates. His name was mentioned in the same row with Marx, Engels and Lenin. He was often mentioned in songs, films, books.

During Stalin's lifetime, attitudes towards him ranged from benevolent and enthusiastic to negative. As the creator of an interesting social experiment, Stalin was treated, in particular, by Bernard Shaw, Lion Feuchtwanger, Herbert Wells, Henri Barbusse. Anti-Stalinist positions were occupied by a number of communist leaders who accused Stalin of destroying the party, of departing from the ideals of Lenin and Marx. This approach originated in the environment of the so-called. "Leninist guard" (F.F. Raskolnikov, L.D. Trotsky, N.I. Bukharin, M.N. Ryutin), was supported by separate youth groups.

According to the position of the former President of the USSR M. S. Gorbachev, "Stalin is a man covered in blood." The attitude of representatives of society adhering to liberal democratic values, in particular, is reflected in their assessment of the repressions carried out during the Stalin era against a number of nationalities of the USSR: in the Law of the RSFSR of April 26, 1991 No. 1107-I "On the rehabilitation of repressed peoples", signed by the president RSFSR B. N. Yeltsin, it is argued that in relation to a number of peoples of the USSR at the state level, on the grounds of national or other affiliation, "a policy of slander and genocide was carried out."

According to Trotsky in The Revolution Betrayed: What is the USSR and where is it going? view of the Stalinist Soviet Union as a deformed workers' state. The categorical rejection of Stalin's authoritarianism, which perverted the principles of Marxist theory, is characteristic of the dialectical-humanist tradition in Western Marxism, represented, in particular, by the Frankfurt School. One of the first studies of the USSR as a totalitarian state belongs to Hannah Arendt (“The Origins of Totalitarianism”), who also identified herself (with some reservations) as a leftist.

Thus, a number of historians and publicists generally approve of Stalin's policy and consider him a worthy successor to Lenin's cause. In particular, within the framework of this direction, a book about Stalin by the Hero of the Soviet Union M.S. Dokuchaev "History remembers". Other representatives of the direction admit that Stalin had some mistakes with a generally correct policy (R.I. Kosolapov’s book “A Word to Comrade Stalin”), which is close to the Soviet interpretation of Stalin’s role in the country’s history. So, in the index of names to the Complete Works of Lenin, the following is written about Stalin: “In addition to the positive side, there was also a negative side in Stalin's activities. While holding the most important party and state posts, Stalin committed gross violations of the Leninist principles of collective leadership and the norms of party life, violation of socialist legality, unjustified mass repressions against prominent state, political and military figures of the Soviet Union and other honest Soviet people. The Party resolutely condemned and put an end to the personality cult of Stalin alien to Marxism-Leninism and its consequences, approved the work of the Central Committee to restore and develop the Leninist principles of leadership and the norms of party life in all areas of party, state and ideological work, took measures to prevent such errors and distortions in the future." Other historians consider Stalin to be the undertaker of the "Russophobic" Bolsheviks, who restored Russian statehood. The initial period of Stalin's rule, in which many actions of an "anti-systemic" nature were undertaken, is considered by them only as a preparation for the main action, which does not determine the main direction of Stalin's activity. One can cite as an example the articles by I. S. Shishkin “The Internal Enemy”, and V. A. Michurin “The Twentieth Century in Russia through the L. N. Gumilyov’s Theory of Ethnogenesis” and the works of V. V. Kozhinov. Kozhinov considers repressions to be largely necessary, collectivization and industrialization to be economically justified, and Stalinism itself to be the result of a world historical process in which Stalin only found a good niche. From this follows the main thesis of Kozhinov: history made Stalin, not Stalin made history.

Based on the results of Chapter II, we can conclude that the name of Stalin, even decades after his funeral, remains a factor in the ideological and political struggle. For some people, he is a symbol of the country's power, its accelerated industrial modernization, and its merciless fight against abuses. For others - a bloody dictator, a symbol of despotism, a madman and a criminal. Only at the end of the 20th century. in the scientific literature, this figure began to be considered more objectively. A.I. Solzhenitsyn, I.R. Shafarevich, V. Makhnach condemn Stalin as a Bolshevik - the destroyer of Orthodox Russian culture and traditional Russian society, guilty of mass repressions and crimes against the Russian people. An interesting fact is that on January 13, 2010, the Kyiv Court of Appeal found Stalin (Dzhugashvili) and other Soviet leaders guilty of the genocide of the Ukrainian people in 1932-1933 under Part 1 of Art. 442 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine (genocide). It is alleged that as a result of this genocide in Ukraine, 3 million 941 thousand people died. However, this is more of a political decision than a legal one.

Board results

Stalinism is violence and terror that grew out of revolutionary permissiveness. And Stalin, with his difficult, broken character and specific Eastern mentality, played a huge and truly sinister role here. But people from his environment also contributed to the course of these processes - gifted, ambitious, but with a meager education and low culture. They idolized their leader, and they "trampled" him after his death, while keeping the Stalinist system itself almost untouched. Discussing this system, A.N. Sakharov, we will inevitably come to the conclusion that it has not completely disappeared even today, especially if we have in mind our psychology. The thing is that it gave a simple little man some kind of exclusive position, making him the "white bone" of society. Therefore, fragments of it remain part of Russia's movement towards the future, some new unknown world.

In the report, d.h.s. A.S. Senyavsky "What legacy did I.V. Stalin leave: the results of Stalin's rule and their impact on the national history of the second half of the 20th century." It was noted that in the history of Russia of the XX century. there is no other historical figure of such magnitude. If Lenin - this "destroyer of the old world" influenced events mainly ideologically, then Stalin not only during his lifetime for three decades practically created a new society, spreading its influence and ideology throughout the world, but even after his death he retained this influence through his legacy - the Soviet system and the "world system of socialism". Stalin's worldview and methods of activity are not an accident, but a natural product of an entire historical era, largely predetermined by the patriarchy and backwardness of Russia in the conditions of the "modernization imperative" and the "marginalization" of society. The liberal alternative in our country at the beginning of the 20th century. was a utopia, an attempt to implement which only provoked a revolutionary explosion. The only real alternatives to the left radicals were the right-wing radicals, i.e. tough general dictatorship, but her country, as you know, also rejected, accepting the dictatorship of the social marginals - the Bolsheviks. The moral and psychological shock of the world and civil wars by the beginning of the 1920s. made violence the norm. The matrix of inner-party norms of underground revolutionaries was transferred to the system of government of the entire country. It is here that the roots of the repressiveness of the Bolshevik regime as a whole, including the period of Stalin's rule, lie. The leader formed the system, the system adjusted the leader “for itself”. It is scientifically incorrect to evaluate Stalinism from the standpoint of morality, because there is no moral politics. Stalinism is an inseparable unity of crimes, failures and historical victories, social suffering, violence, repression and social achievements. Stalinism is a socialized version of the modernization breakthrough of a backward country under conditions of severe external pressure and the "historical time pressure" in which the Soviet government found itself. Therefore, any one-sided assessments of him are biased and inadequate.

In reality, Stalin did the following: 1) finally formed the entire Soviet social system with its political, social, economic institutions and principles (socialist statism, state ownership, directive-planned economy, etc.); 2) radically changed the doctrinaire ideology of Bolshevism, abandoning the course of "world revolution" and turning the international revolutionary movement into an instrument of real defense of the interests of the USSR; 3) curtailed the NEP and carried out a forced industrial modernization of the country, using the mobilization of all internal resources in the absence of external ones; 4) in the situation of an imminent new world war, he prevented the formation of a united front of the Western powers against the USSR; 5) provided fundamental (industrialization) and situational (political strategy, gaining allies, military-political leadership) conditions for victory in World War II; 6) laid the foundation for the transformation of the USSR into a superpower (post-war world order, possession of a high scientific, technical, military, nuclear potential). The speaker emphasized that there are no moral justifications for Stalin's repressions, but they should be understood as a product of the era and a continuation of the methods of the Civil War. Russia in this was not something unique, since the 20th century is the apogee of violence in world history. Collectivization became an alternative to agrarian "Stolypin-style modernization." The latter did not work out in Russia, but led to an aggravation of social hatred, which manifested itself in the revolution of 1917 and in the Civil War. Stalin carried out this modernization, ensuring industrialization at the expense of the village, but retaining as his support the social matrices of peasant communal traditionalism. The success of industrialization, for all its incompleteness, allowed the USSR almost single-handedly to resist the military and economic potential of not only fascist Germany, but almost all of Western Europe.

Under Stalin, the USSR became a world power, one of the two leaders of opposing social systems, a permanent member of the UN Security Council, a country that controlled the center of Europe, many countries of the disintegrating colonial world, the world communist, labor and, to a large extent, national liberation movement. The borders of the USSR were reliably protected by both geopolitical acquisitions and a powerful army. The main result of Stalin's rule is that Russia has become a modern power. No wonder W. Churchill said: Stalin took Russia with a plow, and left it with a nuclear bomb and missiles. But something else is also important: the Soviet system preserved the "civilizational genotype" of Russia, providing the modernization potential for further development on its own socio-cultural basis. How it will be used depends both on the system created by Stalin and on the activities of his heirs. In the middle of the XX century. The USSR was on the rise, almost at the zenith of its power. The potential laid down under Stalin inertially provided our country with several more decades of stable development and rapid transformation into a military-economic superpower. But later it was wasted. Stalin turned out to be capable of adapting ideology, politics, and the socio-economic system to the requirements of the time and the current tasks of the USSR. Subsequent leaders proved to be less flexible and far-sighted.

The system was supposed to be transformed according to historical changes, but this did not happen. Finding out the reasons for this is one of the key tasks of historical science. Before us is a wide field for scientific analysis of the relationship between regularity and chance, the role of social institutions and the individual in history. The categorical verdict of the fundamental inability of the Soviet model for effective transformation seems to the speaker to be unfounded and premature. "There is no other way" - the apotheosis of a fatalistic, non-alternative approach to history, "a simple answer to a complex question", behind which stand the profanation of science and elementary political engagement.

Report by Doctor of History Yu.N. Zhukov was devoted to the problem of Stalin's legacy in the political sphere and its overcoming. The speaker noted that Stalinism is a complex phenomenon, for the understanding of which several points are important. It merged both the revolutionary heritage and what it never was. The author saw confirmation of this thesis, in particular, in the position of Milyukov, who believed that Stalin actually realized the "ideals of the white movement" (which, by the way, was Milyukov's argument in favor of appealing to white émigrés in 1941 with a call to stand up for the defense of the USSR). The Stalinist course was fundamentally different from what it was in the days of Lenin, Trotsky and Zinoviev: the interests of the USSR became the main ones for the country's leadership. Another important point was that no socialism, according to Stalin, can be fully built in the USSR as long as the country is surrounded by capitalism. It is also important that already in the mid-1930s. Stalin made an attempt to remove the partyocracy from power. According to the speaker, both the constitutional reform and the attempt to hold elections on an alternative basis were connected with this in order to remove the nominees from the period of the revolution and the Civil War from power. It was not Stalin, but precisely the partyocracy that unleashed mass repressions, creating a situation in which alternative elections that did not meet its interests became impossible. Finally, for understanding Stalinism, a natural, as Zhukov believes, attempt to turn a multinational country into a unitary state is important, since fragmentation into separate regions along national lines created a threat to the country's security, which was most acutely revealed during the Second World War, when it was necessary recruit representatives of all nationalities into the army, and many recruits could not even follow the orders of commanders because of their lack of knowledge of the Russian language. History resolved the dispute between Lenin and Stalin on the national question in favor of Stalin: the result of Lenin's national policy and the formation of the USSR was, according to Zhukov, 1991. The speaker also stressed that he did not find evidence in the archives that Stalin was not omnipotent, since he could not step over the decisions of the Politburo and the Central Committee. Characteristically, Malenkov also tried to limit the power of the partocracy, depriving it of most of the privileges and "envelopes". He suggested stopping the arms race and raising the living standards of the people. And then the September plenum of the Central Committee (1953), in violation of the decisions of the March one, liquidated the system of collective leadership of the party, recreated the post of first secretary of the Central Committee and elected Khrushchev to this post. As a result of these changes, the development of heavy industry again became a priority, the omnipotence of party officials was strengthened, regardless of their abilities, education and practical experience. How it ended is known.

Doctor of History B.S. Ilizarov presented a report on the topic "The Historiosophy of Stalinism." The speaker emphasized that he had a different view of Stalin, his time and the influence of Stalinism on the present than the previous speaker. Lenin and his comrades-in-arms only cleared the "construction site", while Stalin was the true creator and the only free manager of the USSR. There was an alternative to his policy, but Stalin successfully fought for the implementation of his plans. Contrary to the opinion of Yu.N. Zhukov, Stalin was omnipotent. By the end of the 1920s. he has achieved an incredible concentration of power and levers of total control in his hands. The speaker compared the state created by Stalin with the "Tower of Babel", which lasted more than seventy years, but collapsed in a historic overnight, because there were irreparable flaws in the "project" itself, and human blood was the bonding material. As soon as at least one repressive bond was weakened in the structure of the state, the death of the entire structure became inevitable. But the legacy remains in the social memory of the people, the ideological constructs and Stalinist dogmas are preserved, imposed on them by the system of propaganda, education and upbringing. Stalin left his "philosophy of history", his "picture of the world", which included both the personal biography of the leader and the interpretation of many historical events. This philosophy was recorded in the "Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks", as well as in a number of history textbooks. The history of Russia was placed at the center of the world process, and in it the Russian people. The history of one party - the Communist Party, the October Revolution and the Civil War - became the apotheosis of the history of Russia-USSR, and the "leader of all times and peoples" became the central figure. Before the collapse of the USSR, the fundamental idea and supporting elements of Stalinist historiosophy did not change. And today our past "shoots at our present." Any attempt to establish a new unitarism in any form will lead to the same result - another "Tower of Babel" with all the consequences. In his report "The Polish Version of Stalinism", Professor E. Durachinsky (Poland), using the example of one of the countries of the "Soviet bloc", examined the history of the implementation of the Stalinist model outside the USSR. The speaker noted that Poland, contrary to Moscow's policy of unification, was different from the rest of the countries of the Eastern Bloc and was "not the most successful student in the school of Stalinism." But she also had to go through in 1948-1956. difficult period of totalitarianism. Already at that time, Polish authors outside the country, and since 1956 in Poland itself, used the concept of "Stalinism" in a negative sense and tried to analyze it as a criminal system. E. Durachinsky joins those who define Stalinism as "left totalitarianism" and the post-Stalin era as a period of "communist authoritarianism."

The speaker dwelled in detail on the historiography of the issue, considering specific Polish works of different times. In Poland, the problems of repressions, anti-totalitarian resistance, the role of the Roman Catholic Church as a defender of national and human values ​​are well studied. Many works have been published on the history of the political crisis of 1956, mass student protests in 1970, workers' protests in 1976, a giant strike in August 1980, as well as on the birth and activities of the Solidarity trade union headed by Lech Walesa.

Without Poland's dependence on Moscow, Stalinism in it would have been simply impossible. At the same time, the mechanism of such subordination and its forms changed. After 1956, it became less and less noticeable for society, and in the field of culture, it was almost invisible at all, although the policy of unifying the countries of the Eastern Bloc, forcibly copying the Soviet system and introducing Stalinism, and then "real socialism" continued. But in Poland, far from everything turned out the way Moscow demanded. This is especially true of the village, the church and the sphere of culture. The country's leadership was forced to reckon with the resistance of the peasantry, so it was not possible to carry out collectivization in Poland, and in the pro-Soviet bloc it remained the only state dominated by the private sector. Over time, the level of fear also decreased, and by the beginning of the 1980s. most Poles were not afraid of almost anyone and nothing. And here it is worth remembering Stalin himself, who once said that it is easier to saddle a cow than to build socialism in Poland, as he understood it. Stalinism in Poland is already a thing of the past. In the village, he did not have time to take root, but in other areas he was quickly outlived and, first of all, in the spiritual life. But Stalin left a legacy (not only bad) and a memory of himself: he dictated the Polish borders and thereby saved the country from potential conflicts with Lithuania and Ukraine. In the report, d.h.s. B.C. Lelchuk, the central theme was the legacy of Stalinism in the field of industrialization. They say, he said, that thanks to industrialization, the USSR won the war. But this is not serious! Did we fight one on one with Hitler? And what did we manage to do for the army before 1941? It is also necessary to answer the question of what was meant by industrialization by Lenin and Stalin? Lenin at the end of the 19th century. introduced the term "industrialization of the population", which requires not only equipment, but also personnel, educated specialists. In other words, we need people who will raise technology in Russia to the world level. Let us now recall the main slogan of the first five-year plan: "Technology decides everything!" It is quite obvious that Stalin, who liked to quote Lenin, departed from him here. By the end of the five-year plan, however, it turned out that the technicians had bought a lot, but could not master it. Then a new slogan was thrown: "Cadres who have mastered technology decide everything!" But how many training schools were opened then? Stalin declared industrialization completed three times - the last time in 1939. 202

But the main issue has not been resolved: the West has even more overtaken us in terms of labor productivity. In the USSR, almost everything was built by hand and at what cost! There were not enough workers - they began to create camps. NEP made it possible to solve the problem of accumulation for industrialization. Why was it discarded? Yes, because Stalin needed a country that would unquestioningly obey him and only him. Post-war industrialization was also slowed down by Stalin: read "The Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR". The example of the atomic bomb is typical: back in 1939, our specialists proposed a project that was better than the American one, but it was shelved, and in 1946 the bomb was created according to American drawings. As a result, our industrialization has not yet been completed. Now it is necessary to catch up with already post-industrial, "information" societies, and it will be very difficult to do this because of the consequences of the domination of the command-administrative system. In the speech, Ph.D. G.V. Kostyrchenko "Stalin and the national question in the USSR" touched upon the most acute problem in Russian history, which turned out to be fatal for the fate of the Soviet state in the 20th century. Surprisingly, in pre-revolutionary times, the national question was perceived by the majority of Russian parties as secondary. Only the Social Democracy, especially the Bolsheviks, paid significant attention to it, and it was Stalin, on the instructions of Lenin, who took up its theoretical development. However, he was not original. The Bolsheviks initially preached the inequality of peoples, whose rights were made dependent on their numbers, the size and location of the occupied territories, and other factors. The program of cultural and national autonomy criticized by Stalin was by no means "curious": it contained a rational scheme for solving national problems on the basis of a homogeneous territorial and administrative division of the country into provinces with the unification and equality of regional and municipal bodies. Only the humanitarian sphere (national culture, education, information, religion) was to be regulated by ethnic communities. National-cultural autonomy was projected on the basis of the principle of extraterritoriality, which was supposed to serve as a deterrent to national separatism inherent in territorial autonomies.

After the fall of the autocracy, Stalin advocated the introduction of "regional autonomy", but then supported Lenin, who insisted on recognizing the right of nations to self-determination, up to and including complete secession. In this way, while remaining unitarians at heart, the Bolsheviks sought political allies in their struggle for power. When they became the masters of the country, they had no choice but to officially declare the right of nations to self-determination and to enshrine the principle of federation in legislation. Within the party itself, in 1919, the principle of unitarism finally triumphed, which finally "divorced" political declarations and real politics in the national question. Real unitarism was provided by the party apparatus, and a little later, a decorative multi-stage structure of the USSR was erected. Knowing the sad outcome of this experiment, it can be argued that the unrealized Stalinist plan, which provided for the preservation of a united Russia as the basis of the Soviet state, could be more viable. The "indigenization of cadres" in the national republics stimulated centrifugal tendencies on the outskirts, which led to the collapse of the multinational state, as soon as the paralysis of the central government and unifying structures, primarily the party, set in. Ph.D. A.V. Golubev made a presentation on "The Evolution of Foreign Cultural Stereotypes of the Soviet Society: Stalinism and 50 Years After". Foreign cultural stereotypes that have ethnic and foreign policy components are part of the national self-consciousness, characterizing the nation's vision of its place in the world, its attitude to other cultures and value systems. In the course of modernization, irreversible changes occur in the system of values ​​and culture, and, based on this, the speaker traced the dynamics of the perception of the West by the Russian population as both a reference and an alternative cultural-historical type. At the beginning of the XX century. new politicized stereotypes are replacing the traditional ethnic stereotypes of mass consciousness (reflected primarily in folklore), which mainly reflected the personal qualities inherent in other nations. The image of a German, an Englishman, a Pole is replaced by the image of Germany, Great Britain, Poland, etc. The First World War turned out to be only a prologue to stronger social, political, cultural, and psychological upheavals. The victory of the 1917 revolution strengthened the mythologization of mass consciousness, especially in the era of totalitarianism, which sought to control not only social actions, but also the emotions and thoughts of the population. One of the means used for this was the mobilization of society to achieve a national goal, in which the Stalinist regime put forward a program for the qualitative renewal of the country, i.e. essentially 203

its modernization program. Thus, there was a general politicization of mass consciousness, deliberately pushed through the propaganda system. The picture of the outside world as an arena of struggle between the forces of progress and reaction was the core of the new official mythology. At the same time, the surrounding world was presented as a source of both a real military threat to the USSR and possible technical or food assistance, an ally in a future war, and so on. First speaking as convinced Westernizers, the Bolsheviks, as a result of the dogmatization and mythologization of Marxism under the dominance of traditional consciousness, then came to xenophobia, which became an essential characteristic of Soviet political culture. Isolationism dominated most of Soviet history, culminating in the Cold War. The West was perceived as a "dark" danger zone dominated by hostile forces. But at the same time, the idea of ​​Western-style technological progress remained attractive. If for some the image of the West, in accordance with official mythology, was drawn in gloomy colors, then for others it appeared as a mirror alternative to everything that was happening in the USSR, but with a positive sign. In the mass consciousness, the notion that the USSR was one of the main world "centers of attraction" for the workers of the West and the revolutionaries of the East was affirmed, which did not correspond much to reality. At the same time, the image of our country as a positive alternative to the West was created. Soviet propaganda emphasized the decisive influence of the USSR on the entire system of international relations, the superiority of Soviet culture over Western culture. Since 1933, the role of the main enemy passed to Nazi Germany, but after the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and the outbreak of World War II, at least on the political and propagandistic level, Great Britain replaced it. During the war years, Germany firmly secured the first place on the list of enemies, and after the war, this place was taken by the United States of America. In the first post-war years, the Soviet leadership actively tried to minimize the consequences of many Soviet people's acquaintance with the everyday life of the West. "Thaw" multiplied channels of information. At the next stage, in 1964-1985. In the USSR, the intensive establishment of contacts between Soviet citizens and foreigners continued. The formation of elements of civil society, the growth of alternative state sources of information about the West led to the erosion of established foreign policy stereotypes. Representation in the 1930s about the West as an "anti-world" was replaced by a reverse myth about a world where everything is much better than ours. Since 1985, the Cold War stereotypes have begun to crumble. The minuses were replaced by pluses, the definition of "civilized countries" appeared, from which Russia was excluded. They expected loans, investments, humanitarian aid from the West and, as a result, a sharp increase in living standards. The results of perestroika and market reforms led to the fact that the inversion occurred once again, reviving the traditional stereotypes that demonize the West. But the absence of total propaganda, the possibility of real contacts, the change of generations leads to the fact that the process of blurring stereotypes is accelerating. Ideas about the West lose their mythological component and become more and more adequate to reality. Doctor of History O.Yu. Vasilyeva devoted her report to the topic "The Russian Orthodox Church after Stalin." Before considering the stated topic, she considered it necessary to make two remarks. One belongs to the Bishop of Smolensk in the 19th century. Ioann Sokolov: "The Russian Church outside the walls of the temple is not free from secular power." The second - to the professor of the Theological Academy L. Voronov, who was subjected to repressions during the period of Stalinism: "The Russian Church greatly honors Stalin and everything that he did for her during the war years."

By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the ROC came up almost organizationally destroyed: since 1918, local and episcopal councils had not met, less than 10% of priests remained free, of the many thousands of pre-revolutionary churches on the territory of the Russian Federation, a little more hundreds. The church was deprived of the rights of a legal entity, and its activities were limited exclusively by the walls of the temple, and even charity was prohibited. But this Russian Church, destroyed by the Bolsheviks, not only did not meet the enemy, but supported the Soviet government. Why? The ROC was separated from the state, but not from the people. The war became a key moment both in its history and in the history of its new relations with the authorities. No wonder the period 1943-1953. in the history of state-church relations is called the "golden decade". Orthodoxy has become an important spiritual lever for the redistribution of the world, especially Orthodox Eastern and Southeastern Europe, through the creation of a system of Orthodox unity under the auspices of Moscow. The rapid organizational restoration of the ROC began. A patriarch was elected, a Council for the Affairs of the Russian Orthodox Church was created, the surviving priests were returned from the camps, and the network of existing churches expanded. During the period of the US nuclear monopoly, the Russian Orthodox Church rendered a considerable service to its country in solving a number of diplomatic tasks. Interchurch relations took an anti-Vatican direction. A lot has been done. Stalin granted the Russian Orthodox Church the status of a legal entity, opened up for it the possibility of renting land, constructing buildings, etc., which his heirs later fought against. The "liberal" Khrushchev resumed the fight against religion, tightened state control over the Russian Orthodox Church, increased its taxation, deprived the clergy of the rights of administrative, financial, economic activities in religious associations, etc. Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov did not have, like Stalin, a clear concept of relations with the Church, and they ruined much of what was done in 1943-1953. in relations between the Church and the state, including to the detriment of the state itself. This position, according to the speaker, remains today. The final report on the topic "International Relations and Foreign Policy after Stalin" was made by Doctor of Historical Sciences. L.N. Nezhinsky. He noted that at least since April 1922, when Stalin was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee of the party, he was increasingly involved in the formation of the international strategy of the Soviet government. Since the mid 1930s. and literally until the last days of his life, Stalin almost single-handedly solved all the most important problems, consulting only with a narrow circle of people. He was capable of very sharp turns in politics, one of which, and quite justified, was to move away from the narrow class approach in creating the anti-Hitler coalition. But after the end of the Second World War, the class approach prevailed again, which manifested itself in a turn to the "cold war" with elements of the "hot" (the wars in Korea and Vietnam). The main confrontation took place not only along the West-East line, but also along the US-USSR line. And here there was a partial return to the old doctrinal principles (capitalism constantly rots, imperialism inevitably gives rise to wars, etc.), although some of Stalin's practical steps diverged from these postulates. As a result, the idea of ​​the need for peaceful coexistence was relegated to the background. Did Stalin's foreign policy reflect the national-state interests of the country in the international arena? The answer to this question is ambiguous. Yes, it did when it comes to emergency measures to eliminate the US nuclear monopoly that threatened the very existence of the USSR, which was planning an atomic attack on the main cities of the USSR. On the other hand, in the conditions of the most severe famine in the country in 1946-1947. Stalin instructed to send hundreds of thousands of tons of grain to Czechoslovakia and Romania to support the communists there in the elections.

After Stalin's death, inconsistency was observed in the foreign policy of the USSR both in the conceptual and theoretical views of the country's leaders and in their practical actions. Khrushchev and his supporters seriously changed the foreign policy of our country, declaring that in the presence of the camp of socialism and non-aligned countries, the fatal inevitability of world war no longer exists and that peaceful coexistence is not a tactical slogan, but the main line of Soviet foreign policy. Diplomats now had to look abroad not only for enemies, but also for those with whom they could cooperate. The attitude towards the Social Democrats (under Stalin - "social fascists") also changed. A provision was put forward on the admissibility of the coming of the communists to power by peaceful means. But in foreign policy practice, Khrushchev was Stalin's heir: he crushed the uprising in Hungary, provoked the Cuban Missile Crisis, and so on. Both Khrushchev and his successor Brezhnev retained the mechanism of developing foreign policy decisions by a small Areopagus from among the top leaders of the country. The Politburo did not meet either when deciding on the deployment of missiles in Cuba or when troops were sent into Afghanistan, and during the years when Chernenko and Andropov were in power, our relations with the West worsened even more. Such a legacy went to Gorbachev. No matter how you treat him, but under him, foreign policy has changed dramatically, getting rid of the consideration of the struggle between capitalism and socialism as the dominant of world development. A search began for realistic ways to include the USSR in the world community, taking into account the interests of all interested parties. These approaches were retained in the subsequent period. President of Russia V.V. Putin also relies on them. Thus, the era of Stalinism in foreign policy ended in the second half of the 1980s. All nine reports (authors of eight of them are IRI RAS employees) aroused considerable interest from the audience, numerous questions to the speakers and lively comments. A number of topics were discussed. Questions, remarks, speeches in the debate mainly concerned the concretization of the positions of the speakers, as well as the connection of some phenomena of the past with the current situation, the influence of the legacy of the Stalin era on our time. The "round table" revealed the deep interest of the scientific community in a serious analysis of the problems posed during this meeting. He demonstrated a wide pluralism of opinions about the personality of Stalin, Stalinism and how the Stalinist legacy has been overcome today. The work of the "round table" was covered by the press and television, several speakers gave interviews, and in the following days spoke on a number of television channels. Materials of the "round table" are being prepared for publication.

A.S. Senyavsky, Doctor of Historical Sciences (Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences)

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin is still considered to be an extremely controversial nature. Opinions about its significance for the country were divided into two camps. Someone is ready to put the leader on a pedestal again, saying: "Stalin is not enough for you," and someone supports the words of M. S. Gorbachev: "Stalin is a man covered in blood." However, no one is indifferent. So what did this man do and did not do for Russia in the almost 30-year history of his leadership? We will consider the pros and cons of Stalin's rule in history in the most important events of 1924-1953.

Collectivization

"Land to the peasants, power to the people" is the main slogan of the communists. Everything should be common, and the earth is no exception. The kulaks as a class had to be eliminated and collective farms created to provide Soviet citizens with everything they needed. Collectivization is one of the stages on the way to industrialization.

The civil war and the revolution greatly undermined the work of the peasants. As a result, 1927 was a low-yielding year. This angered Stalin, because in the USSR there can be no shortage of anything. As a result, it was decided to start mass collectivization, that is, to make all agriculture collective. What did it lead to?

Pros and cons of Stalin's rule during the years of collectivization 1928-1937.

• The liquidation of the kulaks as a class. About 15 million people were exiled to Siberia, shot and evicted from their homes.
• The terrible famine of 1932-1933, the cities took the entire harvest of the peasants, as a result, according to various estimates, from 5 to 10 million people died from starvation, mainly children.
• In agriculture, the private sector was completely destroyed.
• Collectivization created the conditions for industrialization. The state received funds for the development of industry.
• The livestock population fell by 50%.
• Grain production fell by 3%.
• 93% of peasant farms were transferred to collective farms.
• Agricultural production is completely subordinated to the state.
• The mass exodus of peasants to the city.

Constitution of 1936

The main idea of ​​the constitution is freedom. The adopted constitution said that the state belongs to the workers and peasants. Councils and teams have been created. The united communist party must protect the worker. And everything would be fine, but now everything, absolutely everything within the state, belongs to the state, including the person.

Repression

Speaking of Stalin's rule, one cannot but mention the repressions. Until now, many justify his actions. Political crimes are the main reason for repression, or rather the reason. The political crime was expressed not only in deeds, but also in words, in a look, in relatives abroad, in expressing an opinion that was different from the ideology of communism. Fear acquired such proportions that for many years after Stalin's death it was terrible to pronounce his name.

We will consider the pros and cons of Stalin's rule below.

• Formation of a cult of personality.
• Manipulation of society by means of fear.
• Formation of a certain social consciousness.
• About 5 million people were convicted for political reasons.
• About 800 thousand people were sentenced to capital punishment.
• About 6.5 million people were expelled from Russia.
• There was practically no corruption in Russia.

in 2007, President V. V. Putin will say this:

We all know well that 1937 is considered the peak of repression, but it (this year 1937) was well prepared by previous years of cruelty. Suffice it to recall the executions of hostages during the Civil War, the destruction of entire estates, the clergy, the dispossession of the peasantry, the destruction of the Cossacks. Such tragedies have been repeated in the history of mankind more than once. And this always happened when ideals, attractive at first glance, but empty in reality, were placed above the main value - the value of human life, above human rights and freedoms. For our country, this is a special tragedy. Because the scale is enormous. After all, hundreds of thousands, millions of people were exterminated, exiled to camps, shot, tortured to death. Moreover, these are, as a rule, people with their own opinion. These are people who are not afraid to express it. These are the most efficient people. This is the color of the nation. And, of course, we still feel this tragedy for many years. Much needs to be done to ensure that this is never forgotten.

• The prisoners constituted a free labor force, at the expense of the victims of the labor of the repressed, such objects were created as: the White Sea-Baltic Canal, the Volga-Don Canal, the Nizhny Tagil Metallurgical Enterprise, about ten hydroelectric power stations, the Kola Railway, the Northern Railway, highways, etc.
• A number of Russian cities were built by Gulag prisoners: Komsomolsk-on-Amur, Vorkuta, Ukhta, Pechora, Nakhodka, Volzhsky and others.
• The prisoners also contributed to agriculture.
• Migration of thousands of Russian citizens, the best minds, the intelligentsia, the creative elite.

The Great Patriotic War

The pros and cons of Stalin's rule during the Second World War are very blurred. On the one hand, Stalin won the war, but on the other hand, the war was won by the people under the leadership of great commanders. You can argue endlessly. The whole country worked for the good of the front. Russia breathed in one big organism. The economy, industry, agriculture, transport, factories, culture - everything worked together in order to win the war. People rallied in one common grief. All these structures worked very clearly and harmoniously, and in this there is undoubtedly Russia entered the war, being "backward" in industrial terms in relation to Germany, and emerged from the war as a strong military power.

Russia lost 27 million people in the war, Germany - 7 million people. It turns out that for every German soldier, there are 4 Soviet soldiers killed. This is the price of victory. Russia was not ready for war, and this is a fact. Repressions of generals and officers, ignoring by Stalin of warnings about an attack from both intelligence officers and Churchill. As a result, in the first days of the war, hundreds of thousands of soldiers were taken prisoner and all Soviet aviation was destroyed! Can we assume that Russia won the war thanks to Stalin? Or is it despite his mistakes?

In the post-war period, totalitarianism reached its apogee. Control was established over all spheres of society. Repression after the war also continued. Fear shrouded the country until the death of the leader.

Industrialization

Already in 1947, the industry was completely restored, and after 10 years, economic well-being increased almost 2 times. None of the countries that suffered in the war, by this time even reached the pre-war level. Russia has become a great military power.

Pros and cons of the reign of Joseph Stalin:

• Under Stalin, more than 1,500 major industrial facilities, plants and factories were built. These are DneproGES, Uralmash, KhTZ, GAZ, ZIS, plants in Magnitogorsk, Chelyabinsk, Norilsk and Stalingrad.
• Nuclear missiles were created. Although there are still disputes about the role of Stalin in this area.
• For the benefit of industrialization, a lot of agricultural resources were thrown, which noticeably made life harder for the peasants.

After Stalin

Joseph Stalin died at the age of 73. The cause of death is still a mystery. Someone says that Khrushchev and his associates poisoned him, someone is inclined to believe that it was a heart attack. In any case, it is Nikita Sergeevich Khrushchev who becomes the first secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Over the 11 years of his leadership, Russia has already had other ups and downs.

Pros and cons of the rule of Stalin and Khrushchev in comparison:

• Stalin built socialism, Khrushchev destroyed it.
• Stalin staked on industrialization, Khrushchev on agriculture.
• Khrushchev destroyed the personality cult of Stalin, freed many innocent citizens from exile, but did not stop the repressions.

The pros and cons of Stalin's rule are still disputed by historians, society and witnesses of those years. The contradictory personality of the leader also makes his achievements contradictory. Now a lot of literature has been written and a lot of documentaries have been shot, but these are all theoretical disputes. It is impossible to prove the correctness of either side.

Results

The era of Stalin is unique. For 30 years, the country has experienced civil war, famine, repression, the terrible Great Patriotic War, post-war reconstruction. It is not for nothing that the people say "Khrushchev's thaw", and under Stalin they said "Hammer and sickle, death and hunger." After Stalin's death, fear slowly began to disappear from people. The pros and cons of Stalin's rule cannot be summarized briefly. Joseph Dzhugashvili had too much of a role in history.

The results of Stalin's rule, the pros and cons:

• The country's resources were national, free medicine, education, recreation, housing, cultural pastime (theaters, museums).
• Great educational reform, many schools and institutes built.
• Scientific progress, nuclear and missile areas of development.
• Victory in the Second World War and the rapid economic recovery of the country.
• Industry development, industrialization.
• The population decreased during the years of the civil war, revolution, famine, repression and the Second World War.
• The blind, undeniable ideology is still alive in the minds of the Soviet generation, its scale was so great.

The great era of Stalin is over, and everyone perceives the results of his leadership in different ways.

During Stalin's lifetime, Soviet propaganda created around him the halo of a "great leader and teacher." A number of cities and streets in settlements in the USSR and countries of Eastern Europe were named after Stalin; many enterprises, institutions, collective farms, hydraulic structures received an additional “im. I.V. Stalin”; also, his name could be found in the names of Soviet equipment produced in the 1930-1950s. In the Soviet press of the Stalin era, his name was mentioned on a par with Marx, Engels and Lenin. He has been frequently referenced in songs, fiction, and films.

Estimates of Stalin's personality are controversial and there is a huge range of opinions about him, and they often describe him with opposite characteristics. On the one hand, many who spoke with Stalin spoke of him as a broadly and versatilely educated and extremely intelligent person. On the other hand, Stalin is often described negatively.

Some historians believe that Stalin established a personal dictatorship; others believe that until the mid-1930s the dictatorship was collective. The political system implemented by Stalin is usually referred to as "totalitarianism". According to the conclusions of many historians, the Stalinist dictatorship was a highly centralized regime that relied primarily on powerful party-state structures, terror and violence, as well as on the mechanisms of ideological manipulation of society, the selection of privileged groups and the formation of pragmatic strategies. According to Oxford University professor R. Hingley, for a quarter of a century before his death, Stalin had more political power than any other figure in history. He was not just a symbol of the regime, but a leader who made fundamental decisions and was the initiator of all significant state measures.

After the so-called. "Debunking Stalin's Personality Cult" By the First Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU, N. S. Khrushchev, at the XX Congress of the CPSU, Soviet historians assessed Stalin taking into account the position of the ideological bodies of the USSR. This position, in particular, can be illustrated by a quotation from the index of names to the Complete Works of Lenin, published in 1974, where the following is written about Stalin:

In Stalin's activities, along with the positive side, there was also a negative side. While holding the most important party and state posts, Stalin committed gross violations of the Leninist principles of collective leadership and the norms of party life, violation of socialist legality, unjustified mass repressions against prominent state, political and military figures of the Soviet Union and other honest Soviet people.

The Party resolutely condemned and put an end to the personality cult of Stalin alien to Marxism-Leninism and its consequences, approved the work of the Central Committee to restore and develop the Leninist principles of leadership and the norms of party life in all areas of party, state and ideological work, took measures to prevent such errors and distortions in the future.

Personality assessments by Stalin's contemporaries

During Stalin's lifetime, attitudes towards him ranged from benevolent and enthusiastic to negative. In particular, foreign writers who met with the Soviet leader left their comments about Stalin: English - Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, French - Henri Barbusse. In particular, such statements by the Nobel Prize winner B. Shaw about Stalin are known: “Stalin is a very pleasant person and really the leader of the working class”, “Stalin is a giant, and all Western figures are pygmies.” In the book “The Experience of Autobiography”, G. Wells wrote about Stalin: “I have never met a person more sincere, decent and honest; there is nothing dark and sinister in him, and it is precisely these qualities that should explain his enormous power in Russia. I thought before, before I met him, maybe he was thought badly because people were afraid of him. But I found that, on the contrary, no one is afraid of him and everyone believes in him.<…>Stalin is completely devoid of the cunning and deceit of the Georgians. The words of A. Barbusse about Stalin became widely known in literature: “Stalin is Lenin today”; “This is iron man. The surname gives us his image: Stalin - steel "; this is a man "with the head of a scientist, with the face of a worker, in the clothes of a simple soldier."

Anti-Stalinist positions were occupied by a number of communist leaders who accused Stalin of destroying the party, of departing from the ideals of Lenin and Marx. This approach originated in the environment of the so-called. "Lenin Guard". The most significant opponent of Stalin, L. D. Trotsky, called Stalin "an outstanding mediocrity" who does not forgive anyone "spiritual superiority."

The former secretary of Stalin, Boris Bazhanov, who fled from the USSR in 1928, characterizes Stalin in his memoirs as a "little cultured", "cunning", "ignorant" person. In the book of memoirs "Stalin and the tragedy of Georgia", published in Berlin in 1932 in German, Joseph Dzhugashvili's classmate at the Tiflis Theological Seminary, Joseph Iremashvili, argued that the young Stalin was characterized by "vindictiveness, vindictiveness, deceit, ambition and lust for power."

Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR V. I. Vernadsky, in his diary entry dated November 14, 1941, describing his impressions of Stalin’s speech at the Parade on Red Square on November 7, 1941, noted: “Only yesterday the text of Stalin’s speech came to us, which made a huge impression. Previously listened to on the radio from the fifth to the tenth. The speech, no doubt, of a very intelligent person. The Soviet military leader I. G. Starinov conveys the impression made on him by Stalin's speech: “We listened with bated breath to Stalin's speech. Stalin talked about what worried everyone: about people, about cadres. And how convincingly he spoke! Here I first heard: “Cadres decide everything.” Words about how important it is to take care of people, take care of them…”

Assessments of Stalin's personality by modern experts

Describing the personality of Stalin, many historians note Stalin's tendency to read a large amount of literature. Stalin was a very readable, erudite person and was interested in culture, including poetry. He spent a lot of time reading books, and after his death, his personal library remained, consisting of thousands of books, on the margins of which his notes remained. Stalin, in particular, read the books of Guy de Maupassant, Oscar Wilde, N. V. Gogol, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, L. D. Trotsky, L. B. Kamenev. According to V. A. Reasonable Stalin preferred Kant to Hegel. Among the authors whom Stalin admired were Emile Zola and F. M. Dostoevsky. He quoted long passages from the Bible, the works of Bismarck, the works of Chekhov. Stalin himself told some visitors, pointing to a stack of books on his desk: "This is my daily norm - 500 pages." Up to a thousand books were produced this way a year. Historian R. A. Medvedev, speaking out against "often extremely exaggerated estimates of the level of his education and intellect", at the same time warns against underestimation. He notes that Stalin read a lot, and diversified, from fiction to popular science. In the pre-war period, Stalin paid most of his attention to historical and military-technical books, after the war he switched to reading works of a political direction, such as the History of Diplomacy, Talleyrand's biography. Medvedev notes that Stalin, being responsible for the death of a large number of writers and the destruction of their books, at the same time patronized M. Sholokhov, A. Tolstoy and others, returns E. V. Tarle from exile, whose biography of Napoleon he treated with great interest and personally oversaw its publication, suppressing tendentious attacks on the book. Medvedev emphasizes Stalin's knowledge of the national Georgian culture, in 1940 Stalin himself makes changes to the new translation of The Knight in the Panther's Skin

The English writer and statesman Charles Snow also characterized Stalin's educational level as quite high:

One of the many curious circumstances related to Stalin: he was much more educated in the literary sense than any of his contemporary statesmen. Compared to him, Lloyd George and Churchill are remarkably ill-read people. As did Roosevelt.

There is evidence that back in the 1920s, Stalin visited the play "Days of the Turbins" by the writer M. A. Bulgakov eighteen times. Stalin also maintained personal contacts with other cultural figures: musicians, film actors, directors. Stalin personally entered into polemics with the composer D. D. Shostakovich. Stalin also loved cinema and was willingly interested in directing. One of the directors with whom Stalin was personally acquainted was A.P. Dovzhenko. Stalin liked such films by this director as "Arsenal", "Aerograd". Stalin also personally edited the script for the film Shchors.

The Russian historian L.M. Batkin, recognizing Stalin's love of reading, believes that he was an "aesthetically dense" reader. Batkin believes that Stalin had no idea "of the existence of such a 'subject' as art", of a "special artistic world" and the structure of this world. According to Batkin's conclusion, Stalin brought "certain energy" of a semi-educated and average layer of people to a "pure, strong-willed, outstanding form." According to Batkin, Stalin's oratorical style is extremely primitive: it is distinguished by "the catechism form, endless repetitions and inversions of the same thing, the same phrase in the form of a question and in the form of a statement, and again it is the same through a negative particle." The Israeli expert on Russian literature, Mikhail Weiskopf, also argues that Stalin's argument was based "on more or less hidden tautologies, on the effect of stupefying pounding."

On the other hand, the Russian philologist G. G. Khazagerov elevates Stalin's rhetoric to the traditions of solemn, homiletic eloquence and considers it didactic-symbolic. According to the author’s definition, “the task of didactics is, based on symbolism as an axiom, to streamline the picture of the world and convey this ordered picture intelligibly. Stalinist didactics, however, took on the functions of symbolism. This was manifested in the fact that the zone of axioms grew to entire curricula, and evidence, on the contrary, was replaced by a reference to authority. Russian philologist V. V. Smolenenkova notes the strong impact that Stalin's speeches had on the audience. Smolenenkova explains the effect of Stalin's speeches by the fact that they were quite adequate to the mood and expectations of the audience. The English historian S. Sebag-Montefiore notes that Stalin's style was distinguished by clarity and, often, refinement.

Assessment of Russian officials

Bus with a portrait of Stalin in St. Petersburg

Russian President D. A. Medvedev, speaking of the Katyn tragedy, called this act a crime of Stalin: “For our part, all assessments have long been given. The Katyn tragedy is a crime of Stalin and a number of his henchmen. The position of the Russian state on this issue has long been formulated and remains unchanged.” In an interview with the Izvestia newspaper, the President, in particular, noted that “Stalin committed a lot of crimes against his people ... And despite the fact that he worked hard, despite the fact that the country achieved success under his leadership, what was done applied to one's own people cannot be forgiven." According to Medvedev's position, Stalin's role in the victory in the Great Patriotic War was "very serious", although Medvedev believes that the war was "won by our people". In general, according to Medvedev, Stalin “had both weak decisions and very strong decisions, including during the war period. This also cannot be ruled out."

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in 2009: “Obviously, from 1924 to 1953, the country, and the country was then led by Stalin, changed radically, it turned from an agrarian into an industrial one. True, the peasantry did not remain, but industrialization really took place. We won the Great Patriotic War. And no matter who and no matter what they say, the victory was achieved. At the same time, the prime minister noted the repressions that took place during that period. According to Putin, the Katyn massacre was Stalin's revenge "for the death of 32,000 Red Army soldiers who died in Polish captivity."

According to the position of the former President of the USSR M. S. Gorbachev, "Stalin is a man covered in blood."

According to the Chairman of the Federation Council S. M. Mironov: “Stalin is a bloody executioner, and no matter who says, he is and will be like that.”

According to the Chairman of the State Duma B. V. Gryzlov, as the leader of the USSR, Stalin “did a lot during the Great Patriotic War”, although “excesses in domestic politics” “do not adorn him”. “We know how much he was respected by those who opened a second front,” said the head of the lower house of the Russian legislature.

The State Duma, in its statement "On the Katyn tragedy and its victims" dated November 26, 2010, officially recognized that the execution of Polish officers near Katyn was carried out on the direct orders of Stalin and other Soviet leaders. According to Russian media reports, the majority of deputies from the United Russia, Just Russia and LDPR factions voted for the adoption of this statement. Deputies from the Communist Party faction voted against the adoption of the statement, insisting that the assertion that the Soviet leadership was guilty of the Katyn tragedy was based on falsified documents. Regarding the version of the communists about the “falsification” of documents, Russian President D. A. Medvedev on December 6, 2010 stated the following: “Stalin and his henchmen are responsible for this crime. And I have the relevant documents, which were obtained from the so-called "special folder". These documents are now available on the Internet, they are publicly available with all the resolutions. Attempts to question these documents, to say that someone falsified them, is simply not serious. This is done by those who are trying to whitewash the nature of the regime that Stalin created at a certain period in our country.”

Opinion polls

According to a public opinion poll on February 18-19, 2006, 47% of Russian residents considered Stalin's role in history to be positive, 29% - negative. Only in one socio-demographic group, among citizens with higher education, the historical figure of Stalin was perceived positively less often than negatively. 59% believed that "in Stalin's times, mostly innocent people ended up in camps and prisons", 12% - "mostly those who deserved it." Among citizens under the age of 35, 39% had a positive attitude towards Stalin and 30% negatively. At the same time, 38% believed that now Stalin and his activities are "denigrated", and 29% - "estimated objectively."

Throughout the months-long electronic public opinion poll organized by the Rossiya TV channel, Stalin was in the lead by a wide margin. The final official data, according to which Stalin took second place, losing 5504 votes to Alexander Nevsky.

The formation of a totalitarian state in the USSR, substantiated in the works of most Western historians, as well as in Russian historical science in the 1990s, is described as follows. The laying of the foundations of totalitarianism began under V.I. Lenin. All the diversity of the economic, social, political and cultural life of Russia began to be brought to a single model (unified) in the very first months after the Bolsheviks seized power. The "cavalry attack on capital" and the nationalization of land created the conditions for undermining the institution of private property, which is the basis of civil society. A small retreat towards economic freedom, made during the years of the New Economic Policy, was doomed in advance due to the presence in the country of an all-encompassing administrative apparatus. Officials brought up on communist ideology were ready to overthrow the NEP at any moment. In the political sphere, the Bolshevik monopoly on power did not shake even during the years of the New Economic Policy. On the contrary, it was in the first years after the Civil War that all the sprouts of the Russian multi-party system were finally eliminated. In the ruling party itself, the resolution of the Tenth Congress of the RCP (b) “On Unity”, adopted on the initiative of V.I. Lenin, unanimity and iron discipline were established. Already under Lenin, state violence established itself as a universal means of solving the problems facing the authorities. There was also a repressive apparatus. The NKVD inherited and developed all the traditions of the Cheka. In Lenin's legacy, an important place was occupied by the assertion of the dominance of one ideology. In the first months after the October Revolution, with the closure of non-Bolshevik newspapers, the communists monopolized the right to mass information. At the beginning of the NEP, with the creation of Glavlit, the expulsion of dissident intelligentsia, etc., the ruling party placed the entire sphere of education under its control. Thus, the supporters of this concept argue, the foundation of a totalitarian state was laid in Russia by Lenin, and the Stalinist regime became an organic continuation of the Leninist revolution. Stalin brought to its logical conclusion what had been started under Lenin.

Interestingly, this approach of anti-communist historians completely coincides with the assessment of the role of Stalin during his reign and corresponds to the slogan of that time: “Stalin is Lenin today!”.

A different point of view on the role of Stalin and the state he created was formed in Soviet historiography after the 20th Congress of the CPSU and was revived in the second half of the 80s, during the “perestroika”. Supporters of this assessment (R. Medvedev) argue that the October Revolution and Lenin's plan to build socialism, which began to be implemented in the 20s, should have eventually led to the creation of a just socialist society in the country, the goal of which was to constantly improve the well-being of all citizens. However, having usurped power, Stalin betrayed the ideals of October, formed a cult of his personality in the country, violated the Leninist norms of inner-party and public life, relying on terror and violence. It is no coincidence that in the second half of the 50s - early 60s, the slogan appeared: "Back to Lenin!"

At present, in the historical and journalistic literature, authors from the so-called "patriotic" camp (V. Kozhinov) put forward a new assessment of Stalin's activities. In their opinion, V.I. Lenin, for the sake of the interests of the world revolution, destroyed the Russian Empire, which, with the fall of Poland, Finland and the Baltic states, lost significant territories. Together with Lenin, his closest associates came to power - revolutionaries of Jewish nationality (L.D. Trotsky, G.E. Zinoviev, L.B. Kamenev, Ya.M. Sverdlov, etc.), who eliminated the centuries-old way of Russian life, turning Russian population into disenfranchised masses. Stalin, on the other hand, was a patriot and a sovereign. He physically destroyed the "Leninist Guard", established a regime in the country that was close to the monarchic in spirit, and, having returned the lost territories, recreated the empire.