Stalin: Man or Monster - Sources Questions

Authors Avatar
HISTORY COURSEWORK

STALIN: MAN OR MONSTER

) Source A gives us the impression of Stalin being a murderer, as there are pyramids of human skulls. This could represent the huge amounts of people he had killed, through labour or work camps. I know from my own knowledge and after studying Russia under Stalin's rule that Stalin was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. Therefore this source gives us a pretty good overview of what Stalin was like. Also we can sense a satisfaction or pride that Stalin has from himself after looking at source A. This can be sensed as Stalin is pointing to all the skulls as if it was a thing to be proud of. There is also a caption in the source saying "Visitez L'U.R.S.S. ses pyramides!" Which is another thing that the author uses to show us, Stalin's pride.

Source B on the other hand gives us a completely different impression of Stalin.

We see him in this source as a good leader that takes interest in his workers. The people shown (who are probably lower class workers) and Stalin are happy on the picture and it gives an impression of a happy, well ruled Russia. The picture is saying that Stalin is a carrying ruler and that he takes interest in even the low class people.

Source C seems to give a more similar impression to source B. It seems to show Stalin yet again as a man in a good relationship with his people; even a gentleman. In source C Stalin is shaking hands with the wives of the soldiers, the woman are happy and yet again we get a similar impression to source B of Stalin loving his people and them loving him.

Sources B and C give a very different impression about Stalin to source A, but tend to give a rather similar impression of the USSR leader between themselves. They both give the impression of Stalin as a good man, in good relations with his people while source A gives a totally different impression of Stalin; an evil man, perhaps even a monster.

2) Source D is written by Stalin himself, and therefore it is bound to provide at least some evidence about Stalin for example the way he thought. However, as it is written by Stalin himself it is bound to be biased- and so not fully reliable. Even though this source is mainly a story with a moral in it, told by Stalin probably for propaganda usage it does provide some useful evidence about Stalin and the type of a man he was.

Based on this source, one can assume that Stalin was a paranoid man; constantly worried about what people think of him and therefore trying to present himself as a nice and caring leader while at the same time giving the message that the other leaders are 'bad' and do not care for the ordinary Russian people.

As well as being paranoid, the source provides evidence as to the fact that Stalin was as well a manipulative man. Through telling what may seem as a simple story he is trying to get the ordinary average people to think he is a nice man, as he cares for them; this is proven by him in his story when he alone cares for the drowned man. The source is written in 1945; which is during the time that Stalin wanted to be popular amongst the Russian people, to be able to stay firmly in power, and therefore we see he used manipulation as a tool.

The source also provides evidence about the attitude that Stalin had towards the other leaders, it certainly would have to be negative in order for him to write in a way that portrays them in a bad light. He says they don't truly care about ordinary people and their lives. Which of course is true; as the communist leaders usually didn't care for non important members of the society and dealt with them ruthlessly; but what Stalin does not mention and in fact says the exact opposite is that neither did he really care for anyone apart from himself. (This could be seen as deep irony)

In other words he is trying to gain positive feelings from the people for himself alone.

As well he could be trying to create a society that likes him and sees him as the only good leader, and also a society that is good to one another. This Stalin might want to achieve in order so people will be good and not rebellious and cause problems in the country

Maybe not as important but the source also provides some useful evidence on Stalin and his background.

We can learn from the source that Stalin is was in exile in Siberia; this is a reliable piece of information as I know from my own knowledge on Stalin that he in fact did spend some time in Siberia in exile.

In conclusion I think that if one looks deep in the source, one will be able to find useful evidence about Stalin that matches with historical facts. Even though Stalin wrote it and the actual content is biased if one looks properly and studies the source carefully one can find a lot of evidence about the type of man Stalin was.

3) 'Pravda' was the communist party paper. Therefore we can not fully count on the reliability of source E which appeared in this paper, it is also biased. The published speech which source E is, could have been just part of Russian manipulation and propaganda. In fact it seems that way after reading it; the description of Stalin is very much exaggerated and "over the top". I know from my own studies that Stalin was a murderer 5,000,000 people starved to death because of him and his policies; he was a killer and not "wise and marvellous" as the writer describes him. This source is not particularly reliable, as we know that what it says about Stalin lies away from the truth. As well the speech was to the Congress of Soviets and therefore the man was in a way under pressure to say what he said, as for anything else he would have been imprisoned or killed, as were many men that tried to speak against Stalin. This makes it less reliable as we can not be at all sure whether the man means it and says what he thinks is the truth.

However, on the other hand we can not exclude a possibility that the source could hold some truth in it. The author of this speech could really believe in what he is saying, people were being brainwashed and indoctrinated all the time, leading to a belief that is expressed in the speech. Due to the heavy propaganda thousands of people actually truly believed in Stalin's greatness and that he is an inspired leader as we read in the source. Therefore the source could hold some reliability and it could be seen as a representative of what some Russians thought of Stalin at that time.

Also source E can be seen as reliable as it holds some truth about Stalin; twice in the source we come across the fact that Stalin was a strong man, this I think is quite true as you have to be strong to remain a leader of such a huge country till you die, and achieve what he did. Other single details in this source are also true such as the name carving on machines and factories; these little details that are true make the source seem at least a little reliable.
Join now!


Source F certainly has some truth in it, or at least it shares a view that myself and many others hold about Stalin;

that he was paranoid, always worried whether there is someone better then him. In fact this view is also supported in source D an extract from Stalin where we can see that he is paranoid. I think that many historians and other sources support this view, which makes source F quite reliable, as well it written by somebody that would have known Stalin quite well. Bukharin at one time was close to Stalin ...

This is a preview of the whole essay