I saw a preview of the movie The death of Stalin and I must say that I had a good laugh. I especially liked the part where Joseph Stalin’s son stormed into the room where Stalin’s body lay and shouted to the medical officer, “You’re not even a person – you’re just a testicle!” No doubt the movie must be very funny. However, the real truth of the matter is that Joseph Stalin, who ruled the Soviet Union until his death in 1953, actually saved Europe — and indeed the world.

Russia before Stalin’s rule was not only a backward country; it was the world’s laughingstock. After the last Tusar and the country’s first communist leader Vladimir Lenin gave up large parts of the Russian Empire, mostly to Germany, at the end of World War I, no one really took Russia seriously. So when Stalin came to power, he was determined to transform Russia into a superpower – no matter the cost.

By the late 1930s, Stalin had managed to transform the Soviet state from a backward agricultural nation to an industrial power, with a very large, if not yet very efficient army. So when Germany and her allies invaded Russia in 1941, and seemed on the verge of winning, some people were wondering why the Russians were having such a warm time crushing the Hitler-led alliance. The reasons are many and quite debatable, but there seems to have been some misinformation that many have taken to be fact, both then and now.

One such “fact” is the claim that Stalin was caught completely by surprise by the German-led invasion. However, this doesn’t seem to be true. True, Stalin was a bit upset, to say the least, that Hitler had attacked, but he knew, well in advance, that the Germans were going to invade.

Indeed, long before Hitler was seen as any sort of threat by the British and the French, Hitler had publicly made known his hatred of the Soviet state — and his intentions to destroy it. Also, not very long before the actual invasion, Soviet and British spies had warned Stalin that war was coming. It is also not true that Stalin ignored the massing of Germany’s armies on Russia’s borders just before the war began. Also, Stalin had good reasons to believe that the British had been warning of an imminent German-lead invasion in order to prod Russia into attacking Germany first.

Khrushchev’s claim that Stalin lost his nerve immediately after the invasion and went into seclusion for some time is also doubtful. According to Stalin’s diaries and Kremlin documents, Stalin was actually issuing orders and receiving his ministers and generals during the period of his supposed nervous breakdown. However, the man must have been depressed that Hitler invaded, but he did not go mad, as claimed by some.

Stalin’s signing of the Stalin-Hitler peace pact, just before the war, is also pointed to as proof that the man was crazy. In fact, he was well aware of what he was doing. He knew that Russia would not be ready for a war with Germany in 1939 and Hitler also was warned by his generals that Germany was not ready either. Both leaders really hated each other. The pact proved to be a circus act — one that both sides used to buy time.

Stalin’s takeover of large parts of Europe and northern Japan by the end of 1948 is said by some to show that he was an imperialist – trying to regain the territories the Empire lost between 1917 and 1921. There may be some truth to this. However, it seems more likely that Stalin’s primary concern in taking over the countries of central and Eastern Europe was his determination to prevent another war and to secure the Soviet state. With over 25 million killed and hundreds of Soviet towns and cities reduced to rubble after World War II, Stalin was determined never again to subject the USSR to another war on such a scale.

Britain’s Churchill put it best when he said that it was Stalin who “tore the guts from the Nazi beast”, as over three-quarters of all of Germany’s losses were against Russia. Had Hitler defeated Russia, it seems hard to believe that Great Britain could have held out for much longer. Hitler would have got his empire and the world today would have been a very different place. So, I think it is safe to say that Stalin did save Europe — and the world — from Hitler.

michael_a_dingwall@hotmail.com