Joseph Stalin Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 2750 words

Joseph Stalin - Research Paper role modelFor instance, according to statistical estimates provided by Haynes and Husan in their book A Century of State Murder? dying and Policy in Twentieth-Century Russia, if the 1920s mortality rates are to be extrapolated to the 1930s, one has to reach a conclusion that there were about 8.5 million excessive deaths for 1928-1936, and additional 1.5 million for the second part of the ecstasy of the 1930s, making total number of casualties of Stalinism in the 1930s close to 10 million large number (Haynes and Husan 65). If one compares the population predictions for the year of 1937 compi take by Soviet Gosplan in the late 1920s (about 181 million people) with the 1937 numbers actual results (i.e. 168.5 million people, further reduced to 167 million by the young 1939 census), it is clear that Soviet population fell by considerable number in the 1930s, as even Stalins political relation was forced to concede (Haynes and Husan 64). This tremend ous number of excessive unnatural deaths should be further extended by taking into account the number of deaths of Soviet soldiers and citizens in the course of WW II, which, while not entirely caused by Stalins military ineptness, were significantly increased by it. In addition, the death rate in Soviet forced labor camps rose to its highest level in the 1940s, with 1.01 million of dead prisoners in 1941-1945 (Haynes and Husan 83). Finally, the 1940s deportations of guinea pig groups deemed not loyal to the Soviet regime cost their own share of deaths almost 300-400.000 are seeming to have perished, as the data provided by Pohl testify (2). This means that in all certainty, Stalinism led to deaths of about 20 million people, if the part of wartime deaths is included in overall estimate. Nonetheless, despite the natural detestation that may arise towards Stalin and his system of government when exposed to such information, it is known that memories of Stalinist era are often fond ly invoked in modern Russia and, to a lesser extent, in other post-Soviet states. In particular, Putins government often uses memories of Stalins rule to support its own actions, especially un the field of foreign policy, and the new history textbooks used in Russian schools often include statements of the like that Stalin acted entirely rationally in executing and imprisoning millions of people in the Gulags (Stewart). The nature of such fondness for Stalin on the part of Russian governance is understandable, as the Russian government, while pursuing harsh neo-liberal economic policies, full(a)ly employs appeals to Soviet nostalgia in its symbolic representation and external policies. At the same time, a characteristically different kind of popular Stalinism exists among the wide strata of Russian society. Exemplified by the policies of red-brown Communist Party of Russian Federation, which for all purposes dropped its former Marxist tenets in estimation of more open Russian im perial patriotism and of other, smaller but ideologically similar parties and groupings, this subject of Stalinist feelings mix nostalgia for the orderly society unaffected by market turbulence with strong pagan conservatism and xenophobia. Therefore, despite strong condemnation levied upon Stalinism by Russias liberal intelligentsia, Stalinist sentiment, or,