Stalin's Anti Semitism example essay topic

Modern World History 5/18/01 Joseph Stalin led the Socialist Soviet Union in the "Revolution from Above", a movement to centralize the government and transform society without popular participation. Because Stalin's radical goals were destructive for the populace to attain, his legitimacy was based on the credibility of his ideological authority. In protection of that conviction, Stalin was in constant fear of competitive initiative and philosophy. Stalin subjected society and culture to strict party surveillance and control, issuing pro-socialist, xenophobic propaganda, censoring literature, art, and media, and launching anti-religious campaigns.

In addition to his confiscation of religious property and denunciation of belief, Stalin was a contemptuous anti-Semite, using Jewish people as symbols of a corrupt capitalist ethic. However, in 1941, Stalin discontinued his Jewish intolerance and supported the formation of the Jewish Antifascist Committee (JAC) in 1942, contradicting practiced Stalinism and amending his previously categorical policy. Even after WWII, Stalin collaborated with the United States and supported the creation of a Jewish State in Palestine. Soviet Jews raised great hope for future friendship and cooperation with the government.

Suddenly, in 1948, Stalin changed his position again, dissolving the JAC, arresting prominent Jews, and beginning the "Black Years" of refreshed repression and anti-Semitism. Although drastic doctrinal oscillations were completely out of character for the inflexible dictator, the changes in Jewish administration were not the only exceptions in his etiology that Stalin made from WWII to his death. The effects of Stalin's inconstancies were dangerously close to destructive of his legitimacy and authority. What compelled a fanatically unyielding and calculating dictator to alter his policy -- self-preservation, miscalculation, composite guilt, or deteriorating mentality?

"Stalin owed everything to Lenin". Stalin's oppressive rule was legitimized by the "imprimatur of Lenin's creation and succession". Marx's theory became Lenin's doctrine and Stalin's creative justification. Lenin's Bolshevik ("Majority") party was formed in 1903 with the objective of a stagiest societal evolution of Europe and Russia in the gradual progression from feudalism, to capitalism, to socialism, and to eventual communism. In the October Revolution of 1917, Lenin succeeded in establishing the Soviet Government, and after the 1920 Bolshevik victory in the Civil War, he gained political isolation for his party. Lenin believed that until he obtained European support and the ensuing transition to a communist society was complete, laws were necessary "to suppress the resistance of classes hostile to the proletariat".

This acting law became a "dictatorship of the proletariat; [Lenin] instructed his followers to 'use both corruption and the threat of general extermination' " to ensure the authority of the temporary dictatorship. Still under Lenin, Stalin proposed a policy later known as Stalinism, a theory that sanctioned an unlimited and no longer temporary Soviet dictatorship with the radical intent of employing Socialism in a single country. Stalin appealed to that "Great Russian chauvinism" and to the Bolsheviks and many citizens who retained a fervent Communist idealism. The Socialist cause was the authority that justified both Lenin and Stalin's ruthless regimes. "Marxism gave [the dictators] a monopoly upon the truth, and possession of the truth meant for Bolsheviks 'everything was permitted'. The Party would never forget that it had taken power as an enlightened minority acting on behalf of a majority ignorant of its best interests.

It was ideology, not a mandate, that legitimized the party". Stalin's policy-enforcement and paranoid terrorism led to tremendous suffering and loss of life; the interests of the individual were entirely sacrificed to those of the state in the advancement of the "sacred task" of the Socialist revolution. "Stalin inherited a system that resorted to violence and brutality and extended and deepened it". Launched in 1928, Stalin's first Five-year Plan sought to expedite the growth of Socialism through forced collectivization and industrialization. Eager to be rid of the New Economic Policy (NEP), Lenin's benevolent intermediary capitalist economy, Stalin hoped to teleport the Soviet Union to Socialism in a revolutionary movement, instead of the projected evolutionary age. Stalin gained support with impatient, chauvinistic fanatics, but his prematurity had devastating results.

Due to the disorganization and exhaustion of peasant farmers, labor productivity in the collective farms was insufficient. With the subsequent shortfall in grain stocks, a catastrophic famine spread through 30 million people. With the ensuing peasant reluctance to collectivize, the party agreed to the use of extreme force. "Collectivization in 1928-1933 cost nine million peasant lives".

The disastrous ferocity of Stalin's "bloody experiment" condemned Soviet agriculture to "decades of stagnation", reducing "the peasants to a [constant] level of starvation". As the brother of collectivization in the Five-year Plan, industrialization was slightly less cataclysmic. Stalin set unrealistic goals for industrial increase that led to a decline in working conditions and standard of living. "Distorted pricing, procurement, and... conflicting commodities created a 'goods famine. '. ..

The price was very heavy in human misery and created intolerable pressures, shortages, and great disorganization, but the country was transformed". Though industrialization was partially successful, the exhausted nation was unable to meet Stalin's demands; thousands of citizens were arrested. Adding to Stalin's list of offenses towards the Soviet nation, particularly towards his political 'opposition', was his use of physical coercion. In the 1930's, Stalin revealed his extremely paranoid temperament; terrified of in-party opposition, Stalin empowered the "most hated institution in the land", the People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs (NKVD), to purge his government of any potential threats. Never before had the power of the secret police been utilized within the party. The Great Terror began when a popular member of the government, Kirov, was assassinated, almost certainly upon Stalin's orders.

Stalin "skillfully built an atmosphere of hysteria and imminent danger which... permitted him to start a general purge [on the pretext of exposing Kirov's killers]. Mass arrests, forced confessions, deportations, and the execution of thousands followed", as "Stalin brainwashed the millions" to believe in some vast conspiracy against the state. The Great Terror had no rationale other than guaranteeing Stalin's complete dominance. "An 'enemy of the people' was anyone who did not or might not share [Stalin's] outlook", and was invariably arrested for 'counter-revolutionary activities'.

By 1938, Stalin had arrested or executed more than 70% of the members of his voting delegation, victims forced to confess to involvement in fabricated anti-party conspiracies or murders that Stalin's NKVD had committed. Between 1937 and 1938, around five million general civilians were arrested. "The nation was turned into a lynch mob."Stalin's great achievement was to place the entire population of nearly two hundred million people wholly in the power of the police, whilst himself retaining in turn absolute power over the police". The Party and the Soviet masses both were victims to Stalin's Socialist tenet and vicious command during a despotism that decimated over 20 million Soviets, and still the atomized public remained loyal to Stalin. The Stalinist operations terrorized the Soviet populous, yet the civilians not only accepted Stalin's authority, most worshiped him as a leader and a mastermind.

Stalin's shameless employment of propaganda aided his legitimacy, but fundamentally, it was the inexorable Socialist doctrine that convinced the masses of a common purpose and ultimate goal. "There was a widespread belief that they were truly leaving a gloomy past and were on their way to the light, working if not for themselves, then for future generations. Present miseries were unimportant; only the future mattered, and that was on its way". The basic Marxist principles of an ideal society held the fragile faith of the beleaguered Soviet majority, cutting the risk of counter-revolution. "However, the party could never expect true popular support, and it recognized that given the chance, an unenlightened populace would tear its leaders limb from limb".

Because of the intense suffering and poverty his administration caused, "not very much leadership would have been required to start a counter-Stalinist revolution. Stalin's authority balanced precariously on the conviction of his doctrine and the consistency of his policy. Any leader exercising terror to the extent that Stalin did always runs the risk of an uprising, so the soundness of Stalin's commitment to the Communist cause was exclusive impetus of his support. Until 1939, Stalin's idealist theory and consistent methods for soviet Russia allowed the Soviets to retain firm belief in the standardized Stalinist truth. Stalin recognized his instability; he considered the Russian people a potential enemy, as was evidenced by all the resources expended to neutralize them.

"Enormous attention was paid to educating the population and successive generations in the principles of the revolution, socialism, and communism". Stalin feared the populace, and at all times he attempted to equate his methods with the Marxist / Leninist/Stalinist theories. It was the adherence to these theories that kept Stalin's actions consistent and legitimate. All of Stalin's maneuvers could be rationalized and coincided with this familiar party line that continually reminded common Soviets of the purpose in their relentless sacrifice. Because ideology was crucial to his power, Stalin allowed for no other faith or conceptual opposition, "permitting no question of a diversity of political opinion", and crusading against religion.

Bolshevism had always outright condemned religion as a competing belief. In the twenties, Stalin began an "ideological objective of the elimination of religion", and by 1939, only 1% of Russian churches were still in operation. Soviet foreign policy was decidedly hostile; The Soviets accepted the collective dogmatic convictions of a chauvinistic Russian superiority, consistent in its denouncement of all other nations, religions, and races. Stalin enforced this xenophobic policy with particular severity, though religion and foreign policy were the objects of his future variations. While his purges scared many Soviets from opposing him, Stalin's brutality ironically incited cause for revolution in others, counterbalancing the effectiveness of the repression, leaving his ideological authority as the main basis of his command. Stalin's ruthless policy was acceptable and even sacred when his doctrine was stabilized, but Stalin feared that if he altered his policy, the Soviet citizenry would no longer accept his control.

Stalin was an anti-Semis t, despite his attempts to propagate images of impartiality to foreign countries in the 1930's. Stalin's anti-Semitism was based mostly upon a "hatred for any group of people who remained unassimilated, un atomized under his rule". To Stalin, the Jews seemed like a "strange and secretive people. Anti-Semitism was increased enormously during the early period of Stalin's rule". With the start of industrialization and the ambitious Jewish proletariat, "Anti-Semitic atrocities were so savage in 1927-28, [Stalin] had to take extra measures" to shield against 'official anti-Semitism outbreaks. ' With Stalin's extreme social and cultural regulation in the late '30's, the Jews were especially persecuted.

Instead of quelling Anti-Semitism, a fear of 'Jewish chauvinism' grew among the Soviets who looked on Judaism as a 'competing loyalty,' helping the spread of anti-Semitic attitude and enforcing the "party's refusal to tolerate even the mildest forms of Jewish separatism", which was regarded as capital crime. During the Great Terror, "The anti-Jewish thrust was conspicuous" as Stalin "purged the party of Jews", destroying Jewish institutions and "virtually all Jewish leaders". In 1939, Stalin made his first major change in policy when he signed the Hitler-Stalin pact of non-aggression. From Fascism's beginning, Stalin held a strong anti-fascist stance, repeatedly denouncing the theory and its participants.

But, with inevitable war looming closer, Stalin dove into a pact with the Germans to buy time before he entered the conflict. Khrushchev, a powerful member of the Soviet Party, said that, "It was very hard for us - as communists, as anti-Fascists, as people unalterably opposed to the philosophical and political position of the Fascists - To accept the idea of joining forces with Germany."It was not only the Jews who were shocked and confused about the significance of the pact. The turnabout had to be rationalized to the Soviet people. Yesterday's enemy was suddenly harmless". The Soviets were confused and disillusioned. All anti-fascist propaganda was ceased, and the Soviet public could no longer be sure of Stalin's policy.

In the face of war, Stalin found it impossible to adhere to his former principles. Along with the consequences among the Soviets, the signing of the pact was bad news for the Soviet Jews. Anti-fascist propaganda was replaced by a paper that pro-nazi, anti-Semitic propaganda. Stalin began a "decimation of Jewish [officials] and intelligentsia" as "German atrocities against Jews commenced."The Jews realized now that a menace worse than anything their unhappy race had experienced throughout centuries of persecution had fallen upon them". No longer afraid of Western denunciation, and with the help of their new ally, the Soviets released all pent up anti-Semitism during the Nazi-Soviet pact, liquidating the Jewish culture.

When the Germans invaded the Soviet Union, breaking the anti-aggression pact, Stalin's made the most extreme doctrinal reversal of his dictatorship. Stalin had been unprepared for the German attack and needed to drum up all possible support, maybe from the domestic Jews he now suddenly embraced, but more importantly from Western powers such as the United States. He revoked all pro-fascist propaganda and abolished his anti-Semitic cruelty. In 1941, Stalin employed prominent Polish Jews to plan a foreign Jewish agency (JAC), supporting Jewish restoration. Again reaching out an 'official hand' towards Soviet Jewry, Stalin established the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) in 1942, "giving rise to new illusions and hopes of a Jewish cultural revival and new waves of Jewish consciousness which to this day have had their influence". The formation of the committee marked a "sensational reversal of internal policy", giving Soviet Jews a central organization for the first time.

The Committee gained widespread global support for the newly undertaken Soviet crusade for the protection of Europe's Jews from fascism. The mobilization of foreign support for Russia's war effort was due to the efforts of the JAC. Again altering ingrained Soviet policy, Stalin ceased "the liquidation of all houses of prayer, including synagogues". Soviet Jews were allied with Jews around the world "in an officially sanctioned cause that had a high priority".

Stalin even allowed the JAC a newspaper, a sacred right of publication in a nation under the strictest censorship. "The Soviet Union was called the first force in the war against Hitlerism, and Soviet Jews were praised for the example they set the Jewish people as a whole". Stalin believed that the JAC's propaganda would induce the United States Jewish organizations to lobby for the United State's participation in the war against Hitler, alongside the Soviets. "The JAC was not intended to be a national Soviet Jewish organization with a domestic program, but to serve Soviet foreign policy and military needs... [The committee was] an instrument of Soviet propaganda abroad".

To sell the image of newfound compassion, Stalin implemented the domestic changes necessary to convince Soviet Jews and Western powers, yet because these the changes differed so far from his previous course of action, Stalin was unable to legitimize them with Stalinist theory, yet again undermining his authority over his people. Stalin had strong motives for falsely allying himself with Soviet Jewry, and "Caught up in the wartime fervor of the time, Jews were willing to ignore the unsavory evidence of Soviet past history in their eagerness to identify with a great power struggling to defeat Hitler. For many Jews, this simplification was created a momentary illusion that Soviet and Jewish interests coincided. Soviet national self interest briefly cultivated this illusion". After the war, while Soviet Russia projected an outward image of support for the creation of a Jewish state in Palestine, the Nazi atrocities inflicted upon the Soviet Jews were being covered up. Stalin worked with the US to build an Israeli state, "striving to win support among Western public opinion", while anti-Semitism grew among the populace from blaming the Jews for the Nazi invasion.

The JAC was dissolved in 1948, and many of its members killed by the NKVD in "deliberately staged accidents". In victory, "a product of [the new] fierce Russian nationalism was the re-emergence of an age-old anti Semitism". The sudden inconsistencies in Stalin's principles were blatant. Stalin's rule was based primarily upon the consistency of his theory, and changes in his normally dogmatic method would have been destructive, had it not been for the recent victory over Germany. Stalin's fluctuations in policy from 1939 until his death in 1953 and the resulting losses in ideological authority were forgotten in the victory celebrations...

By the time the post-war excessive Russian chauvinism had worn off, Stalin's policy was again stabilized in anti-Semitic xenophobia. Stalin feared contradicting his ideology, but with the onset of World War II, he compromised the dangers to his dictatorship. Stalin's risky changes in etiology had strong motives in calculated self-preservation.