WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.740 Welcome back to the Deep Dive, where we take 00:00:01.740 --> 00:00:04.259 the vast, overwhelming stack of information you've 00:00:04.259 --> 00:00:06.500 given us and distill it into the crucial need 00:00:06.500 --> 00:00:08.660 -to -know insights. Hello again! Today we are 00:00:08.660 --> 00:00:11.359 plunging into the monumental shadow cast by Joseph 00:00:11.359 --> 00:00:15.140 Stalin. He's arguably one of the 20th century's 00:00:15.140 --> 00:00:17.199 most significant and certainly one of his most 00:00:17.199 --> 00:00:19.280 complex and contested figures. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:19.519 --> 00:00:22.800 The man who guided... or perhaps a better word 00:00:22.800 --> 00:00:26.379 is forced, the Soviet Union through these seismic 00:00:26.379 --> 00:00:29.719 historical events from the mid -1920s right up 00:00:29.719 --> 00:00:33.159 until his death in 1953. And this is a deep dive 00:00:33.159 --> 00:00:35.399 that really demands precision. I mean, we are 00:00:35.399 --> 00:00:37.479 dealing with massive historical stakes here. 00:00:37.579 --> 00:00:40.340 Our source material is vast. It covers his unlikely 00:00:40.340 --> 00:00:43.320 origins, his ruthless consolidation of power, 00:00:43.460 --> 00:00:45.520 his leadership during World War Two, the Cold 00:00:45.520 --> 00:00:48.859 War. Exactly. And of course, the deeply divisive 00:00:48.859 --> 00:00:51.479 and bloody legacy he left behind. So our core 00:00:51.479 --> 00:00:53.899 mission today is to move beyond the simple narrative 00:00:53.899 --> 00:00:57.920 and distill the the mechanical, rapid and intensely 00:00:57.920 --> 00:01:00.740 brutal transformation the USSR underwent under 00:01:00.740 --> 00:01:03.060 his. absolute dictatorship. You know, the moment 00:01:03.060 --> 00:01:04.959 you start researching Stalin, you immediately 00:01:04.959 --> 00:01:07.239 run into what historians call the paradox of 00:01:07.239 --> 00:01:10.060 his legacy. It's a real cognitive dissonance. 00:01:10.159 --> 00:01:12.859 It is. On one hand, you have a figure who is 00:01:12.859 --> 00:01:15.319 still revered by many as the victor of the great 00:01:15.319 --> 00:01:18.760 patriotic war. The economic modernizer who, in 00:01:18.760 --> 00:01:21.980 the span of, what, two decades, dragged a backward 00:01:21.980 --> 00:01:25.400 agrarian empire into the industrialized military 00:01:25.400 --> 00:01:28.719 superpower category. He achieved what was, by 00:01:28.719 --> 00:01:31.340 many metrics, an impossible feat. An impossible 00:01:31.340 --> 00:01:34.079 feat. But that achievement came at a staggering, 00:01:34.299 --> 00:01:37.799 almost unimaginable human cost. And that's the 00:01:37.799 --> 00:01:39.819 other side of the coin. You have the absolute 00:01:39.819 --> 00:01:42.340 comprehensive condemnation for the mechanisms 00:01:42.340 --> 00:01:45.040 he used, the systematic mass repression, the 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:47.819 engineered famine, the Holodomor, and the suffering 00:01:47.819 --> 00:01:50.159 and execution of millions of Soviet citizens. 00:01:50.459 --> 00:01:52.359 It's almost impossible to hold both ideas in 00:01:52.359 --> 00:01:54.540 your head at once. It is. We have to discuss 00:01:54.540 --> 00:01:57.659 his rule while keeping those two stark, contradictory 00:01:57.659 --> 00:02:00.719 realities, the architect of steel and the architect 00:02:00.719 --> 00:02:03.500 of terror, simultaneously in focus. It truly 00:02:03.500 --> 00:02:06.870 is that core tension. Progress through un - unprecedented 00:02:06.870 --> 00:02:09.530 cruelty. That really defines his entire era. 00:02:09.629 --> 00:02:11.729 So let's lay out our roadmap for you, the listener. 00:02:11.849 --> 00:02:14.430 Okay. We're starting with his highly improbable 00:02:14.430 --> 00:02:16.590 path. I mean, from a physically troubled Georgian 00:02:16.590 --> 00:02:19.210 seminary student. and frankly, a petty criminal, 00:02:19.330 --> 00:02:21.870 all the way to absolute dictator. And we'll pivot 00:02:21.870 --> 00:02:24.110 to the economic shock therapy of the five -year 00:02:24.110 --> 00:02:27.870 plans and the terrifying scale and mechanisms 00:02:27.870 --> 00:02:30.509 of state violence he unleashed in the 1930s. 00:02:30.569 --> 00:02:32.750 Right. And finally, we'll analyze his calculated 00:02:32.750 --> 00:02:35.610 strategy during the war, how he shaped the post 00:02:35.610 --> 00:02:37.969 -war world order, and how his very complicated 00:02:37.969 --> 00:02:40.129 legacy continues to resonate today. It's quite 00:02:40.129 --> 00:02:42.530 a journey. Okay, let's unpack this improbable, 00:02:42.530 --> 00:02:45.530 deeply troubled beginning. Before he was this 00:02:45.530 --> 00:02:48.629 terrifying granite - figure in the Kremlin. He 00:02:48.629 --> 00:02:52.009 was Ioseb Dzugashvili, a man whose identity was, 00:02:52.129 --> 00:02:54.870 it seems, constantly being suppressed and reinvented 00:02:54.870 --> 00:02:57.750 almost from birth. That's a key point. Identity 00:02:57.750 --> 00:03:00.669 was critical. He was born Ioseb Bessarianis Dzugashvili 00:03:00.669 --> 00:03:05.090 in Gori, Georgia, in December 1878. What's often 00:03:05.090 --> 00:03:06.949 overlooked is the profound sense of being an 00:03:06.949 --> 00:03:09.409 outsider this must have created for him. An outsider 00:03:09.409 --> 00:03:12.389 in his own country? In a way, yes. He was an 00:03:12.389 --> 00:03:14.610 ethnic Georgian who spoke Georgian as his first 00:03:14.610 --> 00:03:17.270 language. He actually retained a heavy Georgian 00:03:17.270 --> 00:03:19.189 accent his entire life, even in the Kremlin. 00:03:19.310 --> 00:03:21.229 He didn't even learn Russian until he was about 00:03:21.229 --> 00:03:23.330 eight or nine years old. So this background, 00:03:23.509 --> 00:03:25.650 this sense of regional identity within the vast 00:03:25.650 --> 00:03:28.669 Russian empire, it fundamentally shaped his outlook. 00:03:28.949 --> 00:03:31.409 And his childhood was just marked by incredible 00:03:31.409 --> 00:03:34.889 violence and poor health. His father was an abusive, 00:03:35.030 --> 00:03:37.669 alcoholic shoemaker who frequently beat both 00:03:37.669 --> 00:03:40.060 him and his mother, Ekaterine. The adversity 00:03:40.060 --> 00:03:42.180 started early and it left permanent physical 00:03:42.180 --> 00:03:44.780 scars. I mean, he was the only one of three children 00:03:44.780 --> 00:03:48.860 to survive infancy. In 1884, he contracted smallpox, 00:03:49.080 --> 00:03:51.500 leaving these visible facial scars that, you 00:03:51.500 --> 00:03:54.020 know, later on the vast Soviet propaganda machine 00:03:54.020 --> 00:03:57.439 spent decades meticulously airbrushing out of 00:03:57.439 --> 00:04:00.520 official portraits. Then at age 12, he was struck 00:04:00.520 --> 00:04:02.580 by a Phaeton, a kind of horse -drawn carriage. 00:04:03.000 --> 00:04:05.199 This was a really serious injury that resulted 00:04:05.199 --> 00:04:08.319 in a lifelong physical disability. His left arm 00:04:08.319 --> 00:04:09.960 lacked flexibility. flexibility. It was shorter 00:04:09.960 --> 00:04:11.340 than his right. And you'll notice it's often 00:04:11.340 --> 00:04:13.620 concealed in photographs. That injury actually 00:04:13.620 --> 00:04:15.759 becomes significant much, much later, doesn't 00:04:15.759 --> 00:04:18.000 it? It's the reason he was ruled unfit for conscription 00:04:18.000 --> 00:04:19.980 during the First World War. It is. It kept him 00:04:19.980 --> 00:04:22.519 out of the main military disaster that afflicted 00:04:22.519 --> 00:04:24.759 so many of his future rivals. It's one of those 00:04:24.759 --> 00:04:27.800 small historical details that just has massive 00:04:27.800 --> 00:04:30.459 consequences down the line. Another irony is 00:04:30.459 --> 00:04:33.850 his education. the Tiflis Theological Seminary. 00:04:33.949 --> 00:04:36.009 Right. He was meant to become a Russian Orthodox 00:04:36.009 --> 00:04:38.850 priest on a scholarship, and he even excelled 00:04:38.850 --> 00:04:41.089 there at first. But those religious halls turned 00:04:41.089 --> 00:04:44.120 out to be a hotbed of political radicalism. He 00:04:44.120 --> 00:04:46.480 became deeply influenced by pro -revolutionary 00:04:46.480 --> 00:04:49.120 novels, particularly one called What Is To Be 00:04:49.120 --> 00:04:52.379 Done and another, Alexander Kazbegi's The Patricide. 00:04:52.439 --> 00:04:54.480 And it's from that novel, The Patricide, that 00:04:54.480 --> 00:04:56.379 he adopted his first revolutionary nickname, 00:04:56.800 --> 00:04:59.899 Koba. Koba. The protagonist, Koba, is a mountain 00:04:59.899 --> 00:05:02.579 bandit, a kind of symbol of righteous defiance 00:05:02.579 --> 00:05:06.279 and outlaw heroism in Georgian folklore. Adopting 00:05:06.279 --> 00:05:08.620 this name, it signaled his embrace of the underground 00:05:08.620 --> 00:05:12.839 and his willingness to use force outside the 00:05:12.839 --> 00:05:14.680 established moral boundaries. He was eventually 00:05:14.680 --> 00:05:17.160 expelled from the cemetery for missing exams. 00:05:17.399 --> 00:05:21.399 Yes, in 1899, largely due to his clandestine 00:05:21.399 --> 00:05:24.579 political activities. And from there, he immediately 00:05:24.579 --> 00:05:27.660 shifted his focus entirely to Karl Marx's philosophy. 00:05:28.199 --> 00:05:30.620 Joining the Marxist -Russian Social Democratic 00:05:30.620 --> 00:05:34.060 Labor Party, or RSDLP, he went into hiding from 00:05:34.060 --> 00:05:36.779 the Tsarist secret police, the Okhrana, as early 00:05:36.779 --> 00:05:40.040 as 1901. He was fully committed to the revolutionary 00:05:40.040 --> 00:05:42.939 life. And that commitment required choosing sides. 00:05:43.120 --> 00:05:47.139 The RSDLP split. It did. In 1903, during his 00:05:47.139 --> 00:05:49.759 initial exile to Siberia, which he promptly escaped 00:05:49.759 --> 00:05:52.439 in 1904, by the way, the party split into the 00:05:52.439 --> 00:05:54.259 Bolsheviks, the majority and the Mensheviks, 00:05:54.319 --> 00:05:56.779 the minority. Stalin immediately aligned with 00:05:56.779 --> 00:05:58.800 Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction. And this 00:05:58.800 --> 00:06:00.560 wasn't just an administrative choice for him. 00:06:00.660 --> 00:06:03.279 Not at all. Lenin's faction emphasized a small, 00:06:03.339 --> 00:06:05.779 centralized, disciplined vanguard party that 00:06:05.779 --> 00:06:08.259 was totally committed to revolution. That philosophy 00:06:08.259 --> 00:06:11.079 deeply appealed to Stalin's organizational and, 00:06:11.120 --> 00:06:13.459 frankly, authoritarian tendencies. This is where 00:06:13.459 --> 00:06:15.189 his biography turns into something else. of a 00:06:15.189 --> 00:06:17.490 crime novel, and it's a crucial insight into 00:06:17.490 --> 00:06:20.250 the kind of power he would wield later on. How 00:06:20.250 --> 00:06:22.649 did Bolsheviks fund themselves? Largely through 00:06:22.649 --> 00:06:25.110 criminal means, and Stalin was their specialist. 00:06:25.449 --> 00:06:28.410 We are talking about protection rackets, counterfeiting, 00:06:28.449 --> 00:06:31.410 and bank robberies. Audacious stuff. The most 00:06:31.410 --> 00:06:34.290 notorious was the Tiflis Bank stagecoach robbery. 00:06:34.610 --> 00:06:38.709 Yes, in June 1907. And this was no pity theft. 00:06:39.009 --> 00:06:42.470 It was a massive military -style operation orchestrated 00:06:42.470 --> 00:06:45.189 by Stalin and his operatives. They ambushed a 00:06:45.189 --> 00:06:48.389 convoy in Arivansky Square using guns and homemade 00:06:48.389 --> 00:06:51.209 bombs. The chaos was immense. The resulting chaos 00:06:51.209 --> 00:06:53.899 - killed around 40 people, bystanders, guards, 00:06:54.019 --> 00:06:57.120 police, and injured 50 more. But it raised a 00:06:57.120 --> 00:06:59.980 huge sum, equivalent to about $4 million in today's 00:06:59.980 --> 00:07:02.100 money for the Bolshevik cause. So what was the 00:07:02.100 --> 00:07:04.339 reaction within the party? Well, what's crucial 00:07:04.339 --> 00:07:07.240 here is that many RSDLP members, even Lenin's 00:07:07.240 --> 00:07:10.000 Menshevik rivals, officially condemned this kind 00:07:10.000 --> 00:07:11.860 of armed robbery as politically unacceptable. 00:07:12.300 --> 00:07:14.740 But Stalin and Lenin privately discussed it and 00:07:14.740 --> 00:07:17.319 agreed to continue. This fundamentally separated 00:07:17.319 --> 00:07:19.079 them from the rest of the socialist movement. 00:07:19.399 --> 00:07:21.540 They were the men willing to embrace unprecedented 00:07:21.540 --> 00:07:25.500 lethal violence. Violence as an essential non 00:07:25.500 --> 00:07:28.600 -negotiable tool. And the final critical step 00:07:28.600 --> 00:07:31.540 in this apprenticeship is the name change. He 00:07:31.540 --> 00:07:34.439 began using the alias K. Stalin around 1912. 00:07:34.680 --> 00:07:38.100 The symbolic weight of this is immense. The name 00:07:38.100 --> 00:07:40.980 is derived from the Russian word for steel, stal. 00:07:41.579 --> 00:07:45.029 It translates, of course, to man of steel. It's 00:07:45.029 --> 00:07:47.670 a deliberate projection, a rejection of the physically 00:07:47.670 --> 00:07:51.430 weak, scarred Georgian boy, Ioseb Tsugashvili. 00:07:51.569 --> 00:07:54.149 And the adoption of an identity defined by hardness, 00:07:54.350 --> 00:07:57.410 decisiveness, and unbending ideological rigidity. 00:07:57.709 --> 00:07:59.670 That's the persona he would cultivate for the 00:07:59.670 --> 00:08:02.110 rest of his life. So by 1916, he's back in the 00:08:02.110 --> 00:08:03.949 revolutionary circuit, exempt from conscription. 00:08:04.069 --> 00:08:06.269 When the February Revolution erupts in 1917, 00:08:06.629 --> 00:08:08.990 overthrowing the Tsar, he returns to Petrograd 00:08:08.990 --> 00:08:11.350 -St. Petersburg renamed and immediately steps 00:08:11.350 --> 00:08:14.089 into a leadership vacuum. He does. He takes control 00:08:14.089 --> 00:08:16.670 of the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda alongside Lev 00:08:16.670 --> 00:08:19.290 Kamenev, and suddenly he's prominently back at 00:08:19.290 --> 00:08:21.110 the heart of power, ready for the next phase. 00:08:21.509 --> 00:08:23.970 Navigating the internal politics of the new revolutionary 00:08:23.970 --> 00:08:26.759 government. Stalin's return to Petrograd was 00:08:26.759 --> 00:08:29.980 strategically timed. His position as an editor 00:08:29.980 --> 00:08:32.100 of Pravda and a member of the Central Committee 00:08:32.100 --> 00:08:34.600 gave him the operational footing he needed during 00:08:34.600 --> 00:08:39.600 the chaos of 1917, while more charismatic figures 00:08:39.600 --> 00:08:42.519 like Trotsky dominated the public stage. Right. 00:08:42.600 --> 00:08:45.360 His role in the October Revolution itself, the 00:08:45.360 --> 00:08:48.000 Bolshevik coup, is often downplayed precisely 00:08:48.000 --> 00:08:50.500 because he wasn't the fiery order addressing 00:08:50.500 --> 00:08:53.500 the crowds. He was the administrator, the logistics 00:08:53.500 --> 00:08:56.000 man. He was the operator. He served as acting 00:08:56.000 --> 00:08:57.879 leader of the Bolsheviks during Lenin's period 00:08:57.879 --> 00:09:00.740 of hiding. He oversaw the Sixth Congress and 00:09:00.740 --> 00:09:02.919 helped direct the coup from the Smolny Institute. 00:09:03.179 --> 00:09:05.740 While Trotsky orchestrated the military takeover, 00:09:05.860 --> 00:09:08.159 Stalin ensured the Central Committee was functioning, 00:09:08.399 --> 00:09:10.419 that communications were open, and that resources 00:09:10.419 --> 00:09:13.259 were deployed. A crucial, if unglamorous, role. 00:09:13.539 --> 00:09:16.019 Very. And when the new government was formed, 00:09:16.120 --> 00:09:18.399 Stalin was right there. He supported Lenin's 00:09:18.399 --> 00:09:20.580 strategy of immediately establishing the Chika 00:09:20.580 --> 00:09:22.899 Security Service and shutting down hostile newspapers. 00:09:23.279 --> 00:09:26.000 He was appointed People's Commissar for Nationalities. 00:09:26.080 --> 00:09:28.879 Which wasn't a major policy portfolio, but it 00:09:28.879 --> 00:09:31.600 gave him a platform. A platform to interact with 00:09:31.600 --> 00:09:34.139 the vast non -Russian regions of the new Soviet 00:09:34.139 --> 00:09:38.169 state. And we must emphasize his immediate, unreserved 00:09:38.169 --> 00:09:41.070 acceptance of state violence. He was a champion 00:09:41.070 --> 00:09:43.350 of the Red Terror. While others might have had 00:09:43.350 --> 00:09:46.529 tactical regrets. Stalin openly argued that state 00:09:46.529 --> 00:09:49.210 violence was not only effective, but a necessary, 00:09:49.509 --> 00:09:52.570 even a virtuous tool against internal and external 00:09:52.570 --> 00:09:55.649 capitalist enemies. He internalized the lesson 00:09:55.649 --> 00:09:58.889 from the Tiflis robbery. Violence delivers results. 00:09:59.309 --> 00:10:01.529 This mindset was really put to the test during 00:10:01.529 --> 00:10:04.149 the brutal Russian Civil War. He was sent to 00:10:04.149 --> 00:10:06.610 Zoritsyn, which was later renamed Stalingrad, 00:10:06.769 --> 00:10:09.590 to manage food procurement, but he quickly turned 00:10:09.590 --> 00:10:12.110 it into a military command. He demonstrated incredible 00:10:12.110 --> 00:10:14.769 decisiveness, yes, but also a shocking personalized 00:10:14.769 --> 00:10:17.860 brutality. In Zartzen, he used the local Cheka 00:10:17.860 --> 00:10:20.639 branch to execute suspected counterrevolutionaries, 00:10:20.639 --> 00:10:23.740 often without any trial. He purged the food collection 00:10:23.740 --> 00:10:26.179 agencies of specialists he deemed middle class 00:10:26.179 --> 00:10:28.700 and had them executed. He even ordered villages 00:10:28.700 --> 00:10:31.539 torched. Yes, to ensure compliance with his grain 00:10:31.539 --> 00:10:33.919 procurement program. It's a key early pattern. 00:10:34.399 --> 00:10:36.860 Eliminate the opposition, purge the specialists, 00:10:37.139 --> 00:10:40.399 and rely on fear. It also explains how he cultivated 00:10:40.399 --> 00:10:43.440 a network of loyalists who admired his ruthlessness. 00:10:43.820 --> 00:10:46.919 People like the future marshals, Klement Voroshilov 00:10:46.919 --> 00:10:49.799 and Simeon Budiyani. These relationships were 00:10:49.799 --> 00:10:52.360 foundational. They were military men who saw 00:10:52.360 --> 00:10:55.320 Stalin as a leader who got things done, who understood 00:10:55.320 --> 00:10:58.179 power, unlike the intellectuals surrounding Trotsky. 00:10:58.590 --> 00:11:01.710 And speaking of Trotsky, this period just intensified 00:11:01.710 --> 00:11:05.090 their deep personal and political conflict. Specifically, 00:11:05.129 --> 00:11:08.870 the Polish -Soviet War of 1920. Exactly. Stalin 00:11:08.870 --> 00:11:11.250 disobeyed direct orders during the war to shift 00:11:11.250 --> 00:11:13.529 his troops to assist Marshal Tukhachevsky's forces 00:11:13.529 --> 00:11:16.269 at the Battle of Warsaw. This insubordination 00:11:16.269 --> 00:11:19.049 resulted in a major humiliating defeat for the 00:11:19.049 --> 00:11:21.690 Red Army, and Tukhachevsky publicly blamed Stalin 00:11:21.690 --> 00:11:23.909 for the disaster. And Stalin never forgot or 00:11:23.909 --> 00:11:26.409 forgave that. Never. His antipathy toward Trotsky, 00:11:26.549 --> 00:11:29.009 who was often Lenin's favorite and Tukhachevsky's 00:11:29.009 --> 00:11:31.210 defender, became obsessive. This all sets the 00:11:31.210 --> 00:11:33.730 stage for the pivotal organizational move, the 00:11:33.730 --> 00:11:37.029 general secretary position. In 1922, Lenin nominated 00:11:37.029 --> 00:11:38.850 Stalin for this role, thinking it was just a 00:11:38.850 --> 00:11:41.340 bureaucratic chore. Yes, the role was created 00:11:41.340 --> 00:11:43.919 to manage the growing bureaucracy, the personnel 00:11:43.919 --> 00:11:46.460 files, the administration of the newly massive 00:11:46.460 --> 00:11:50.179 party structure. It was seen as purely organizational, 00:11:50.559 --> 00:11:52.720 too tedious for the intellectual titans like 00:11:52.720 --> 00:11:55.259 Trotsky or Kamenev. But Stalin, the organization 00:11:55.259 --> 00:11:58.720 man, seized it. He masterfully used the general 00:11:58.720 --> 00:12:01.480 secretaryship to gain total control over the 00:12:01.480 --> 00:12:04.799 party apparatus. He oversaw appointments, ensuring 00:12:04.799 --> 00:12:07.519 that only men loyal to him, men who owed him 00:12:07.519 --> 00:12:10.169 their jobs, were placed in he positions throughout 00:12:10.169 --> 00:12:13.049 all the regional party committees. He understood 00:12:13.049 --> 00:12:15.950 that power lay not in speeches, but in personnel 00:12:15.950 --> 00:12:18.289 files. But at the same time, his relationship 00:12:18.289 --> 00:12:20.649 with the ailing Lenin was completely collapsing. 00:12:20.950 --> 00:12:23.590 The sources confirm this. Lenin, disabled by 00:12:23.590 --> 00:12:26.149 strokes, grew to intensely dislike what he called 00:12:26.149 --> 00:12:29.490 Stalin's Asiatic manner, his rudeness, his sheer 00:12:29.490 --> 00:12:32.190 accumulation of power. The tipping point seems 00:12:32.190 --> 00:12:34.389 to have been Stalin's incredible rudeness toward 00:12:34.389 --> 00:12:37.370 Lenin's wife, Nadezhda Kripskaya. And this all 00:12:37.370 --> 00:12:40.129 culminated in Lenin's... In his final years, 00:12:40.289 --> 00:12:43.210 Lenin dictated this document, which was scathing 00:12:43.210 --> 00:12:45.389 in its criticism of Stalin's excessive power 00:12:45.389 --> 00:12:49.169 and rough manners. Crucially, Lenin explicitly 00:12:49.169 --> 00:12:51.889 suggested Stalin be removed from the general 00:12:51.889 --> 00:12:54.330 secretary position. And while some have questioned 00:12:54.330 --> 00:12:57.330 its authenticity. Historians overwhelmingly agree 00:12:57.330 --> 00:13:00.370 it reflects Lenin's final desperate attempt to 00:13:00.370 --> 00:13:03.409 check Stalin's ambition. But the test in it was 00:13:03.409 --> 00:13:07.230 suppressed. Lenin died in January 1924 and the 00:13:07.230 --> 00:13:09.929 power struggle began immediately. And the secrecy 00:13:09.929 --> 00:13:12.330 around that document was fundamental to Stalin's 00:13:12.330 --> 00:13:14.740 ascent, wasn't it? Immensely. Had the Testament 00:13:14.740 --> 00:13:17.519 been read to the full Congress, the old Bolsheviks, 00:13:17.580 --> 00:13:20.000 Lenin's original guard, might have successfully 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:22.639 organized against him. Instead, Stalin played 00:13:22.639 --> 00:13:24.759 the role of the humble, grief -stricken successor. 00:13:25.139 --> 00:13:27.860 He masterminded Lenin's funeral, creating the 00:13:27.860 --> 00:13:30.539 cult of Leninism, positioning herself as the 00:13:30.539 --> 00:13:33.299 doctrine's sole devoted interpreter. A brilliant 00:13:33.299 --> 00:13:36.279 political move to co -opt Lenin's moral authority. 00:13:36.559 --> 00:13:39.139 It was. And at the 13th Party Congress, when 00:13:39.139 --> 00:13:41.019 the Testament was read, it was only read to the 00:13:41.019 --> 00:13:43.230 provincial delegates who were... already beholden 00:13:43.230 --> 00:13:45.710 to Stalin's machine, he offered his resignation. 00:13:46.110 --> 00:13:48.850 A tactical display of humility. A brilliant one. 00:13:48.929 --> 00:13:50.990 It secured his position when it was immediately 00:13:50.990 --> 00:13:54.330 refused by his rivals. After that, he systematically 00:13:54.330 --> 00:13:57.309 defeated his opposition. He initially formed 00:13:57.309 --> 00:14:00.029 a triumvirate with Kamenev and Zinoviev against 00:14:00.029 --> 00:14:03.389 Trotsky, the left opposition. But once Trotsky 00:14:03.389 --> 00:14:05.809 was politically marginalized, Stalin turned on 00:14:05.809 --> 00:14:08.250 his former allies. And he used a political hammer 00:14:08.250 --> 00:14:12.720 that would later be used to crush millions. The 00:14:12.720 --> 00:14:15.379 charge of factionalism. This is critical to understand. 00:14:15.440 --> 00:14:18.059 Stalin used the concept of factionalism, essentially 00:14:18.059 --> 00:14:20.419 organizing against the party line as a weapon. 00:14:20.899 --> 00:14:23.120 Kamenev and Zinoviev eventually joined Trotsky 00:14:23.120 --> 00:14:25.279 to form the United Opposition, but Stalin used 00:14:25.279 --> 00:14:27.240 the party rules he controlled to accuse them 00:14:27.240 --> 00:14:30.100 of this crime. By 1927, they were removed from 00:14:30.100 --> 00:14:32.299 the Central Committee. And Trotsky was exiled. 00:14:32.460 --> 00:14:34.639 First to Kazakhstan and then expelled from the 00:14:34.639 --> 00:14:37.779 Soviet Union entirely in 1929. By relying on 00:14:37.779 --> 00:14:39.899 his staunch supporters, Stalin was now the supreme, 00:14:40.159 --> 00:14:43.100 unchallenged leader. With the revolutionary veterans 00:14:43.100 --> 00:14:46.440 defeated, crushed, or exiled, Stalin was free 00:14:46.440 --> 00:14:49.580 to define the Soviet Union's direction. And he 00:14:49.580 --> 00:14:52.480 pivoted entirely inward, focusing on transforming 00:14:52.480 --> 00:14:55.740 the state into a modern industrial power through 00:14:55.740 --> 00:14:58.860 his signature doctrine, socialism in one country. 00:14:59.100 --> 00:15:02.720 This was the defining ideological shift, a massive 00:15:02.720 --> 00:15:05.139 rejection of the original globalist Bolshevik 00:15:05.139 --> 00:15:08.580 view. Stalin argued that Russia could and must 00:15:08.580 --> 00:15:11.899 achieve socialism domestically first, stabilizing 00:15:11.899 --> 00:15:14.580 and strengthening the USSR before focusing on 00:15:14.580 --> 00:15:17.360 global revolution. And this doctrine justified 00:15:17.360 --> 00:15:19.799 the radical domestic transformation that followed, 00:15:19.960 --> 00:15:22.419 a transformation fueled by existential fear. 00:15:22.919 --> 00:15:25.139 That fear was palpable. The sources quote and 00:15:25.139 --> 00:15:27.039 sell in saying, we have fallen behind the advanced 00:15:27.039 --> 00:15:30.019 countries by 50 to 100 years. We must close that 00:15:30.019 --> 00:15:32.639 gap in 10 years. Either we do this or we'll be 00:15:32.639 --> 00:15:35.139 crushed. That intense urgency drove the first 00:15:35.139 --> 00:15:38.419 five -year plan, launched in 1928. This marked 00:15:38.419 --> 00:15:40.480 the birth of the centralized command economy, 00:15:40.659 --> 00:15:43.360 a total rejection of Lenin's new economic policy, 00:15:43.440 --> 00:15:45.419 the NEP. Which had been a kind of tactical retreat 00:15:45.419 --> 00:15:48.769 towards limited capitalism. Exactly. Stalin saw 00:15:48.769 --> 00:15:51.110 the NEP as breeding corruption and capitalist 00:15:51.110 --> 00:15:54.029 tendencies. The five -year plan was the philosophical 00:15:54.029 --> 00:15:57.610 and economic opposite. Rapid, state -controlled, 00:15:57.730 --> 00:16:00.409 heavy industrialization fueled by the forced 00:16:00.409 --> 00:16:02.950 extraction of resources and labor from the peasantry. 00:16:03.090 --> 00:16:05.250 This is the moment the state violence expands 00:16:05.250 --> 00:16:08.090 from targeting political opponents to targeting 00:16:08.090 --> 00:16:11.230 entire classes of people. He turned on the perceived 00:16:11.230 --> 00:16:14.629 profiteers of the NEP. the affluent peasants, 00:16:14.690 --> 00:16:18.490 or kulaks. The term kulak is deceptive. It literally 00:16:18.490 --> 00:16:21.570 means fist, implying a greedy hoarder. But by 00:16:21.570 --> 00:16:24.330 1929, it was applied to any peasant who was resisting 00:16:24.330 --> 00:16:26.669 state control or refusing to surrender their 00:16:26.669 --> 00:16:29.659 grain. When Stalin traveled to Novosibirsk in 00:16:29.659 --> 00:16:32.500 1928, he claimed kulaks were hoarding grain and 00:16:32.500 --> 00:16:34.539 ordered immediate confiscation. This triggered 00:16:34.539 --> 00:16:36.879 widespread violence. It did. And it led to the 00:16:36.879 --> 00:16:39.139 ultimate decision to liquidate the kulak class 00:16:39.139 --> 00:16:41.899 entirely. The scale of this deculatization was 00:16:41.899 --> 00:16:44.480 horrific. It was what some historians call the 00:16:44.480 --> 00:16:48.529 first mass terror. In January 1930, the Politburo 00:16:48.529 --> 00:16:50.809 approved mass deportations and concentration 00:16:50.809 --> 00:16:53.710 camps. Kulaks were divided into three categories. 00:16:54.950 --> 00:16:56.710 Counterrevolutionaries to be executed or sent 00:16:56.710 --> 00:16:59.370 to gulags, active resistors to be deported to 00:16:59.370 --> 00:17:02.049 remote regions, and those merely resisting to 00:17:02.049 --> 00:17:04.309 be sent to local camps. And the numbers. Over 00:17:04.309 --> 00:17:08.109 320 ,000 households, that's roughly 1 .8 million 00:17:08.109 --> 00:17:11.130 people, were exiled or sent to labor camps by 00:17:11.130 --> 00:17:13.890 July 1930. And this terror went hand in hand 00:17:13.890 --> 00:17:16.579 with mass collectivization. Peasants were forced 00:17:16.579 --> 00:17:19.519 onto state farms, the kolkhoz and sufkaz. They 00:17:19.519 --> 00:17:21.960 joined out of sheer terror. Collectivization 00:17:21.960 --> 00:17:23.960 was designed to give the state total control 00:17:23.960 --> 00:17:26.619 over agricultural output, ensuring cheap grain 00:17:26.619 --> 00:17:28.920 to feed urban industrial workers and to export 00:17:28.920 --> 00:17:31.160 for foreign currency. Despite mass resistance, 00:17:31.539 --> 00:17:33.380 including peasants slaughtering their livestock 00:17:33.380 --> 00:17:35.480 rather than handing them over, 90 % of agricultural 00:17:35.480 --> 00:17:38.359 households were collectivized by 1936. And productivity 00:17:38.359 --> 00:17:40.599 just plummeted. It did. The system was inefficient, 00:17:40.900 --> 00:17:42.980 poorly managed, and lacked any incentive. And 00:17:42.980 --> 00:17:45.059 this disastrous combination leads to... directly 00:17:45.059 --> 00:17:48.380 to the tragedy of the famine of 1932 -1933, the 00:17:48.380 --> 00:17:51.079 Holodomor in Ukraine. Which devastated not just 00:17:51.079 --> 00:17:54.240 Ukraine, but southern Russia, Kazakhstan, the 00:17:54.240 --> 00:17:57.380 North Caucasus, killing millions. The famine 00:17:57.380 --> 00:18:00.019 was the direct consequence of systemic failure 00:18:00.019 --> 00:18:03.259 combined with deliberate state policy. The key 00:18:03.259 --> 00:18:06.319 factors were poor harvests, years of declining 00:18:06.319 --> 00:18:09.180 productivity from collectivization, and critically, 00:18:09.420 --> 00:18:11.960 the government's absolute refusal to build reserve 00:18:11.960 --> 00:18:15.140 grain stocks. Stalin viewed the desperate peasants 00:18:15.140 --> 00:18:17.400 as political enemies. So rather than addressing 00:18:17.400 --> 00:18:20.099 the failure, he blamed the victims. He blamed 00:18:20.099 --> 00:18:22.519 the crisis on saboteurs and hostile elements 00:18:22.519 --> 00:18:25.200 among the peasants. He actively concealed the 00:18:25.200 --> 00:18:27.519 famine from foreign observers and prioritized 00:18:27.519 --> 00:18:30.539 industrialization above all else. Grain exports, 00:18:30.819 --> 00:18:33.490 though diminished, continued. The scale is hard 00:18:33.490 --> 00:18:35.750 to comprehend. We're talking about 5 to 7 million 00:18:35.750 --> 00:18:38.990 people dead. 5 to 7 million, yes. And while historians 00:18:38.990 --> 00:18:41.069 debate whether this constitutes a deliberate 00:18:41.069 --> 00:18:44.029 genocide, a purposive killing aimed at eliminating 00:18:44.029 --> 00:18:46.250 a group or deaths from criminal neglect on a 00:18:46.250 --> 00:18:48.809 catastrophic scale, the fact remains that Stalin 00:18:48.809 --> 00:18:50.890 and the Politburo were fully aware of the crisis 00:18:50.890 --> 00:18:53.109 and prioritized the industrial state over human 00:18:53.109 --> 00:18:56.450 sustenance. And the cost of this rapid industrialization 00:18:56.450 --> 00:19:00.150 was unimaginable suffering. The sources tell 00:19:00.150 --> 00:19:02.309 us that massive construction projects, the White 00:19:02.309 --> 00:19:05.829 Sea Baltic Canal, the Moscow Metro, were overwhelmingly 00:19:05.829 --> 00:19:09.289 built using forced labor from the expanding Gulag 00:19:09.289 --> 00:19:11.809 system. The Gulag system wasn't a temporary measure. 00:19:11.930 --> 00:19:14.049 It was an integral part of Stalin's economic 00:19:14.049 --> 00:19:17.529 machine. It supplied millions of unfree laborers 00:19:17.529 --> 00:19:19.390 for the most dangerous and critical projects. 00:19:19.630 --> 00:19:22.309 And within the factories themselves, they introduced 00:19:22.309 --> 00:19:24.690 the Stakhanovite movement to promote relentless 00:19:24.690 --> 00:19:27.970 labor intensification. As this industrial transformation 00:19:27.970 --> 00:19:30.849 progressed, Stalin declared that class war would 00:19:30.849 --> 00:19:33.589 intensify as socialism advanced because enemies 00:19:33.589 --> 00:19:36.470 would become more desperate. This was the ideological 00:19:36.470 --> 00:19:40.269 justification for the great purge of 1936 -1938. 00:19:40.490 --> 00:19:42.890 The purge didn't begin suddenly. It started with 00:19:42.890 --> 00:19:45.289 intimidating show trials like the Shakti trial 00:19:45.289 --> 00:19:48.119 in 1928. But the true ignition point was the 00:19:48.119 --> 00:19:50.839 murder of Sergei Kirov, the popular Leningrad 00:19:50.839 --> 00:19:53.960 party boss, in December 1934. Whether Stalin 00:19:53.960 --> 00:19:56.440 ordered the murder or simply exploited it, he 00:19:56.440 --> 00:19:58.920 used Kirov's death as a pretext to unleash the 00:19:58.920 --> 00:20:01.539 full force of state terror. And the purge first 00:20:01.539 --> 00:20:03.900 targeted the old Bolsheviks, Lenin's original 00:20:03.900 --> 00:20:07.259 guard. Precisely. The famous Moscow trials saw 00:20:07.259 --> 00:20:09.700 the execution of former rivals like Kamenev, 00:20:09.700 --> 00:20:13.099 Zinoviev, Bukharin, and Rykov. These were elaborate, 00:20:13.299 --> 00:20:15.920 staged affairs designed to prove to the public 00:20:15.920 --> 00:20:18.920 that all ideological opposition was actually 00:20:18.920 --> 00:20:21.920 treasonous collusion with foreign powers. The 00:20:21.920 --> 00:20:24.240 destruction then extended beyond the party elite 00:20:24.240 --> 00:20:26.640 to the military. The terror against the military 00:20:26.640 --> 00:20:29.099 was arguably his most damaging move ahead of 00:20:29.099 --> 00:20:32.670 World War II. In May 1937, Stalin ordered the 00:20:32.670 --> 00:20:34.849 arrest and execution of much of the army's high 00:20:34.849 --> 00:20:37.950 command, including Marshal Tukhachevsky. Tens 00:20:37.950 --> 00:20:40.210 of thousands of officers were arrested. This 00:20:40.210 --> 00:20:42.890 decapitated the Red Army, removing its most talented 00:20:42.890 --> 00:20:45.410 and experienced commanders, severely weakening 00:20:45.410 --> 00:20:47.529 the Soviet military just when the threat of Germany 00:20:47.529 --> 00:20:49.789 was growing. And the repression didn't stop at 00:20:49.789 --> 00:20:51.730 the elites, did it? Not at all. It targeted a 00:20:51.730 --> 00:20:54.329 massive swath of the civilian population. The 00:20:54.329 --> 00:20:56.769 criteria for arrests were absurdly broad. Anti 00:20:56.769 --> 00:20:59.589 -Soviet elements, former priests, religious figyans, 00:20:59.630 --> 00:21:01.690 or merely those who knew someone who was arrested. 00:21:02.069 --> 00:21:05.589 The NKVD head, Nikolai Yezov, implemented specific 00:21:05.589 --> 00:21:08.630 quotas for arrests and executions across regions. 00:21:08.970 --> 00:21:11.849 Quotas for killing people. Yes. It led to a state 00:21:11.849 --> 00:21:15.690 -sponsored frenzy. In total, over 1 .6 million 00:21:15.690 --> 00:21:19.109 people were arrested in this period and 700 ,000 00:21:19.109 --> 00:21:21.569 were officially shot. We also see the national 00:21:21.569 --> 00:21:24.549 operations during this time, which was explicitly 00:21:24.549 --> 00:21:27.869 targeted ethnic cleansing. Yes. These operations 00:21:27.869 --> 00:21:30.349 targeted specific groups like Poles, Germans, 00:21:30.549 --> 00:21:33.309 Latvians and Koreans, often based on geographical 00:21:33.309 --> 00:21:37.029 proximity to perceived enemies. Over one million 00:21:37.029 --> 00:21:40.309 people were forcibly deported internally or exiled. 00:21:40.470 --> 00:21:43.369 The goal was to remove potential fifth columns 00:21:43.369 --> 00:21:46.319 in case of war. So what was the motive? I mean, 00:21:46.339 --> 00:21:48.119 historians still wrestle with it. Was it just 00:21:48.119 --> 00:21:50.140 ideology, paranoia or some kind of political 00:21:50.140 --> 00:21:52.839 necessity? It seems to be a combination. Stalin 00:21:52.839 --> 00:21:54.819 certainly believed in the intensifying class 00:21:54.819 --> 00:21:57.140 struggle, but he also suffered from acute escalating 00:21:57.140 --> 00:21:59.940 paranoia. His personal notes reveal these convoluted 00:21:59.940 --> 00:22:02.579 claims about enemies encircling him. Ultimately, 00:22:02.819 --> 00:22:04.880 the purge functioned as a tool to destroy all 00:22:04.880 --> 00:22:06.960 potential internal rivals and ensure that no 00:22:06.960 --> 00:22:08.839 one, not the army, not the secret police, not 00:22:08.839 --> 00:22:11.240 the party, was capable of challenging his absolute 00:22:11.240 --> 00:22:13.559 power. How did it finally wind down? Because 00:22:13.559 --> 00:22:16.019 it seems... just stop. It ended as suddenly as 00:22:16.019 --> 00:22:20.059 it began. By 1938, the chaos and systemic disruption 00:22:20.059 --> 00:22:22.359 were undermining the very state function Stalin 00:22:22.359 --> 00:22:25.359 was trying to strengthen. The terror ended when 00:22:25.359 --> 00:22:28.240 the hyperenthusiastic head of the NKVD, Yezhov, 00:22:28.420 --> 00:22:31.609 was replaced by Lavrentiy Beria. And once the 00:22:31.609 --> 00:22:34.309 arrests stopped, Stalin, demonstrating his political 00:22:34.309 --> 00:22:37.589 genius for self -preservation, blamed the excesses 00:22:37.589 --> 00:22:39.869 on Yusuf. Who was then arrested and executed 00:22:39.869 --> 00:22:42.950 himself. Exactly. Stalin emerged, once again, 00:22:43.069 --> 00:22:46.009 clean and above the fray. As the Great Purge 00:22:46.009 --> 00:22:48.089 concluded, Europe was already on the brink of 00:22:48.089 --> 00:22:51.430 war, and Stalin, ever the cynical realist, was 00:22:51.430 --> 00:22:54.329 determined to keep the USSR neutral, to let the 00:22:54.329 --> 00:22:57.019 capitalist powers destroy each other. That political 00:22:57.019 --> 00:22:59.319 calculation led to the diplomatic maneuver that 00:22:59.319 --> 00:23:01.680 shocked the world, the Molotov -Ribbentrop Pact 00:23:01.680 --> 00:23:05.019 in August 1939. Seeing Britain and France as 00:23:05.019 --> 00:23:07.539 unwilling to commit to a real alliance, Stalin 00:23:07.539 --> 00:23:09.880 signed a non -aggression pact with Nazi Germany. 00:23:10.000 --> 00:23:11.640 And this wasn't just a promise not to fight. 00:23:11.839 --> 00:23:14.799 Not at all. It included a crucial secret protocol 00:23:14.799 --> 00:23:17.380 that carved up Eastern Europe into German and 00:23:17.380 --> 00:23:20.039 Soviet spheres of influence. It was a tactical 00:23:20.039 --> 00:23:22.460 stroke of brilliance, however morally reprehensible. 00:23:22.910 --> 00:23:25.410 The Soviets immediately moved to invade Poland, 00:23:25.630 --> 00:23:28.289 occupy the Baltic states, and annex parts of 00:23:28.289 --> 00:23:31.000 Romania. But this aggression also included mass 00:23:31.000 --> 00:23:33.259 atrocities. You're referring to the Katyn massacre 00:23:33.259 --> 00:23:37.380 in 1940. Yes. The NKVD executed around 22 ,000 00:23:37.380 --> 00:23:39.519 members of the captured Polish armed forces, 00:23:39.819 --> 00:23:42.920 police, and intelligentsia. This was a clear, 00:23:43.000 --> 00:23:45.700 premeditated action to eliminate the Polish elite 00:23:45.700 --> 00:23:48.319 and forestall any dissent in the occupied territories. 00:23:48.660 --> 00:23:50.740 So he's applying the same mechanisms from the 00:23:50.740 --> 00:23:53.799 Great Purge to foreign policy. Precisely. Preemptive 00:23:53.799 --> 00:23:56.519 execution of perceived enemies. Despite the pact, 00:23:56.759 --> 00:23:59.160 Stalin chose to ignore repeated war. from his 00:23:59.160 --> 00:24:01.960 own intelligence and Western powers. He was completely 00:24:01.960 --> 00:24:04.160 taken by surprise when Germany launched Operation 00:24:04.160 --> 00:24:08.059 Barbarossa in June 1941. The initial impact was 00:24:08.059 --> 00:24:10.700 devastating. The Wehrmacht pushed deep into Soviet 00:24:10.700 --> 00:24:13.180 territory. The air force was destroyed in days. 00:24:13.779 --> 00:24:16.380 Stalin, overwhelmed, reportedly suffered a brief 00:24:16.380 --> 00:24:18.900 mental collapse. He retreated to his dacha for 00:24:18.900 --> 00:24:21.700 several days. But he recovered. He did. He quickly 00:24:21.700 --> 00:24:24.319 recovered and took absolute charge as Supreme 00:24:24.319 --> 00:24:26.619 Commander of the State Defense Committee. And 00:24:26.619 --> 00:24:29.500 his command style was based on absolute unrelenting 00:24:29.500 --> 00:24:31.859 terror directed not only at the Germans, but 00:24:31.859 --> 00:24:34.180 at his own population and troops. The scorched 00:24:34.180 --> 00:24:37.640 earth policy. A scorched earth policy, yes. Destroying 00:24:37.640 --> 00:24:39.799 anything of use ahead of the German advance, 00:24:40.099 --> 00:24:42.400 guaranteeing immense suffering for the civilians 00:24:42.400 --> 00:24:46.000 left behind. He also ordered the NKVD to execute 00:24:46.000 --> 00:24:48.940 around 100 ,000 political prisoners ahead of 00:24:48.940 --> 00:24:51.039 the approaching Wehrmacht. to prevent their possible 00:24:51.039 --> 00:24:53.680 release. And the treatment of captured soldiers 00:24:53.680 --> 00:24:57.259 was horrifying. Order number 270. That order 00:24:57.259 --> 00:24:59.440 declared captured soldiers to be traitors who 00:24:59.440 --> 00:25:01.539 risked being treated as such upon their return. 00:25:01.799 --> 00:25:03.960 It even threatened their families with punishment. 00:25:04.279 --> 00:25:06.720 His own son, Yakov, was captured, and when the 00:25:06.720 --> 00:25:08.880 Germans offered a trade, Stalin famously refused, 00:25:09.299 --> 00:25:11.299 saying he wouldn't trade a marshal for a lieutenant. 00:25:11.779 --> 00:25:15.539 Yakov died in German custody. Then in 1942, he 00:25:15.539 --> 00:25:18.700 doubled down with order number 2207. Not one 00:25:18.700 --> 00:25:21.799 step back. That order directed that anyone retreating 00:25:21.799 --> 00:25:24.519 without specific authorization was to be placed 00:25:24.519 --> 00:25:27.160 in penal battalions, essentially cannon fodder 00:25:27.160 --> 00:25:30.500 or shot by dedicated blocking detachments posted 00:25:30.500 --> 00:25:33.119 behind the front lines. The order was designed 00:25:33.119 --> 00:25:36.420 to instill absolute suicidal commitment. And 00:25:36.420 --> 00:25:39.279 despite the terror, the immense Soviet mobilization 00:25:39.279 --> 00:25:41.880 effort eventually turned the tide. The military 00:25:41.880 --> 00:25:45.220 industry, relocated to the east, managed to outstrip 00:25:45.220 --> 00:25:47.099 Germany in production. And the turning point, 00:25:47.140 --> 00:25:49.420 of course, was the Battle of Stalingrad in 1942 00:25:49.420 --> 00:25:52.900 -1943. The Soviet victory there marked the decisive 00:25:52.900 --> 00:25:56.240 strategic shift of the entire conflict. In 1943, 00:25:56.559 --> 00:25:58.859 Stalin declared himself Marshal of the Soviet 00:25:58.859 --> 00:26:01.859 Union. We also see a calculated temporary shift 00:26:01.859 --> 00:26:04.539 in state culture during the war, a tactical relaxation 00:26:04.539 --> 00:26:07.819 of rigid Soviet ideology. Yes, a conscious move 00:26:07.819 --> 00:26:10.650 to broaden support. He allowed greater tolerance 00:26:10.650 --> 00:26:12.869 for the Russian Orthodox Church, permitted previously 00:26:12.869 --> 00:26:15.009 suppressed artists like Shostakovich to publish, 00:26:15.150 --> 00:26:18.130 and dissolved the Communist International. He 00:26:18.130 --> 00:26:20.069 was pivoting toward Russian nationalism over 00:26:20.069 --> 00:26:22.549 international communism to appeal to the broadest 00:26:22.549 --> 00:26:25.250 base of support. Globally, he transitioned from 00:26:25.250 --> 00:26:27.710 pariah to one of the big three, meeting with 00:26:27.710 --> 00:26:30.190 Churchill and Roosevelt. It's almost surreal 00:26:30.190 --> 00:26:32.690 that he was referred to in the West as Uncle 00:26:32.690 --> 00:26:36.480 Joe. A nickname he apparently found utterly undignified. 00:26:36.680 --> 00:26:39.539 But despite the alliance, deep mutual suspicion 00:26:39.539 --> 00:26:42.980 remained. He was a ruthless negotiator. At Yalta 00:26:42.980 --> 00:26:46.460 in 1945, his prowess secured huge reparations 00:26:46.460 --> 00:26:49.279 from Germany and territory in Asia in exchange 00:26:49.279 --> 00:26:51.990 for entering the war against Japan. And his actions 00:26:51.990 --> 00:26:54.329 were always driven by the geopolitical need to 00:26:54.329 --> 00:26:56.950 secure the Soviet state, right? The Warsaw Uprising 00:26:56.950 --> 00:26:59.210 is a perfect example of this. A cold -blooded 00:26:59.210 --> 00:27:02.150 calculation. The Red Army was right outside Warsaw, 00:27:02.390 --> 00:27:05.859 but paused. The Polish resistance, loyal to the 00:27:05.859 --> 00:27:08.079 government in exile in London, rose up against 00:27:08.079 --> 00:27:10.660 the Germans expecting Red Army assistance. But 00:27:10.660 --> 00:27:13.160 Stalin deliberately withheld that aid. He did. 00:27:13.299 --> 00:27:15.460 He allowed the Germans to crush the Polish resistance. 00:27:15.579 --> 00:27:17.660 Why? Because by allowing them to be eliminated, 00:27:17.880 --> 00:27:19.859 he ensured that there would be no strong anti 00:27:19.859 --> 00:27:22.380 -Soviet Polish force to interfere with his plan 00:27:22.380 --> 00:27:24.480 to install a pro -Soviet communist government 00:27:24.480 --> 00:27:27.400 in post -war Poland. It perfectly exemplifies 00:27:27.400 --> 00:27:30.589 his ruthless post -war planning. After Germany's 00:27:30.589 --> 00:27:33.250 surrender, Stalin adopted the title of Generalissimo. 00:27:33.589 --> 00:27:36.170 His armies controlled central and eastern Europe 00:27:36.170 --> 00:27:39.410 up to the Elbe River. This was the pinnacle of 00:27:39.410 --> 00:27:41.609 his power, and he quickly established the Eastern 00:27:41.609 --> 00:27:44.769 Bloc. He was incredibly strategic. He initially 00:27:44.769 --> 00:27:47.349 installed coalition ministries to test the Western 00:27:47.349 --> 00:27:49.769 reaction, but these were quickly transformed 00:27:49.769 --> 00:27:52.890 into the people's democracies, all adopting the 00:27:52.890 --> 00:27:55.670 Soviet model. This is what led Churchill to declare 00:27:55.670 --> 00:27:58.230 that an iron curtain had descended across the 00:27:58.230 --> 00:28:01.000 continent. These growing rivalries then rapidly 00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:03.720 escalated into the Cold War. They were inevitable. 00:28:03.920 --> 00:28:06.339 The U .S. launched the Marshall Plan in 1947, 00:28:06.839 --> 00:28:08.960 which Stalin viewed as an aggressive economic 00:28:08.960 --> 00:28:12.579 move to undermine Soviet hegemony. So his priorities 00:28:12.579 --> 00:28:15.319 became securing the nuclear deterrent and testing 00:28:15.319 --> 00:28:17.400 the West's commitment to Europe. He got the bomb 00:28:17.400 --> 00:28:20.640 in 1949, and his test of Western commitment came 00:28:20.640 --> 00:28:23.769 with the Berlin Blockade in 1948. The blockade 00:28:23.769 --> 00:28:26.450 was his test. He blocked all access to West Berlin. 00:28:26.710 --> 00:28:28.910 He was forced to back down only when the West 00:28:28.910 --> 00:28:30.910 successfully sustained the city through the massive 00:28:30.910 --> 00:28:33.509 Berlin airlift. This showed him the West would 00:28:33.509 --> 00:28:36.609 resist politically, but not militarily. A key 00:28:36.609 --> 00:28:39.690 lesson. And finally, his strategic reach extended 00:28:39.690 --> 00:28:41.910 into Asia with the Chinese Communist Revolution 00:28:41.910 --> 00:28:44.630 and the Korean War. He was initially cautious 00:28:44.630 --> 00:28:47.849 about Mao, but once Mao won, Stalin signed a 00:28:47.849 --> 00:28:51.359 critical Sino -Soviet treaty in 1950. When Kim 00:28:51.359 --> 00:28:53.480 Il -sung pushed for the invasion of South Korea, 00:28:53.660 --> 00:28:56.640 Stalin was hesitant. He was absolutely keen to 00:28:56.640 --> 00:28:59.359 avoid a direct Soviet confrontation with the 00:28:59.359 --> 00:29:02.039 U .S. So he used China as a proxy. He supported 00:29:02.039 --> 00:29:04.440 Kim's invasion but then convinced China to enter 00:29:04.440 --> 00:29:06.920 the war to aid the North Koreans, using them 00:29:06.920 --> 00:29:09.460 to fight the Americans and their allies, avoiding 00:29:09.460 --> 00:29:12.299 direct Soviet military involvement. By the final 00:29:12.299 --> 00:29:15.359 years of his life, Stalin's health was deteriorating. 00:29:15.400 --> 00:29:18.440 And as his physical condition worsened, his personal 00:29:18.440 --> 00:29:20.960 mistrust of everyone around him him escalated 00:29:20.960 --> 00:29:23.180 into dangerous new waves of state repression. 00:29:23.319 --> 00:29:25.819 His paranoia was intense. He had survived the 00:29:25.819 --> 00:29:28.380 war, built an empire, and was now terrified of 00:29:28.380 --> 00:29:31.180 being betrayed or assassinated. This mistrust 00:29:31.180 --> 00:29:34.000 fueled campaigns based on manufactured conspiracies, 00:29:34.220 --> 00:29:37.180 most notably a chilling turn toward state -sponsored 00:29:37.180 --> 00:29:39.140 anti -Semitism. This was initially framed as 00:29:39.140 --> 00:29:41.420 foreign policy, but quickly became domestic terror. 00:29:41.599 --> 00:29:44.519 It manifested as massive anti -Jewish campaigns, 00:29:44.859 --> 00:29:48.279 with attacks on Zionism and rootless cosmopolitanism. 00:29:49.019 --> 00:29:51.539 This was an ideologically veiled attempt to purge 00:29:51.539 --> 00:29:53.579 any perceived foreign influence from the cultural 00:29:53.579 --> 00:29:56.039 sphere. The most dramatic culmination of this 00:29:56.039 --> 00:29:59.720 paranoia and the final major purge was the doctor's 00:29:59.720 --> 00:30:03.119 plot. In 1952, several Kremlin doctors, predominantly 00:30:03.119 --> 00:30:05.500 Jewish, were arrested under Stalin's personal 00:30:05.500 --> 00:30:08.640 orders. They were tortured and forced to confess 00:30:08.640 --> 00:30:10.799 to plotting to kill senior Soviet politicians. 00:30:11.339 --> 00:30:13.660 This was a clear attempt to initiate another 00:30:13.660 --> 00:30:16.859 vast purge. Rumors were rampant that Stalin was 00:30:16.859 --> 00:30:19.140 preparing the mass deportation of all Soviet 00:30:19.140 --> 00:30:21.839 Jews to Siberia. It seems he was preparing for 00:30:21.839 --> 00:30:24.619 a bloody succession, or maybe just securing his 00:30:24.619 --> 00:30:27.019 own control until the very end. He was systematically 00:30:27.019 --> 00:30:29.920 eliminating any potential rivals. He abolished 00:30:29.920 --> 00:30:32.079 the Politburo, replacing it with the much larger 00:30:32.079 --> 00:30:34.700 Presidium to dilute the power of any single person. 00:30:34.920 --> 00:30:38.359 Then, on March 1, 1953, he was found semi -conscious 00:30:38.359 --> 00:30:40.720 on the floor of his dacha. He'd suffered a cerebral 00:30:40.720 --> 00:30:43.039 hemorrhage. He died four days later, on March 00:30:43.039 --> 00:30:45.480 5. The fear surrounding his death was palpable. 00:30:45.680 --> 00:30:47.740 People were unsure if it would bring relief or 00:30:47.740 --> 00:30:50.720 chaos. There was absolute relief among the leadership, 00:30:50.859 --> 00:30:53.240 but also immense uncontrolled grief among the 00:30:53.240 --> 00:30:56.279 populace. The funeral procession caused a massive 00:30:56.279 --> 00:30:58.539 crowd crush in Moscow, resulting in numerous 00:30:58.539 --> 00:31:01.839 deaths. His body was embalmed and initially displayed 00:31:01.839 --> 00:31:05.000 alongside Lenin in the mausoleum. With no designated 00:31:05.000 --> 00:31:07.519 successor, a collective leadership quickly emerged. 00:31:09.710 --> 00:31:12.470 And they were united primarily by the desire 00:31:12.470 --> 00:31:15.289 to prevent any single person from attaining Stalin's 00:31:15.289 --> 00:31:17.990 autocratic power ever again. The immediate reforms 00:31:17.990 --> 00:31:21.490 were swift, a mass amnesty, an end to the anti 00:31:21.490 --> 00:31:23.829 -Semitic purges, and the beginning of the reform 00:31:23.829 --> 00:31:26.430 of the Gulag system. The machine of terror was 00:31:26.430 --> 00:31:28.690 immediately dismantled. But the true ideological 00:31:28.690 --> 00:31:32.470 break came three years later, in 1956, with Nikita 00:31:32.470 --> 00:31:35.119 Khrushchev's famous secret speech. Delivered 00:31:35.119 --> 00:31:36.940 to a closed session of the 20th Party Congress, 00:31:37.200 --> 00:31:39.039 the speech denounced Stalin's cult of personality, 00:31:39.359 --> 00:31:41.900 his mass repression, and his violations of Leninist 00:31:41.900 --> 00:31:45.079 norms. This launched the long process of de -Stalinization. 00:31:45.599 --> 00:31:47.380 Stalin's body was removed from the mausoleum 00:31:47.380 --> 00:31:50.400 in 1961, and Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd. 00:31:50.579 --> 00:31:53.259 This brings us to the immense and still contested 00:31:53.259 --> 00:31:56.039 question of Stalin's death toll. For you, the 00:31:56.039 --> 00:31:58.700 listener, the distinction between pre - and post 00:31:58.700 --> 00:32:01.980 -1991 data is absolutely vital for understanding 00:32:01.980 --> 00:32:04.460 this history. It is. Before the fall of the Soviet 00:32:04.460 --> 00:32:07.299 Union, Western estimates often exceeded 20 million 00:32:07.299 --> 00:32:10.619 deaths. However, when the Soviet archives were 00:32:10.619 --> 00:32:13.220 declassified in the 1990s, historians gained 00:32:13.220 --> 00:32:17.220 access to official NKVD and Gulag records, providing 00:32:17.220 --> 00:32:19.460 a much clearer picture of documented deaths. 00:32:19.700 --> 00:32:22.119 So what does that current archival consensus 00:32:22.119 --> 00:32:25.180 look like today? It focuses on documented state 00:32:25.180 --> 00:32:27.839 repression. The official records show approximately 00:32:27.839 --> 00:32:34.339 799 ,455 executions between 1921 and 1953. Deaths 00:32:34.339 --> 00:32:36.680 in the Gulag camps were estimated at 1 .5 to 00:32:36.680 --> 00:32:39.720 1 .7 million out of an enormous 18 million people 00:32:39.720 --> 00:32:42.279 who passed through the system. If you add deportees, 00:32:42.279 --> 00:32:44.359 the total number of officially recorded victims 00:32:44.359 --> 00:32:46.779 who died due to direct repression or poor conditions 00:32:46.779 --> 00:32:49.759 is around 3 .3 million. But those figures exclude 00:32:49.759 --> 00:32:51.319 the victims of the famine, which is where the 00:32:51.319 --> 00:32:53.559 debate gets truly nuanced and the overall numbers 00:32:53.559 --> 00:32:57.619 swell again. Exactly. The 1932 -1933 famine adds 00:32:57.619 --> 00:33:02.420 an additional 3 .5 to 6 .5 million deaths. The 00:33:02.420 --> 00:33:04.680 difficulty for historians lies in the categorization. 00:33:05.019 --> 00:33:08.119 Were these purposive killings or were they excess 00:33:08.119 --> 00:33:10.500 deaths resulting from disastrous, criminally 00:33:10.500 --> 00:33:13.700 negligent policies? The debate is intense, but 00:33:13.700 --> 00:33:15.500 regardless of classification, these millions 00:33:15.500 --> 00:33:18.099 of famine deaths must be attributed to Stalin's 00:33:18.099 --> 00:33:20.279 policies. So when we hear the larger figures, 00:33:20.460 --> 00:33:22.740 they're generally combining the documented repression 00:33:22.740 --> 00:33:25.420 victims with the estimated excess famine deaths. 00:33:25.619 --> 00:33:28.019 Correct. The archives clarify the mechanisms 00:33:28.019 --> 00:33:30.240 and the numbers of direct victims, but they do 00:33:30.240 --> 00:33:32.420 not absolve Stalin of the excess deaths resulting 00:33:32.420 --> 00:33:34.880 from his policies, whether those policies were 00:33:34.880 --> 00:33:37.359 motivated by negligence or malice. What's truly 00:33:37.359 --> 00:33:39.680 remarkable is how complex Stalin's image remains 00:33:39.680 --> 00:33:42.180 today. Yeltsin denounced him, but current Russian 00:33:42.180 --> 00:33:43.880 leaders have adopted a more selective memory. 00:33:44.180 --> 00:33:47.160 Vladimir Putin has consciously emphasized Soviet 00:33:47.160 --> 00:33:50.619 achievements, the industrialization, the victory 00:33:50.619 --> 00:33:53.259 in World War II under Stalin's leadership, rather 00:33:53.259 --> 00:33:56.220 than focusing on the repression. This narrative 00:33:56.220 --> 00:33:58.700 reflects a continued and in some areas increasing 00:33:58.700 --> 00:34:01.680 popularity in Russia and Georgia, where he is 00:34:01.680 --> 00:34:04.640 still viewed by many as the decisive, victorious 00:34:04.640 --> 00:34:07.220 statesman who secured Russia's global power. 00:34:07.720 --> 00:34:10.380 We've discussed the staggering scope of Stalin's 00:34:10.380 --> 00:34:12.900 influence, from transforming a backward empire 00:34:12.900 --> 00:34:15.760 into a superpower to implementing systematic 00:34:15.760 --> 00:34:18.820 terror that defined an era. So what does this 00:34:18.820 --> 00:34:21.559 vast contradictory history ultimately mean for 00:34:21.559 --> 00:34:25.119 you, the learner? The way we frame Stalin's deepest 00:34:25.119 --> 00:34:27.940 motives is critical. We know from our sources 00:34:27.940 --> 00:34:29.699 that he was a voracious reader, particularly 00:34:29.699 --> 00:34:32.840 fascinated by history. He admired previous Russian 00:34:32.840 --> 00:34:35.199 leaders who used immense personal power figures 00:34:35.199 --> 00:34:37.440 like Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great to 00:34:37.440 --> 00:34:39.980 drag the state into modernity. This leads to 00:34:39.980 --> 00:34:42.159 our final provocative thought for this deep dive. 00:34:42.440 --> 00:34:44.619 Given his interest in history and state glory, 00:34:44.860 --> 00:34:47.300 was Stalin's tyranny driven purely by a committed, 00:34:47.420 --> 00:34:49.599 brutal adherence to Marxist -Leninist ideology, 00:34:50.059 --> 00:34:52.820 the need to crush class enemies, or was his rule 00:34:52.820 --> 00:34:55.480 a form of modern Caesarism? That is the ultimate 00:34:55.480 --> 00:34:58.019 historical question. Was it a political system 00:34:58.019 --> 00:35:01.619 driven by ideology or a personality driven system? 00:35:01.840 --> 00:35:05.019 A belief that only immense, absolute personal 00:35:05.019 --> 00:35:07.599 brutality could ensure the survival and glory 00:35:07.599 --> 00:35:10.519 of the Russian state with the ideological veneer 00:35:10.519 --> 00:35:12.679 merely serving as the ultimate justification 00:35:12.679 --> 00:35:15.880 for terror. A question that forces us to ask 00:35:15.880 --> 00:35:18.519 if the revolution simply created the perfect 00:35:18.519 --> 00:35:21.000 vehicle for a man already obsessed with power 00:35:21.000 --> 00:35:23.139 and state control. That's a lot to think about. 00:35:23.280 --> 00:35:25.440 A question that forces us to look beyond simple 00:35:25.440 --> 00:35:28.119 labels and consider the full complexity of tyranny 00:35:28.119 --> 00:35:30.480 in the 20th century. Thank you for guiding us 00:35:30.480 --> 00:35:33.360 through this essential, if difficult, deep dive 00:35:33.360 --> 00:35:35.860 into Joseph Stalin. My pleasure. And thank you 00:35:35.860 --> 00:35:37.659 for joining us. We encourage you to continue 00:35:37.659 --> 00:35:39.659 your deep dive into this complex and defining 00:35:39.659 --> 00:35:41.840 historical period. We'll see you next time.