Over the weekend, I watched two episodes about the great Soviet leader, Stalin, his rise to power, his treachery towards friends and comrades and allies. (It was shown on the AHC channel: “Apocalypse: Stalin.” What emerges is a horrifying character that began as a bank robber and ended as a mass executioner and the instigator of man- made famines that killed millions.
Stalin was a very vain man. There are no official reports about the height of Joseph Stalin because Stalin was sensitive about it; he went to great lengths to conceal his lack of stature from the Soviet people and the world because he stood only at 5 feet 4 or 5 feet 5. He was an un-attractive man with his pockmarked face, bad teeth, his limp, and his withered left arm yet his deepest ambition was to develop his country, weaken or kill rivals and have his image plastered on every public building.
Stalin had a library of 20,000 books. He could quote The Bible, Jane Austin, and Bismarck and others. But from those things he learned little. He lacked refinement, elegance, social polish, and compassion.
His selfish self-worship led his soul by the nose. In each of us there is an innate selfishness which defaces our character. William James talks of a man on a bus that remains sitting while women are standing or grabbing a bigger portion to cut out his neighbor. Such selfishness is a reflex, he said. It can be curbed, held back by careful self-examination and can be weakened over time. But Stalin was a spiritual primitive. He lived in a society where having a conscience was seen as a vulnerability, not a strength. If you hesitated or brooded over a fact or a course of action or tried to correct an impulse, you were lost. If you didn’t seize your chance, another predator might snatch it from you. That’s how Stalin’s mind worked.
As a result, Stalin always was ruled by his worst instincts. There was never a long, inner struggle in his soul between what was good and what was bad, no struggle between the vicious or the charitable, the generous or the spiteful. Stalin made a melodrama of his life. All the good resided with him and everyone else was evil. He lived in a pitiless world and became pitiless. Carneades, a minor Roman philosopher said, in his second lecture, that states had become great by unjust aggressions against their weaker neighbors which were exemplified by Rome. Carneades espoused the doctrine of personal survival at all costs. In a shipwreck, the doctrine of "Women and children first," was not a maxim that leads to personal survival. What would you do if you were flying from a victorious enemy, you had lost your horse, but you found a wounded comrade on his horse? If you were sensible, you would drag him off and seize his horse, whatever justice or decency might ordain.
That sounds like Stalin. In addition, Stalin liked to inflict harm and disappointment one people. When I was in the Arizona State Prison, one day I was watching new inmates getting off a shuttered bus with no windows, and one inmate got out carrying something personal, perhaps a candy bar, I don’t remember. But I remember a chunky, coarse guard with a disagreeable face who came over, took the object from the inmate and ground it under his heel. Why? Asked the inmate, his face hurt. The hack replied, “There is no ‘why’ here.”
Stalin used suspicion, falsehoods and treachery as tools of his rule. Cato thee Elder, a Roman senator put down luxury and feasting, had a cruel and unsavory nature. He made his wife suckle not only her own children, but also those of his slaves, in order that, having been nourished by the same milk, they might love his children. When Cato’s slaves were too old to work, he sold them remorselessly. He encouraged his slaves to quarrel with each other, for "he could not abide that they should be friends." When a slave had committed a grave fault, he would call in his other slaves, and induce them to condemn the delinquent to death; he would then carry out the sentence with his own hands in the presence of the survivors.
That sounds exactly like Stalin.
The perils of life sometimes create murderous characters like him. Any person who lives in a world of hazards will be compelled to seek and find security. If he is weak, he will align himself with the stronger. John Dewey, once observed that if a man could fulfill his destiny, “could willingly ally himself with putting his will…on the side of powers which dispense fortune (and) he could escape defeat, and might triumph in the midst of destruction.” Stalin came to epitomize doctorial power. He was the force able to dispense fortune.
“You bring to reason to our enemies by having them hanged and burning their villages,” said Louvois an 18th century French diplomat. That could have been said by Stalin. Add pillage, fire, rape, requisitions that were merely confiscation and cold=blooded murders and you get a sense of what the Russians endured under Stalin.
Stalin reminds me of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus whose contempt for mankind led him to think that only brutal force would compel people to act for their own good. He says: "Every beast is driven to the pasture with blows,” and again, "Asses would rather have straw than gold." So much for self-determination.
So how do we account for characters like Stalin or Hitler? Their governing passion was to amass power at any cost, instigating many assassinations or executions and corpses piled up. Dictators like Stalin perjure, spread falsehoods, defame others, and mischaracterize their rivals. They plot, scheme, they convict on false evidence, take delight in inflicting torture, exile or death on those hose displease them. They pervert the facts. Dictators like Stalin have no honor, no compassion, no respect for themselves or the lives and feelings of others. They never question themselves; they are by nature implacable. Rivals must be exterminated before they obtain enough power to challenge you.
The Soviet leader who presided over the siege of Leningrad during World War Two was a man of genuine promise, humane, efficient, and capable. Yet no sooner was the war over than Stalin had him shot because Stalin’s believed the man had e upstaged him and Stalin was made jealous. The great Soviet General Georgy Zhukov, the man who defended Moscow, freed Leningrad and who took part in very battle on the Eastern Front made Stalin jealous and, thanks to perjured testimony Stalin had him demoted.
Of course, the day after Hitler invaded his country, June 22, 1941, Stalin broke down and for several days was so drunk on brandy and vodka that he was not able to function.
Men like Stalin scheme, vex, trouble, undermine, spread falsehoods, persecute, and oppress without mercy. Their suspicious intrigues know no rest. Stalin reminds one of the 18th century’s Duke of Brunswick who once ordered the complete destruction of Pairs. (Thank God he lacked the means.)
The more gifts of nature you have, the moral sensitivity, the more breadth of imagination, the more you have a greater mental reach, the more your life will be a struggle to increase and enlarge such gifts by good and unselfish acts. The shoddier your nature is the more it will be selfish, grasping, ruthless and cruel. Brutes have no conscience; Stalin was a brute. He was consumed by rapacity; he had an “It’s me nothing” cast of mind. He was dead and deaf to the feelings of others. His colleagues wanted to be treated with respect, with deference with kindness. Such words had no part in Stalin’s vocabulary.
Conscience
Is this kind of slaughter due to a collapse of the individual conscience?
Laws, religion, ethical structures and restraints used to hold such characters in check. When they collapse or a dictator flouts them and seizes power, the slaughter of innocents is the result. In our political system, there are safeguards in place that act to keep human beings on the rails. Take away those safeguards, and you will see ordinary people suddenly resort to brutish violence; the lifting of safeguards turns loose the worst instincts them, and you get the worship of forced and barbarism. There is a seamy side of human nature that the law acts to curb, but once they are gone, you get horror. Free from restraints, people can perform atrocities with impunity.
Hitler forced Stalin into war, but all wars have the effect of stripping away the veneer of civilization. Wars unbridle the worst human habits and tendencies. War releases man’s worst passions and unbridle his worst depravities.
Earlier wars were horrific, but they were limited. Nation states fought for limited goals. It is true that wars embraced the reign of force, but they did not wage wars of annihilation. Montesquieu pointed out that the object of war was victory, victory conquest, conquest, retention. A congest was an acquisition, the spirit of acquisition carries with it conservation and use, not destruction, said In other words, the goal of conquest was assimilation. Alert Sorel said that nothing should be conquered that would not be kept. (Think of Israel and the Palestinians.)
Earlier wars were horrific, but they were limited. Nations or parties fought for limited goals. It is true that wars embraced the reign of force, but they did not wage wars of annihilation. Montesquieu pointed out that the object of war was victory, victory, conquest, conquest, retention. A congest was an acquisition, the spirit of acquisition carries with it conservation and use, not destruction, said In other words, the goal of conquest was assimilation. Alert Sorel said that nothing should be conquered that would not be kept. (Think of Israel and the Palestinians.)
But the objectives of Stalin’s and Hitler’s wars were to enslave and exterminate. In their case, implacability rules. The reign of force is embraced and worshipped. Every country they conquered became a key in their pianos. No one was to enjoy any freedom of action or thought under their rule. The secret police replaced analysis. Stalin’s subjects did as they are told or they faced exile, imprisonment or death. When it came to Stalin’s subjects, all their passions, desires, aspirations, their doubts, their remorse, humiliations, and sufferings, their outbursts of pride, fear or and enthusiasm meant nothing to Stalin. Stalin was so ethologically mistrustful of others that it reminds one of two opponents, both armed and each pointing his pistol at the other. Each may desire to lower their weapon, but they cannot be sure his rival will lover his, and the result is an endless stalemate.
Have you ever seen Stalin with an expression of joy on his face? His young wife of 31 years committed suicide, shot through the head. He put his henchman Molotov the positon where he was to condemn his wife, but Molotov had the courage to abstain. Stalin was endlessly vindictive, retaliatory, and driven by pitilessness.
Conscience
I believe that the beginning of morality occurs when each of us tries to enter the situation of another human being. That takes imagination, being able to feel what they are feeling and having sympathy for their pain and sufferings. Stalin couldn’t do that. He is a man who was entirely heartless. He feels nothing but his own depraved ambition. Anyone who stood in his way, he killed or exiled. But along the way, he pretends, he smiles sincerely, , while he plots the ruin or destruction of any rival. He doesn’t see people as having individual souls that have a sacred value. They were not an end in themselves. Stalin sees them as troublesome obstacles to his designs. He treats people as if they were furniture, moving them here, moving them here, getting rid of them if they proved bothersome. Their lives mean nothing, their deaths mean nothing. He did not view them as having souls that strive and suffer and die. They had no value at all unless they were the tools of his will. A Bolshevik revolutionary who had earlier saved Stalin’s life was shown no mercy whatsoever during the famous “show trials” of the late 1930s. Just before his execution, the man asked Stalin if he felt any gratitude for having saved his life, and Stalin replied, “Gratitude is a disease of dogs” and promptly killed him.
When President Reagan said that the Soviet state was an “evil empire” many objected, including me. But the more I learn, the more I endorse that judgment. Communism reduced people to animals: they were merely food.
Human beings as Ends in Themselves
The German philosopher Kant taught that human beings have an inherent value. The fact we are human gives us value that is without price. A person’s value consists of his being what he is – a human being, a person, a separate well of life. The fact that he is here on Earth makes him worthy of respect. He or she doesn’t have to prove their value. They are born with it. He or she is an end in themselves and not a means not as a means to something else. They are not stepping stones to something better. They are not the mere keys in someone else’s piano.(Yes.) They are not subservient. They are not superfluous. Whatever their position in life, whether wealthy or poor, their value is never diminishes. Their worth never goes away, and because of that, they are all worthy of reference.
Men like Stalin are frauds. They are imposters. They get their glory under false pretenses, at the point f a bayonet or the barrel of a gun. One day, they will ne found out, just as Stalin was. They will be disgraced and remembered with a sneer or a look of horrified reproach.
Every person is a perhaps, their nature open to development, refinement and knowledge, and each of us is able to perfect his or her best qualities. That goal drives every person forward. We are not bugs, but individuals. To use people wastefully as Stalin did is an unspeakable crime. The more people lack imagination, the more they are incapable of any honest or perceptive self-analysis. The more we are gifted with sympathy, able to enter another’s situation, the more will we be kind, compassionate, and generous. Our destiny is to heal and love each other. It’s as simple as that.
Should our species have known that our burgeoning populations, our prodigious gains communications and our ever increasing technology would allow not only genius to achieve spectacular things but would also allow evil to create horror on a scale that still beggars belief all these many decades later? I believe the next Stalin, Hitler, Tamerlane or Pol Pot is already born, just waiting for our resolve to wander.
As always, Thank you for this message, Richard.
Richard Sale:
Only “Heartlessness” could have prepared USSR for the coming war and winning it against the Third Reich; which bestrode a continent and used its entire resources to wage war on the Eastern Front.
“Kant taught that human beings have an inherent value”, funny!
We owe that insight actually to Zoroaster.
Richard,
Excellent primer on the progressive/democrat party in today’s America.
Our destiny is to heal and love each other. It’s as simple as that.
Disagree, modern politics has evolved into simply hating your opposition more than they hate you.
The Pentateuch is full of wars of genocide. The victorious Hebrews against inconvenient indigenous people. So the hypothesis that early wars were fought for conquest not spite seems incorrect.
Humans seem to have a Darwinian instinct to stomp “snakes”.
The Stanford Prison Experiment shows that ordinary humans have a demonic component inherent, which delights in torturing those who are “bad” or “inferior”. When authority (secret agencies) or culture (KKK) or habit (plebe hazing) remove the normal civilization inhibitions against torture, the sky’s the limit into how creatively evil regular people can become.
Then people who are good will choose to protest or not participate; but people who are normal will follow the lead of the regular people around them, and do what everyone else is doing.
Naturally this causes lynch-mob behavior, as was evident in the wars against Saddam, and is being stoked now in Britain against Russia.
I don’t know yet how to counter this.
“What emerges is a horrifying character that began as a bank robber and ended as a mass executioner and the instigator of man- made famines that killed millions.”
It is good to know that supposedly “accurate” historical documentary made in the West are completely useless propaganda drivels, because:
a) Stalin never robbed banks. So-called “Tiflis’s’ expropriation” of 26 June 1907 had been carried out by the group under Simon “Kamo” Ter-Petrosyan. Stalin was arrested in 1908 and back then the Czarist authorities did not accuse him of bank robbing – he was “political prisoner”. There is absolutely NO evidence whatsoever that Stalin was a bandit.
b) Stalin was not a “mass executioner”. The state wields the monopoly over violence.
c) Man-made nature of the so-called Holodomor is a myth, disproved many times over.
Good to know, that propaganda quality of the Western “blue screen” is effective enough to convince people of the “correct” narrative and switch off any critical thinking. Useful for the current times.
“There are no official reports about the height of Joseph Stalin because Stalin was sensitive about it; he went to great lengths to conceal his lack of stature from the Soviet people and the world because he stood only at 5 feet 4 or 5 feet 5”
Please, explain – how he “concealed” it? Was the state officials back in 1920-50 required to post their height somewhere for everyone to see?
“He was an un-attractive man with his pockmarked face, bad teeth, his limp, and his withered left arm yet his deepest ambition was to develop his country, weaken or kill rivals and have his image plastered on every public building.”
How do YOU know what Stalin wanted? That’s a speculation. And as badmouthing his appearance – yeah, kudos to you! You did it!
“But from those things he learned little. He lacked refinement, elegance, social polish, and compassion.”
Again, I have to ask – who’s claiming this? Who do you know that he “learned little”? How do you know that “his selfish self-worship led his soul by the nose”? You are passing soundbites from that show for the facts…
“But Stalin was a spiritual primitive. He lived in a society where having a conscience was seen as a vulnerability, not a strength.”
First of all – define the term “a spiritual primitive”. Next – what society are you talking about here? The Soviet Union?
“That’s how Stalin’s mind worked.”
You keep saying this. How do you, James, know how Stalin’s mind worked? Are you ESPer?
TL;DR – the entire post by James is one gigantic propaganda pastiche of myths and slander, that no serious historian would ever repeat with clean conscience – only propagandists with a clear and present agenda. A person who can repeat with a straight face a clear and many times disproven lie that:
“Of course, the day after Hitler invaded his country, June 22, 1941, Stalin broke down and for several days was so drunk on brandy and vodka that he was not able to function.”
becomes guilty of lying himself. You, James, are no better than all those propagandists and no-brains that you were decrying in your past blogposts. Instead of thinking and researching, instead of trying to find the truth, you repeat lies and suppress any urge in others to see the reality as it is.
P.S. Oh, and one more thing:
“Communism reduced people to animals: they were merely food.”
What about capitalism then? Or maybe you are projecting here?
Agree with many of Harper’s observations on the sociopathic personality, and on the importance of empathy, but then he loses me at “When President Reagan said that the Soviet state was an “evil empire” many objected, including me. But the more I learn, the more I endorse that judgment. Communism reduced people to animals.”
But did communism had anything to do with it? Was Hitler a communist? Woodrow Wilson? Christopher Columbus? Churchill? Jefferson Davis? Was life wonderful in pre-Soviet Russia?
Today many Russians view Stalin positively. He industrialized the USSR, defeated the fascists, and made Russia a world power. While the West was mired in the Great Depression, Russia’s economy hummed. We should acknowledge Stalin’s mistakes, but we should also acknowledge that the poor and the working class may have been better off under Stalin than they had been before. Admittedly that may not be saying much.
Richard,
A meditation on sociopaths enjoying absolute power is timely. I read this morning that John Bolton is almost surely a sociopath. He’s scary close to exercising major power.
Stalin & Hitler were both a product of their time: After a couple years of the great depression, no one was speaking up for liberal democracy. Communist & fascist totalitarianism was new, new, gonna fix everything (sic).
It’s a good thing Stalin was a bastard, things got really bad in 1941/42. Lesser men might have tried to do a deal with Hitler but they & a lot of good men had already been purged. To beat the Germans, the Soviets had 320 divisions in the line at armistice.
For good recent scholarship on Stalin: “Stalin’s Wars” by Geoffrey Roberts. For an opinion on Zhukov read David M Glantz; too many frontal attacks.
Bullshit, tell that to Bolton
What a load of ahistorical propaganda crap. Pretty disgusting to see such nonsense posted here.
How about some facts about Stalin. Did the man described have any achievements? I don’t see any mentioned here. Only the repetition of long debunked falsehoods and personal opinion of someone who obviously lacks knowledge of the subject he blabbers about.
What a waste of time.
The way I see it, thinking of Stalin as a heartless beast in order to understand the developments in the Soviet Union in the first half of the 20th century does two things for us:
1) it provides a simple answer to the question: how could these horrific evil atrocities take place?
2) it puts our mind at ease, thinking that if only people would be more moral or good, everything would be different.
The question why things developed as they did in Russia is not a trivial one, however it is also not a question that’s beyond our understanding. In fact, plenty of serious answers have been provided over the years.
It’s impossible to understand Stalinism without reference to world economic developments during the interwar period (collapse of the balance-of-power in Europe, the demise of the liberal economic order, the agrarian depression which affected the terms of barter between town and countryside unfavorably leading to huge antagonism of the peasantry to the rule of the urban workers in Russia)(see Polanyi, 1944: 255-256 for details).
If you want an answer that can explain the path towards the horrors of Stalinism and also fit into a tweet, here is one:
autarchy >> New Economic Policy >> crises and global depression >> Stalinism
It is still a bit longer than the usual – Stalin was a murderous lunatic thirsty for blood.
p.s. He was a murderer but definitely not a unattractive one. Google any picture of Stalin in his youth and you will be convinced 🙂
Stalin was certainly unattractive as a person, ruthless and cynical but not stupid. However rotten his methods (and they were rotten) I think you have to make allowances for the environment Stalin and the bolsheviks faced in governing Russia.
Their driving need was to transform a huge backward country that had been largely populated by illiterate serfs – slaves less that Sixty years before the revolution that replaced an imperial government which itself was dissolute, corrupt and almost as brutal as Stalin. Desperate times called for desperate measures. There were no “democratic traditions’ as we like to call them, brutality was the usual form of regulation in Russia and social institutions of government were not strong. Russian infrastructure was generations behind the West.
We could catalogue for hours the stupid inhuman brutality of the Bolshevik regime before WWII and the personal foibles of Stalin (his devotion to the crackpot agricultural theories of Lysenko – “vernalisation”, etc. were responsible for starvation), we can endlessly examine the crimes of Beria and company, but we cannot obtain a full picture of Stalin without considering the challenges he faced.
Objectivism does seem to be identical to selfishness and so is antithetical to the armed forces.
The costs involved in “teaching” selfishlessness appear to be extremely high but the costs of not doing so are incalculable.
Sounds like an Israeli story I read…It said that you should never give an old lady/man your seat on the bus, or the other people will know you are a fool…
Thank you.
Richard
I agree.
Richard
”but we cannot obtain a full picture of Stalin without considering the challenges he faced.”
Yes we can. Its in how he handled those challenges.
b
It is clear that you don’t like Richard’s essay. “Did the man described have any achievements?” What achievements would you attribute to him other than the defeat of Germany? pl
raven
What is it that you say “bullshit” to? Richard’s essay? And who would say anything to John Bolton? I haven’t heard from any admirers of his here. pl
I like this essay.
A Jesuit, on loan from Georgetown, teaching one of my college classes once told me… ‘not all people are born good’. I was shocked at first since that wasn’t what we were taught in religious kindergarten. Later I thought about the now proven abnormality in a section of the brain of psychopaths and agree he was right.
Humans are primates. Thus, they are stupid, ignorant, malicious and fearful – mostly the latter. Pretty much explains everything in human history.
I subscribe to the concept of survival at any cost. But in a rational society that would entail being aware of the long-term consequences. This, however, is not a rational society.
Off topic – or maybe not given the topic of human heartlessness – here we have John Bolton:
Here’s John Bolton Promising Regime Change in Iran by the End of 2018
https://theintercept.com/2018/03/23/heres-john-bolton-promising-regime-change-iran-end-2018/
Apparently he told the M.E.K. cult that the US would end Iran’s leadership before the 40 year anniversary which is February 11, 2019.
That of course is absurd unless somehow the US manages to decapitate the Iranian leadership with an airstrike or nuclear attack. What actually will happen if the US attacks Iran is that Iran will fight for the next several decades until the US backs off. There is no chance short of nuclear bombardment for the US to “defeat” Iran. The US couldn’t even “defeat” Iraq in less than five years and hasn’t defeated the Taliban in Afghanistan in 17 years. Iran will be a far harder nut to crack than either of those.
Lobe Log has published a “John Bolton: The Essential Profile” which covers this lunatic.
http://lobelog.com/john-bolton-the-essential-profile/
Of note in that piece is how many diplomats both within the US State Department and the EU explicitly state they can’t stand the guy.
b et al
– b. I have long puzzled over the source of your hostility to NATO and especially the US. Your spirited defense of Stalin and denunciation of Sale for daring to state the obvious concerning the demonic nature of the man makes the source of your hostility clear.
It is surprising how many Stalin admirers have risen to the surface in response to Sale’s piece. I have deleted a number of the most malevolent including one written from the Basque country of Spain that is obviously the troll Fatima Manoubia in a new incarnation. It is now clear that trolling tools are being used against SST to spoof IP and e-mail addresses. pl
Sir,
I believe Raven is saying “bullshit” to my comparison of what Richard describes to the methods and mindset of the so called “progressives” in current day USA.
The Bolton part of Raven’s comment I cannot translate. I don’t like the man and am disappointed that Trump has given him an important role in the administration. I also don’t see how Bolton’s existence negates what the progressive movement is really all about. It is, of course, possible for two different evils to co-exist. Bolton is not like Stalin. He is more of a hyper-nationalist mad dog that believes in exerting US/Israeli policy the force of arms. That is very different than what the left believes and wants to do. I will agree that both result in death, though.
We aren’t bugs, but neither are we atomistic individuals.
We are persons, and all persons have relationships with other persons.
Brother Daniel,
The argument that he made Russia better thru industrialization would have great merit if his way of doing it was the only way; the United States industrialized thru foreign investment and avoided much of the brutality of the Soviet regime.
Stalin didn’t begin as a bank robber. He began as a seminarian. After five years, he proclaimed himself an atheist and switched religions. I disagree with Yeats that “an intellectual hatred is the worst.” I think a religious hatred can be far more murderous. Intellectuals may reflect. Those with revealed knowledge do not need to.
Nothing quite brings a country together like being attacked. Socialism would have died much more quickly without the “help” of Hitler who used, then discarded socialism, to advance a repellant form of nationalism. While socialism appeals to a certain sense of fairness, most people just aren’t really into working for the benefit of others. Imagine that! Still, the appeal of socialism amongst much of the chattering classes that had secure income sources was interesting for me to watch in the 60’s and 70’s before it became obvious to most on the Left it wasn’t viable.
Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili was ethnically Georgian, while Georgia was part of the Russian Empire. He was raised in the Russian Orthodox Church. He spoke Russian with a Georgian accent. Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili became Joseph Stalin. Is Stalin Georgian or is he Russian?
jpb
IMO he was the worst sort of both. pl
All
Because i do not wish to provide a platform for Stalinist angst, sense of loss and hopes, I have closed comments on Sales’ paean to Stalin and eliminated any comments I think are apologia for “the great man.” Those who have been revealed as Stalinist Communists will not be posted in the future. I may make an exception for “b” because of his value as a military analyst. pl