Do these Sources give similar or different impressions of Stalin?

Page of pages. Philip. Gonsalves

07/05/07

GCSE History Coursework Assignment 2.

1: Do these Sources give similar or different impressions of Stalin?

Source B is a source that supports Stalin. Stalin is being portrayed as a very friendly, and tolerable man. He looks like an avuncular, fatherly figure to the workers or the whole of Russia. Stalin is standing next to one of his great industrial achievement and hydroelectric dam, with some of the workers from this dam. This shows Stalin as a very kind and as a person who doesn’t mind mixing with the lower class people, unlike the previous leader (before Lenin) the Tsar who would never do this kind of thing. This also fits with the communist system because everyone should be equal and it is mainly the working classes who support communism so this is a good promotional painting. At the time this painting Russia was in the middle of the five year plans, where the government set targets for the different industries such as coal, pig iron, steel, oil and electricity so this painting will show Russians that the five year plans worked and how good they are, with all the happy workers and the sparkling white dam on a beautiful sunny day. This painting tries to show that Stalin is a very clever and strong leader as he is standing on his dam and pulling Russia out of the old ways and into the 20th Century with industrialisation.

Source C is also a source that supports Stalin. He is standing on some sort of stage and a huge crowd of women is trying desperately to shake his hand or just to touch him. These women are wives of Russian army officers. So these women are usually quite important and civilized women but to reach out towards Stalin in this manor is quite unusual. This gives the people who look at this photograph will think look at Stalin a very popular and kind person, who gives up his time to shake hands with his loyal supporters. He also ...

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Source C is also a source that supports Stalin. He is standing on some sort of stage and a huge crowd of women is trying desperately to shake his hand or just to touch him. These women are wives of Russian army officers. So these women are usually quite important and civilized women but to reach out towards Stalin in this manor is quite unusual. This gives the people who look at this photograph will think look at Stalin a very popular and kind person, who gives up his time to shake hands with his loyal supporters. He also is smiling and looks happy to talk to these women. Overall this is a source that is showing people that Stalin is a kind and nice man, a man of the people who always has time to talk and shake hands with his supporters.

Source A on the other hand is a poster against Stalin. It is a cartoon, which has been written by Russian exiles that are living in France, and it is mocking Stalin, the text is in French and says, “ Visit the USSR’s pyramids ”. This poster is referring to Stalin’s purges of the 1920s – 1930s. The pyramids in the source are made out of human skulls, I think these skulls are meant to represent the skulls of all the people who were killed in Stalin’s purges. Stalin is standing on the edge of the picture; he is portrayed as an ugly, big nosed person, with exaggerated features. He looks uncaring and showing no remorse as he is saying, visit the USSR’s pyramids with his hand stretched out towards the skulls. So this source is showing Stalin as an evil and bad person because of what he did in the purges.

Source A has been written by Russian exiles living in France, so we can defiantly think that this source is biased towards Stalin because it would be because of him they have been exiled to France. So they will defiantly be against Stalin because of this, so there views cannot be taken as absolute truth it will defiantly have been exaggerated. Source B is an official Soviet painting. So this tells us that it is going to be a pro Stalin source because it is an official painting, this means it has been released by the government and Stalin basically is the government so it has to support him. Source C is a photograph taken in the 1930s. I think this photo is a fake because in the 1930s Stalin rarely left the Kremlin and I think that it is just a promotional photo to rally support for Stalin. It also says that Stalin is congratulating the wives of army officers, they must have been the wives of the officers that Stalin kills in his purge of the army. So overall I think that all of these sources either support or criticize Stalin for very different reasons as I have described above.