the top 3 are
Stalin:(December 18 [O.S. December 6] 1878[1] – March 5, 1953), better known by his adopted name, Joseph Stalin (alternatively transliterated Josef Stalin), was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. Despite his formal position being originally without significant influence, and his office being nominally but one of several Central Committee Secretariats, Stalin's increasing control of the Party from 1928 onwards led to his becoming the de facto party leader and the dictator of his country;[2] a position which enabled him to take full control of the Soviet Union and its people.
Under Stalin's leadership, the Soviet Union played a decisive role in the defeat of Nazi Germany in the Second World War (1941-45) and went on to achieve the status of superpower, expanding its territory to a size similar to that of the former Russian empire. However, his crash programs of industrialization and collectivization in the 1930s, along with his ongoing campaigns of political repression, are estimated to have cost the lives of millions of people.
Contents [hide]
1 Introduction
2 Childhood and early years
3 Marriages and family
4 Religious beliefs
5 Rise to power
5.1 Campaign against the left and right opposition
5.2 Soviet secret service and intelligence
6 Stalin and changes in Soviet society
6.1 Industrialization
6.2 Collectivization
6.3 Science
6.4 Social services
6.5 Culture
6.6 Religion
6.7 Purges and deportations
6.7.1 The purges
6.7.2 Holodomor
6.7.3 Deportations
6.7.4 Number of victims
7 World War II
8 Post-war era
9 Stalin as theorist
10 Death
11 Cult of personality
12 Policies and accomplishments
13 Other names
14 Stalin in the arts
15 Notes
16 Further reading
17 See also
18 External links
Introduction
Born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Джугашвили) but calling himself Joseph Stalin, which meant "Man of Steel", Stalin became General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1922. Following the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1923, he prevailed in a power struggle over Leon Trotsky, who was expelled from the Communist Party and deported from the Soviet Union.
In the 1930s Stalin initiated a Purge of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, which has become known as the Great Purge, an unprecedented campaign of political repression, persecution and executions that reached its peak in 1937.
Stalin's rule had long-lasting effects on the features that characterized the Soviet state from the era of his rule to its collapse in 1991. Stalin claimed his policies were based on Marxism-Leninism. Now his political and economic system is referred to as Stalinism.
Maoists, anti-revisionists and some others say he was actually the last legitimate Socialist leader in the Soviet Union's history.[citation needed]
Stalin replaced the New Economic Policy (NEP) of the 1920s with Five-Year Plans in 1928 and collective farming at roughly the same time. The Soviet Union was transformed from a predominantly peasant society to a major world industrial power by the end of the 1930s.[3][4][5]
Confiscations of grain and other food by the Soviet authorities under his orders contributed to a famine between 1932 and 1934, especially in the key agricultural regions of the Soviet Union, Ukraine (see Holodomor), Kazakhstan and North Caucasus that resulted in millions of deaths. Many peasants resisted collectivization and grain confiscations, but were repressed, most notably well-off peasants deemed "kulaks".[6]
Bearing the brunt of the Nazis' attacks (around 75% of the Wehrmacht's forces), the Soviet Union under Stalin made the largest and most decisive contribution to the defeat of Nazi Germany during World War II (known in the USSR as the Great Patriotic War, 1941–1945). After the war, Stalin established the USSR as one of the two major superpowers in the world, a position it maintained for nearly four decades following his death in 1953.
Stalin's rule, reinforced by a cult of personality, fought real and alleged opponents mainly through the security apparatus, such as the NKVD. Millions of people were killed through famines, executions, deportations, and in the Gulag. Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin's eventual successor, denounced Stalin's rule and the cult of personality in 1956, initiating the process of "de-Stalinization" which later became part of the Sino-Soviet Split.
Childhood and early years
Stalin's home town of Gori and his class photo. Stalin is two boys beyond what is shown.Joseph Stalin was born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili in Gori, Georgia, Russian Empire to Vissarion Dzhugashvili and Ekaterina Geladze. In 1913, he adopted the name Stalin, which is derived from the Russian stal’ (Russian: сталь) for "steel". His mother was born a serf. The other three Dzhugashvili children died young; "Soso" (the Georgian pet name for Joseph), was effectively the only child. Stalin's father Vissarion was a cobbler, who opened his own shop, but quickly went bankrupt, forcing him to work in a shoe factory in Tiflis. (Archer 11)
Rarely seeing his family and drinking heavily, Vissarion often beat his wife and small son. One of Stalin's friends from childhood wrote, "Those undeserved and fearful beatings made the boy as hard and heartless as his father." The same friend also wrote that he never saw him cry.[7]
Young Stalin, circa 1894.Another of his childhood friends, Ioseb Iremashvili, felt that the beatings by Stalin's father gave him the hatred of authority. He also said that anyone with power over others reminded Stalin of his father's cruelty.
The information card on Joseph Stalin, from the files of the Tsarist secret police in St. PetersburgAt about seven years of age Stalin fell ill with smallpox and his face was badly scarred by the disease. He later had photographs retouched to make his pockmarks less apparent.
In 1897, Stalin's father left to live in Tiflis, leaving the family without support. Rumors said he died in a drunken bar fight; however, others said they had seen him in Georgia as late as 1931. At the age of eight, "Soso" began his education at the Gori Church School.
Joseph and most of his classmates at Gori were Georgian and spoke mostly Georgian. However, at school they were forced to use Russian. Their Russian teachers mocked Joseph and his classmates when they were speaking Russian because of their Georgian accents. His peers were mostly the sons of affluent priests, officials, and merchants.
He graduated first in his class and at the age of 14 he was awarded a scholarship to the Seminary of Tiflis (Tbilisi, Georgia). Although his mother wanted him to be a priest (even after he had become leader of the Soviet Union), he attended seminary not because of any religious vocation, but because of the lack of locally available university education. In addition to the scholarship, Stalin was paid a small stipend for singing in the choir.
Stalin in exile, 1915.Stalin's involvement with the socialist movement (or, to be more exact, the branch of it that later became the communist movement) began at the seminary. During these school years, Stalin joined a Georgian Social-Democratic organization, and began propagating Marxism. Stalin quit the seminary in 1899 just before his final examinations; official biographies preferred to state that he was expelled.[8]. He was expelled by Georgy Dolganev (hieromonk Hermogen), the seminary rector[9]. He then worked for a decade with the political underground in the Caucasus, experiencing repeated arrests and exile to Siberia between 1902 and 1917.
Stalin adhered to Vladimir Lenin's doctrine of a strong centralist party of professional revolutionaries. Stalin and Lenin attended the Fifth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in London in 1907.[10] This congress consolidated the supremacy of Lenin's Bolshevik Party and debated strategy for communist revolution in Russia. Stalin never referred to his stay in London.
In the period after the Revolution of 1905 Stalin led "fighting squads" in bank robberies to raise funds for the Bolshevik Party.[citation needed] His practical experience made him useful to the party, and gained him a place on its Central Committee in January 1912.
Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin, and Mikhail Kalinin meeting in 1919 . All three of them were "Old Bolsheviks"; members of the Bolshevik party before the Russian Revolution of 1917.His only significant contribution to the development of the Marxist theory at this time was a treatise, written while he was briefly in exile in Vienna, Marxism and the National Question. It presents an orthodox Marxist position (c.f. Lenin's On the Right of Nations to Self-Determination). This treatise may have contributed to his appointment as People's Commissar for Nationalities Affairs after the revolution.
In 1901, the Georgian clergyman M. Kelendzheridze wrote an educational book on language arts, including one of Stalin’s poems, signed by 'Soselo'. In 1907 the same editor published “A Georgian Chrestomathy, or collection of the best examples of Georgian literature” including a poem of Stalin’s dedicated to Rafael Eristavi.[11] His poetry can still be seen in the Stalin Museum in Gori [citation needed].
Marriages and family
Stalin's first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, died in 1907, only four years after their marriage. At her funeral, Stalin allegedly said that any warm feelings he had for people died with her, for only she could melt his 'stony heart'. They had a son together, Yakov Dzhugashvili, with whom Stalin did not get along in later years.
Stalin with his children: Vasiliy and Svetlana.His son finally shot himself because of Stalin's harshness toward him, but survived. After this, Stalin said "He can't even shoot straight". Yakov served in the Red Army during World War II and was captured by the Germans. They offered to exchange him for Field Marshal Friedrich Paulus, who had surrendered after Stalingrad, but Stalin turned the offer down, allegedly saying "A lieutenant is not worth a general"; others credit him with saying "I have no son," to this offer. Afterwards, Yakov is said to have committed suicide, running into an electric fence[12] in Sachsenhausen concentration camp, where he was being held.[13]
Stalin and Nadezhda Alliluyeva.His second wife was Nadezhda Alliluyeva, who died in 1932; she may have committed suicide by shooting herself after a quarrel with Stalin, leaving a suicide note which according to their daughter was "partly personal, partly political".[14]
Officially, she died of an illness. With her, he had two children: a son, Vasiliy, and a daughter, Svetlana.
Vasiliy rose through the ranks of the Soviet air force, officially dying of alcoholism in 1962; however, this is still in question. He distinguished himself in World War II as a capable airman. Svetlana emigrated to the United States in 1967.
In his book The Wolf of the Kremlin, Stuart Kahan claimed that Stalin was secretly married to a third wife named Rosa Kaganovich (allegedly the sister of Lazar Kaganovich, a Soviet politician). However, the claim is unproven and many have disputed it, including the Kaganovich family, who deny that "Rosa" and Stalin ever met, and even state that Kaganovich's sister wasn't named Rosa. Kahan also claimed that both Lazar and Rosa were responsible for the death of Stalin (by poisoning), however this (as well as most of the remainder of Kahan's assertions) were dismissed as fabrication by the Statement of the Kaganovich Family.
In March 2001, Russian Independent Television NTV discovered a previously unknown grandson living in Novokuznetsk. Yuri Davydov told NTV that his father had told him of his lineage, but, because the campaign against Stalin's cult of personality was in full swing at the time, he was told to keep quiet. The Soviet dissident writer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, had mentioned a son being born to Stalin and his common-law wife, Lida, in 1918 during Stalin's exile in northern Siberia.
Religious beliefs
Stalin's beliefs are complicated and sometimes contradictory. As the historians Vladislav Zubok and Constantine Pleshakov noted, he received his education at Theological Seminary at Tiflis (Tbilisi), where his mother sent him to become a priest, but he became a closet atheist.[15] Zubok and Pleshakov further noted, "Many would later note, however, that his works were influenced by a distinctly Biblical style" and "his atheism remained rooted in some vague idea of a God of nature."[15]
Regarding one famous claim about evolution, historians doubt one later Soviet claim that he read The Origin of Species at the age of thirteen while still at Gori, and told a fellow pupil that it proved the nonexistence of God. The story fails on several obvious accounts, including Stalin's remaining religious, even pious, for some years longer.[16] In fact Professor of Religion Hector Avalos noted, "Stalin, in fact, had a complex relationship with religious institutions in the Soviet Union."[17]
Historian Edvard Radzinsky used recently discovered secret archives and noted a story that changed Stalin's attitude toward religion.[18] The story in which Ilya, Metropolitan of the Lebanon Mountains, claimed to receive a sign from heaven that "The churches and monasteries must be reopened throughout the country. Priests must be brought back from imprisonment, Leningrad must not be surrendered, but the sacred icon of Our Lady of Kazan should be carried around the city boundary, taken on to Moscow, where a service should be held, and thence to Stalingrad [Tsaritsyn]."[18] Shortly thereafter, Stalin's attitude changed and "Whatever the reason, after his mysterious retreat, he began making his peace with God. Something happened which no historians has yet written about. On his orders many priests were brought back to the camps. In Leningrad, besieged by the Germans and gradually dying of hunger, the inhabitants were astounded, and uplifted, to see wonder-working icon Our Lady of Kazan brought out into the streets and borne in procession."[18] Radzinsky asked, "Had he seen the light? Had fear made him run to his Father? Had the Marxist God-Man simply decided to exploit belief in God? Or was it all of these things at once?."[18]
During the Second World War Stalin reopened the Churches. One reason could be to motivate the majority of the population who had Christian beliefs. Then by changing the official policy of the party and the state towards religion yet another tool, the Church and its clergymen, would be to his disposal in mobilizing the war effort.[citation needed]
Rise to power
See also: Stalin in the Russian Civil War
This article does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
This article has been tagged since January 2007.Communist Party
of the Soviet Union
Party History
Party Organization
Congress
Central Committee
Politburo
Secretariat
Orgburo
Control Committee
Auditing Commission
Leaders
Lenin • Stalin
Khrushchev • Brezhnev
Andropov • Chernenko
Gorbachev
Pravda
Komsomol
Communism Portal
This box: view • talk • edit
In 1913 Stalin was co-opted to the Bolshevik Central Committee at the Prague Party Conference. In 1917 Stalin was editor of Pravda, the official Communist newspaper, while Lenin and much of the Bolshevik leadership were in exile.
Following the February Revolution, Stalin and the editorial board took a position in favor of supporting Kerensky's provisional government and, it is alleged, went to the extent of declining to publish Lenin's articles arguing for the provisional government to be overthrown.
In April 1917, Stalin was elected to the Central Committee with the third highest vote total in the party and was subsequently elected to the Politburo of the Central Committee (May 1917); he held this position for the remainder of his life.
According to many accounts, Stalin only played a minor role in the revolution of November 7. Other writers, such as Adam Ulam, have argued that each man in the Central Committee had a specific job to which he was assigned.
The following summary of Trotsky's Role in 1917 was given by Stalin in Pravda, November 6 1918:
“ All practical work in connection with the organisation of the uprising was done under the immediate direction of Comrade Trotsky, the President of the Petrograd Soviet. It can be stated with certainty that the Party is indebted primarily and principally to Comrade Trotsky for the rapid going over of the garrison to the side of the Soviet and the efficient manner in which the work of the Military Revolutionary Committee was organised. ”
Note: Although this passage was quoted in Stalin's book The October Revolution issued in 1934, it was expunged in Stalin's Works released in 1949.
Later, in 1924, Stalin himself created a myth around a so-called "Party Centre" which "directed" all practical work pertaining to the uprising, consisting of himself, Sverdlov, Dzerzhinsky, Uritsky, and Bubnov. However, no evidence was ever shown for the activity of this "centre", which would, in any case, have been subordinate to the Military Revolutionary Council, headed by Trotsky.
During the Russian Civil War and Polish-Soviet War, Stalin was a political commissar in the Red Army at various fronts. Stalin's first government position was as People's Commissar of Nationalities Affairs (1917–1923).
He was also People's Commissar of the Workers and Peasants Inspection (1919–1922), a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the republic (1920–1923) and a member of the Central Executive Committee of the Congress of Soviets (from 1917).
Stalin played a decisive role in engineering the 1921 Red Army invasion of Georgia following which he adopted particularly hardliner, centralist policies towards Soviet Georgia, which included severe repression of all opposition within the local Communist party (e.g., Georgian Affair of 1922), not to mention any manifestations of anti-Sovietism (August Uprising of 1924).[19] It was in the Georgian affairs that Stalin first began to play his own hand.[20]
Campaign against the left and right opposition
The neutrality and factual accuracy of this section are disputed.
Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page.
Joseph Stalin.On April 3, 1922, Stalin was made general secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), a post that he subsequently built up into the most powerful in the country. It has been claimed that he initially attempted to decline accepting the post, but was refused. This position was seen to be a minor one within the party (Stalin was sometimes referred to as "Comrade Card-Index" by fellow party members) but, when coupled with leadership over the Orgburo, actually had potential as a power base as it allowed Stalin to fill the party with his allies. After Lenin's death in January 1924, Stalin, Kamenev, and Zinoviev together governed the party, placing themselves ideologically between Trotsky (on the left wing of the party) and Bukharin (on the right). During this period, Stalin abandoned the traditional Bolshevik emphasis on international revolution in favor of a policy of building "Socialism in One Country", in contrast to Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution.
In the struggle for leadership one thing was evident: whoever ended up ruling the party had to be considered very loyal to Lenin. Stalin organized Lenin's funeral and made a speech professing undying loyalty to Lenin, in almost religious terms.
For more about Stalin's relationship with Lenin, a post Soviet extract of Lenin's sister. [21] [22]
He undermined Trotsky, who was sick at the time, possibly by misleading him about the date of the funeral. Thus although Trotsky was Lenin’s associate throughout the early days of the Soviet regime, he lost ground to Stalin. Stalin made great play of the fact that Trotsky had joined the Bolsheviks just before the revolution, and publicized Trotsky's pre-revolutionary disagreements with Lenin. Another event that helped Stalin's rise was the fact that Trotsky came out against publication of Lenin's Testament in which he pointed out the strengths and weaknesses of Stalin and Trotsky and the other main players, and suggested that he be succeeded by a small group of people.
An important feature of Stalin’s rise to power is the way that he manipulated his opponents and played them off against each other. Stalin formed a "troika" of himself, Zinoviev, and Kamenev against Trotsky. When Trotsky had been eliminated, Stalin then joined Bukharin and Rykov against Zinoviev and Kamenev, emphasising their vote against the insurrection in 1917. Zinoviev and Kamenev then turned to Lenin's widow, Krupskaya; they formed the "United Opposition" in July 1926.
In 1927 during the 15th Party Congress Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled from the party and Kamenev lost his seat on the Central Committee. Stalin soon turned against the "Right Opposition", represented by his erstwhile allies, Bukharin and Rykov.
Stalin gained popular appeal from his presentation as a 'man of the people' from the poorer classes. The Russian people were tired from the world war and the civil war, and Stalin's policy of concentrating in building "Socialism in One Country" was seen as an optimistic antidote to war.
Stalin took great advantage of the ban on factionalism which meant that no group could openly go against the policies of the leader of the party because that meant creation of an opposition. By 1928 (the first year of the Five-Year Plans) Stalin was supreme among the leadership, and the following year Trotsky was exiled because of his opposition. Having also outmaneuvered Bukharin's Right Opposition and now advocating collectivization and industrialization, Stalin can be said to have exercised control over the party and the country.
However, as the popularity of other leaders such as Sergei Kirov and the so-called Ryutin Affair were to demonstrate, Stalin did not achieve absolute power until the Great Purge of 1936–1938.
Soviet secret service and intelligence
This article does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
This article has been tagged since January 2007.
Main article: Chronology of Soviet secret police agencies
Stalin vastly increased the scope and power of the state's secret police and intelligence agencies. Under his guiding hand, Soviet intelligence forces began to set up intelligence networks in most of the major nations of the world, including Germany (the famous Rote Kappelle spy ring), Great Britain, France, Japan, and the United States. Stalin saw no difference between espionage, communist political propaganda actions, and state-sanctioned violence, and he began to integrate all of these activities within the NKVD. Stalin made considerable use of the Communist International movement in order to infiltrate agents and to ensure that foreign Communist parties remained pro-Soviet and pro-Stalin.
One of the best early examples of Stalin's ability to integrate secret police and foreign espionage came in 1940, when he gave approval to the secret police to have Leon Trotsky assassinated in Mexico.
Stalin and changes in Soviet society
Industrialization
Main articles: History of the Soviet Union (1927-1953)#Stalinist development and Industrialization of the USSR
The Russian Civil War and wartime communism had a devastating effect on the country's economy. Industrial output in 1922 was 13% of that in 1914. A recovery followed under the New Economic Policy, which allowed a degree of market flexibility within the context of socialism.
Under Stalin's direction, this was replaced by a system of centrally ordained "Five-Year Plans" in the late 1920s. These called for a highly ambitious program of state-guided crash industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture.
With seed capital unavailable because of international reaction to Communist policies, little international trade, and virtually no modern infrastructure, Stalin's government financed industrialization by both restraining consumption on the part of ordinary Soviet citizens, to ensure that capital went for re-investment into industry, and by ruthless extraction of wealth from the kulaks.
In 1933, worker's real earnings sank to about one-tenth of the 1926 level. There was also use of the unpaid labor of both common and political prisoners in labor camps and the frequent "mobilization" of communists and Komsomol members for various construction projects. The Soviet Union also made use of foreign experts, e.g. British engineer Stephen Adams, to instruct their workers and improve their manufacturing processes.
In spite of early breakdowns and failures, the first two Five-Year Plans achieved rapid industrialization from a very low economic base. While there is general agreement among historians that the Soviet Union achieved significant levels of economic growth under Stalin, the precise rate of this growth is disputed. What is not disputed is these gains were accomplished at the cost of millions of lives.
Official Soviet estimates placed it at 13.9%, Russian and Western estimates gave lower figures of 5.8% and even 2.9%. Indeed, one estimate is that Soviet growth temporarily was much higher after Stalin's death.[21] [22]
According to Robert Lewis, the Five-Year Plan substantially helped to modernize the previously backward Soviet economy. New products were developed, and the scale and efficiency with which existing products were made also greatly increased. Some innovations were based on indigenous technical developments, and others were based on imported foreign technology. [23]
Collectivization
Main article: Collectivization in the USSR
Joseph Stalin.Stalin's regime moved to force collectivization of agriculture. This was intended to increase agricultural output from large-scale mechanized farms, to bring the peasantry under more direct political control, and to make tax collection more efficient. Collectivization meant drastic social changes, on a scale not seen since the abolition of serfdom in 1861, and alienation from control of the land and its produce. Collectivization also meant a drastic drop in living standards for many peasants, and it faced violent reaction among the peasantry.
In the first years of collectivization, it was estimated that industrial and agricultural production would rise by 200% and 50%,[24]. Stalin blamed this unanticipated failure on kulaks (rich peasants), who resisted collectivization. (However, kulaks only made up 4% of the peasant population; the "kulaks" that Stalin targeted included the moderate middle peasants who took the brunt of violence from the OGPU and the Komsomol. The middle peasants were about 60% of the population). Therefore those defined as "kulaks," "kulak helpers," and later "ex-kulaks" were to be shot, placed into Gulag labor camps, or deported to remote areas of the country, depending on the charge.
The two-stage progress of collectivization—interrupted for a year by Stalin's famous editorial, "Dizzy with success" (Pravda, March 2, 1930), and "Reply to Collective Farm Comrades" (Pravda, April 3, 1930)—is a prime example of his capacity for tactical political withdrawal followed by intensification of initial strategies.
Many historians assert that the disruption caused by collectivization was largely responsible for major famines. The 1932-1933 famine in Ukraine and the Kuban regions has been termed the Holodomor (Ukrainian: Голодомор). According to Alan Bullock, "the total Soviet grain crop was no worse than that of 1931 … it was not a crop failure but the excessive demands of the state, ruthlessly enforced, that cost the lives of as many as five million Ukrainian peasants." Stalin refused to release large grain reserves that could have alleviated the famine (and at the same time exporting grain abroad); he was convinced that the Ukrainian peasants had hidden grain away, and strictly enforced draconian new collective-farm theft laws in response.[25][26]
Other historians hold it was largely the insufficient harvests of 1931 and 1932 caused by a variety of natural disasters that resulted in famine, with the successful harvest of 1933 ending the famine.[27]
However, famine also affected various other parts of the USSR. The death toll from famine in the Soviet Union at this time is estimated at between five and ten million people. (The worst crop failure of late tsarist Russia, in 1892, caused 375,000 to 400,000 deaths.)[28]
Soviet authorities and other historians have argued that tough measures and the rapid collectivization of agriculture were necessary in order to achieve an equally rapid industrialization of the Soviet Union and ultimately win World War II. This is disputed by other historians such as Alec Nove, who claim that the Soviet Union industrialized in spite of, rather than thanks to, its collectivized agriculture.
Science
Main articles: Science and technology in the Soviet Union, Suppressed research in the Soviet Union, Lysenkoism
Science in the Soviet Union was under strict ideological control by Stalin and his government, along with art and literature. There was significant progress in "ideologically safe" domains, owing to the free Soviet education system and state-financed research. However, in several cases the consequences of ideological pressure were dramatic—the most notable examples being the "bourgeois pseudosciences" genetics and cybernetics.
In the late 40's, some areas of physics, especially quantum mechanics but also special and general relativity, were also criticized on grounds of "idealism". Soviet physicists, such as K. V. Nikolskij and D. Blokhintzev, developed a version of the statistical interpretation of quantum mechanics, which was seen as more adhering to the principles of dialectical materialism[29][30]. However, although initially planned [31], this process did not go as far as defining an "ideologically correct" version of physics and purging those scientists who refused to conform to it, because this was recognized as potentially too harmful to the Soviet nuclear program.
Linguistics was the only area of Soviet academic thought to which Stalin personally and directly contributed. At the beginning of Stalin's rule, the dominant figure in Soviet linguistics was Nikolai Yakovlevich Marr, who argued that language is a class construction and that language structure is determined by the economic structure of society. Stalin, who had previously written about language policy as People's Commissar for Nationalities, read a letter by Arnold Chikobava criticizing the theory. He "summoned Chikobava to a dinner that lasted from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m. taking notes diligently[32]." In this way he grasped enough of the underlying issues to coherently oppose this simplistic Marxist formalism, ending Marr's ideological dominance over Soviet linguistics. Stalin's principal work discussing linguistics in a small essay, "Marxism and Linguistic Questions."[33]
Although no great theoretical contributions or insights came from it, neither were there any apparent errors in Stalin's understanding of linguistics; his influence arguably relieved Soviet linguistics from the sort of ideologically driven theory that dominated genetics.
Scientific research was hindered by the fact that many scientists were sent to labor camps (including Lev Landau, later a Nobel Prize winner, who spent a year in prison in 1938–1939) or executed (e.g. Lev Shubnikov, shot in 1937). They were persecuted for their dissident views, not for their research. Nevertheless, much progress was made under Stalin in some areas of science and technology. It laid the ground for the famous achievements of Soviet science in the 1950s, such as the development of the BESM-1 computer in 1953 and the launching of Sputnik in 1957.
Indeed, many politicians in the United States expressed a fear, after the "Sputnik crisis," that their country had been eclipsed by the Soviet Union in science and in public education.
Social services
This article does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
This article has been tagged since January 2007.
Main article: Soviet democracy
The Soviet people also benefited from a degree of social liberalization. Females were given an adequate, equal education and women had equal rights in employment, precipitating improving lives for women and families. Stalinist development also contributed to advances in health care, which vastly increased the lifespan for the typical Soviet citizen and the quality of life. Stalin's policies granted the Soviet people universal access to health care and education, effectively creating the first generation free from the fear of typhus, cholera, and malaria. The occurrences of these diseases dropped to record-low numbers, increasing life spans by decades.
Soviet women under Stalin were also the first generation of women able to give birth in the safety of a hospital, with access to prenatal care. Education was also an example of an increase in standard of living after economic development. The generation born during Stalin's rule was the first near-universally literate generation. Engineers were sent abroad to learn industrial technology, and hundreds of foreign engineers were brought to Russia on contract. Transport links were also improved, as many new railways were built. Workers who exceeded their quotas, Stakhanovites, received many incentives for their work. They could thus afford to buy the goods that were mass-produced by the rapidly expanding Soviet economy.
With the industrialization and heavy human losses due to World War II and repressions the generation that survived under Stalin saw a major expansion in job opportunities, especially for women. A death battalion was created, it was mainly made up of women.
Culture
This article does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
This article has been tagged since January 2007.
Main article: Socialist Realism
Stalin propaganda poster, reading: "Beloved Stalin—a fortune of the nation!"Despite being born in Georgia, Stalin turned into a Russian nationalist and significantly promoted, particularly during the 1930s-40s, Russian history, language, and Russian national heroes, and he held the Russians up as the elder brothers for the non-Russian minorities.[34]
During Stalin's reign the official and long-lived style of Socialist Realism was established for painting, sculpture, music, drama and literature. Previously fashionable "revolutionary" expressionism, abstract art, and avant-garde experimentation were discouraged or denounced as "formalism". Careers were made and broken, some more than once. Famous figures were not only repressed, but often persecuted, tortured and executed, both "revolutionaries" (among them Isaac Babel, Vsevolod Meyerhold) and "non-conformists" (for example, Osip Mandelstam).
A minority, both representing the "Soviet man" (Arkady Gaidar) and remnants of the older pre-revolutionary Russia (Konstantin Stanislavski), thrived. A number of émigrés returned to the Soviet Union, among them Alexei Tolstoi in 1925, Alexander Kuprin in 1936, and Alexander Vertinsky in 1943.
Poet Anna Akhmatova was subjected to several cycles of suppression and rehabilitation, but was never herself arrested. Her first husband, poet Nikolai Gumilev, had been shot in 1921, and her son, historian Lev Gumilev, spent two decades in a gulag.
The degree of Stalin's personal involvement in general and specific developments has been assessed variously. His name, however, was constantly invoked during his reign in discussions of culture as in just about everything else; and in several famous cases, his opinion was final.
Stalin's occasional beneficence showed itself in strange ways. For example, Mikhail Bulgakov was driven to poverty and despair; yet, after a personal appeal to Stalin, he was allowed to continue working. His play, The Days of the Turbines, with its sympathetic treatment of an anti-Bolshevik family caught up in the Civil War, was finally staged, apparently also on Stalin's intervention, and began a decades-long uninterrupted run at the Moscow Arts Theater.
Some insights into Stalin's political and esthetic thinking might perhaps be gleaned by reading his favorite novel, Pharaoh, by the Polish writer Bolesław Prus, a historical novel on mechanisms of political power. Similarities have been pointed out between this novel and Sergei Eisenstein's film, Ivan the Terrible, produced under Stalin's tutelage.
In architecture, a Stalinist Empire Style (basically, updated neoclassicism on a very large scale, exemplified by the Seven Sisters of Moscow) replaced the constructivism of the 1920s.
Stalin's rule had a largely disruptive effect on the numerous indigenous cultures that made up the Soviet Union. The politics of the Korenization and forced development of "Cultures National by Form, Socialist by their substance" was arguably beneficial to later generations of indigenous cultures in allowing them to integrate more easily into Russian society.
The attempted unification of cultures in Stalin's later period was very harmful. Political repressions and purges had even more devastating repercussions on the indigenous cultures than on urban ones, since the cultural elite of the indigenous culture was often not very numerous. The traditional lives of many peoples in the Siberian, Central Asian and Caucasian provinces was upset and large populations were displaced and scattered in order to prevent nationalist uprisings.
An amusing anecdote has it that the Moskva Hotel in Moscow was built with mismatched side wings because Stalin had mistakenly signed off on both of the two proposals submitted, and the architects had been too afraid to clarify the matter. In actuality the hotel had been built by two independent teams of architects that had differing visions of how the hotel should look.
Religion
This article does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
This article has been tagged since January 2007.
Main article: Religion in the Soviet Union
A caricature of "Stalin a great friend of religion", when churches were allowed to be opened during World War II.Stalin's role in the fortunes of the Russian Orthodox Church is complex. Continuous persecution in the 1930s resulted in its near-extinction: by 1939, active parishes numbered in the low hundreds (down from 54,000 in 1917), many churches had been leveled, and tens of thousands of priests, monks and nuns were persecuted and killed. Over 100,000 were shot during the purges of 1937-38.[35][36] During World War II, however, the Church was allowed a revival as a patriotic organization, after the NKVD had recruited the new metropolitan, the first after the revolution, as a secret agent. Thousands of parishes were reactivated, until a further round of suppression in Khrushchev's time.
The Russian Orthodox Church Synod's recognition of the Soviet government and of Stalin personally led to a schism with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia. An Act of Canonical Communion was signed on the May 17, 2007, followed immediately by a full restoration of communion with the Moscow Patriarchate, however there remain some issues not fully healed to the present day.
Just days before Stalin's death, certain religious sects were outlawed and persecuted.
Many religions popular in the ethnic regions of the Soviet Union including the Roman Catholic Church, Uniats, Baptists, Islam, Buddhism, Judaism, etc. underwent ordeals similar to the Orthodox churches in other parts: thousands of monks were persecuted, and hundreds of churches, synagogues, mosques, temples, sacred monuments, monasteries and other religious buildings were razed.
Purges and deportations
The purges
Main article: Great Purge
This article does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
This article has been tagged since January 2007.
Left: Beria's January 1940 letter to Stalin, asking permission to execute 346 "enemies of the CPSU and of the Soviet authorities" who conducted "counter-revolutionary, right-Trotskyite plotting and spying activities."
Middle: Stalin's handwriting: "за" (support).
Right: The Politburo's decision is signed by Secretary Stalin.
Stalin, as head of the Politburo, consolidated near-absolute power in the 1930s with a Great Purge of the party, justified as an attempt to expel 'opportunists' and 'counter-revolutionary infiltrators'. Those targeted by the purge were often expelled from the party, however more severe measures ranged from banishment to the Gulag labor camps, to execution after trials held by NKVD troikas.
The Purges commenced after the assassination of Sergei Kirov, the popular leader of the party in Leningrad. Kirov was very close to Stalin and his assassination sent chills through the Bolshevik party. Publicly Stalin merely reacted to this assassination by tightening security by seeking out alleged spies and counter-revolutionaries, but in effect he was removing those who might have threatened Stalin's leadership. This process then transformed itself into extensive purges.
There are two different versions for the background of Kirov's murder. According to the first Stalin, fearing that he might be next in line to be assassinated, decided to initiate purges instead of passively wait. According to the second version Stalin saw Kirov as a dangerous competitor for top-spot in the Soviet Union and decided to kill Kirov himself.
In the 1930s, Stalin apparently became increasingly worried about Kirov's growing popularity. At the 1934 Party Congress where the vote for the new Central Committee was held, Kirov received only three negative votes, the fewest of any candidate, while Stalin received 292 negative votes, the highest of any candidate. Kirov was a close friend with Sergo Ordzhonikidze, and together they formed a moderate bloc to Stalin in the Politburo. Later in 1934, Stalin asked Kirov to work for him in Moscow. One theory suggests that Stalin did this in order to keep a closer eye on Kirov, this despite of the supposed fact that Stalin entirely controlled the NKVD. Kirov refused, however, and according to the same theory he became a competitor in Stalin's eyes.
On December 1, 1934, Kirov was killed by Leonid Nikolaev (also seen spelt Nikolayev) in the Smolny Institute Leningrad. Kirov had arrived at the Smolny to work in his office, and, apparently leaving his bodyguard downstairs, headed to the upper floors, where the officials had their rooms. Nikolayev emerged from a bathroom and followed Kirov towards his office, shooting him in the back of the neck. Officially Stalin claimed that Nikolayev was part of a larger conspiracy led by Leon Trotsky against the Soviet government. This resulted in the arrest and execution of Lev Kamenev, Grigory Zinoviev, and fourteen others in 1936. The death of Kirov ignited the great purge where supporters of Trotsky and other suspected enemies of the state were arrested. It has been speculated that Stalin was the man who ordered the murder of Kirov, and that the shooting was carried out with the help of the NKVD. However, although most historians believe that this second version of why and how Kirov was killed is more likely, it has so far not been unambiguously proven as right and it is still disputed by some.
Several trials known as the Moscow Trials were held, but the procedures were replicated throughout the country. There were four key trials during this period: the Trial of the Sixteen (August 1936); Trial of the Seventeen (January 1937); the trial of Red Army generals, including Marshal Tukhachevsky (June 1937); and finally the Trial of the Twenty One (including Bukharin) in March 1938.
Most notably in the case of alleged Nazi collaborator Tukhachevsky, many military leaders were convicted of treason. The shakeup in command may have cost the Soviet Union dearly during the German invasion of 22 June 1941, and its aftermath.
The repression of so many formerly high-ranking revolutionaries and party members led Leon Trotsky to claim that a "river of blood" separated Stalin's regime from that of Lenin. Solzhenitsyn alleges that Stalin drew inspiration from Lenin's regime with the presence of labor camps and the executions of political opponents that occurred during the Russian Civil War. Trotsky's August 1940 assassination in Mexico, where he had lived in exile since January 1937, eliminated the last of Stalin's opponents among the former Party leadership. Only three members of the "Old Bolsheviks" (Lenin's Politburo) now remained—Stalin himself, "the all-Union Chieftain" (всесоюзный староста) Mikhail Kalinin, and Chairman of Sovnarkom Vyacheslav Molotov.
Nikolai Yezhov, the young man strolling with Stalin to his left, was shot in 1940. He was edited out from a photo by Soviet censors [23]. Such retouching was a common occurrence during Stalin's reign.
No segment of society was left untouched during the purges. Article 58 of the legal code, listing prohibited "anti-Soviet activities", was applied in the broadest manner. Initially, the execution lists for the enemies of the people were confirmed by the Politburo.
Over time the procedure was greatly simplified and delegated down the line of command. People would inform on others arbitrarily, to attempt to redeem themselves, or to gain small retributions. The flimsiest pretexts were often enough to brand someone an "Enemy of the People," starting the cycle of public persecution and abuse, often proceeding to interrogation, torture and deportation, if not death. Nadezhda Mandelstam, the widow of the poet Osip Mandelstam and one of the key memoirists of the Purges, recalls being shouted at by Akhmatova: "Don't you understand? They are arresting people for nothing now?" The Russian word troika gained a new meaning: a quick, simplified trial by a committee of three subordinated to NKVD.
Towards the end of the purge, the Politburo relieved NKVD head Nikolai Yezhov, from his position for overzealousness. He was subsequently executed. Some historians such as Amy Knight and Robert Conquest postulate that Stalin had Yezhov and his predecessor, Genrikh Yagoda, removed in order to deflect blame from himself.
In parallel with the purges, efforts were made to rewrite the history in Soviet textbooks and other propaganda materials. Notable people executed by NKVD were removed from the texts and photographs as though they never existed. Gradually, the history of revolution was transformed to a story about just two key characters: Lenin and Stalin.
It is worth noting that 2007 tours of Stalin's Museum in Gori, Georgia reference the purges only in passing. "Sure, during the process of collectivization, some mistakes were made" is the official line at the museum. No other references to mortalities are made during the tour, and when asked about actual fatalities, the estimate of 25,000 is given.
Holodomor
A child left to starve by Stalin's man made famine 1932-1933. Poltava OblastThe Ukrainian famine (1932-1933), or Holodomor (Ukrainian: Голодомор), was one of the largest national catastrophes of the Ukrainian nation in modern history with direct loss of human life in the range of millions (estimates vary). While the famine in Ukraine was a part of a wider famine that also affected other regions of the USSR, the term Holodomor is specifically applied to the events that took place in territories populated by ethnic Ukrainians.
KGB documents located in Kiev purportedly demonstrate how the famine was artificially engineered,[37] and that while some areas of the Soviet Union affected by the famine were sent humanitarian aid, Ukraine was systematically denied such assistance.[38] Also, the famine was accompanied by a devastating purge of the Ukrainian intelligentsia and the Ukrainian Communist party itself.[39] One document is an order from Moscow to shoot people who steal food. It is signed by Stalin in red ink.[37] According to Professor Donald Rayfield, within a year 6,000 had been executed and tens of thousands imprisoned.[40]
Most modern scholars agree that the famine was caused by the policies of the government of the Soviet Union under Stalin, rather than by natural reasons, and the Holodomor is sometimes referred to as the Ukrainian Genocide,[41][42][43][44] implying that the Holodomor was engineered by the Soviets, specifically targeting the Ukrainian people to destroy the Ukrainian nation as a political factor and social entity.[45] While historians continue to disagree whether the policies that led to Holodomor fall under the legal definition of genocide, ten countries have officially recognized the Holodomor as such. On 28 November 2006 the Ukrainian Parliament approved a bill, according to which the Soviet-era forced famine was an act of genocide against the Ukrainian people.[46]
Deportations
Main article: Population transfer in the Soviet Union
Shortly before, during and immediately after World War II, Stalin conducted a series of deportations on a huge scale which profoundly affected the ethnic map of the Soviet Union. It is estimated that between 1941 and 1949 nearly 3.3 million[47] were deported to Siberia and the Central Asian republics. Separatism, resistance to Soviet rule and collaboration with the invading Germans were cited as the official reasons for the deportations, rightly or wrongly. Historian Allan Bullock explains:
“ Many no doubt had collaborated with the occupying forces … but many had done so not out of disloyalty but from the instinct to survive when abandoned to their fate by the retreating Soviet armies. The individual circumstances were of no interest to Stalin … After the brief Nazi occupation of the Caucasus was over … the entire population of five of the small highland peoples of the North Caucasus, as well as the Crimean Tatars - more than a million souls - (were deported) without notice or any opportunity to take their possessions. There were certainly collaborators among these peoples, but most of those had fled with the Germans. The majority of those left were old folk, women, and children; their men were away fighting at the front, where the Chechens and Ingushes alone produced thirty-six Heroes of the Soviet Union.[48] ”
During Stalin's rule the following ethnic groups were deported completely or partially: Ukrainians, Poles, Koreans, Volga Germans, Crimean Tatars, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Karachays, Meskhetian Turks, Finns, Bulgarians, Greeks, Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, and Jews. Large numbers of Kulaks, regardless of their nationality, were resettled to Siberia and Central Asia. Deportations took place in appalling conditions, often by cattle truck, and hundreds of thousands of deportees died en route [49]. Those who survived were forced to work without pay in the labour camps. Many of the deportees died of hunger or other conditions.
In February 1956, Nikita Khrushchev condemned the deportations as a violation of Leninist principles, and reversed most of them, although it was not until as late as 1991 that the Tatars, Meskhs and Volga Germans were allowed to return en masse to their homelands. The deportations had a profound effect on the peoples of the Soviet Union. The memory of the deportations played a major part in the separatist movements in the Baltic States, Tatarstan and Chechnya, even today.
Number of victims
Early researchers attempting to tally the number of people killed under Stalin's regime were forced to rely largely upon anecdotal evidence. Their estimates ranged from a low of 3 million to as high as 60 million.[50][51] The number of 60 million victims is often mentioned in some type of publications and plays a role in the judgement of the regime. At that time the Soviet Union had 164 million inhabitants. Furthermore, there were 30 million victims of WW II, 2 million of the famine in 1921-1923, 9 million of the civvil war, 3 million of WW I, several millions of the Spanish flu and an unknown number of victims of the Tsar. That would have meant that within four decades there were 110 early deaths, mainly male adults, on a population of about 160 million people.
When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, evidence from the Soviet archives finally became available. The government archives record that about 800,000 prisoners were executed (for either political or criminal offences) under Stalin; and some 389,000 perished during kulak resettlement - a total of about 3 million victims.
Debate continues, however,[52] since some historians believe the archival figures to be unreliable.[53] Also, it is generally agreed that the data is incomplete, since some categories of victim were not consistently recorded by the Soviets—such as the victims of ethnic deportations, or of German population transfer in the aftermath of WWII.
While some archival researchers have estimated the number of victims of Stalin's repressions to be no more than about 4 million in total,[54][55][56] others believe the number to be considerably higher. Russian writer Vadim Erlikman,[57] for example, makes the following estimates: executions, 1.5 million; gulags, 5 million; deportations, 1.7 million (out of 7.5 million deported); and POWs and German civilians, 1 million - a total of about 9 million victims of repression.
Some historians have also included the 6 to 8 million victims of the 1932-33 famine.[58][59][60] However including those who died in the famine is controversial, as historians differ as to whether the famine was a deliberate part of the campaign of repression against kulaks or simply an unintended consequence of the struggle over forced collectivization. (See also: Droughts and famines in Russia and the USSR).
If those who died in the famine are included, a minimum of around 10 million surplus deaths (4 million by repression and 6 million from famine) can attributable to the regime's policies, with a number of recent books suggesting a figure of around 20 million.[61][62][63][64] Adding 6-8 million famine victims to Erlikman's estimates above, for example, would yield a figure of between 15 and 17 million victims.[citation needed] Robert Conquest, meanwhile, has revised his original estimate of up to 30 million victims down to 20 million.[65] Others, however, continue to maintain that their earlier much higher estimates are correct.[66]
World War II
Molotov and Stalin.After the failure of Soviet and Franco-British talks on a mutual defense pact in Moscow, Stalin began to negotiate a non-aggression pact with Hitler's Nazi Germany. There is a version that in his speech on August 19, 1939, Stalin prepared his comrades for the great turn in Soviet policy, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany. According to a controversial Russian author living in the UK, Viktor Suvorov, Stalin expressed in the speech an expectation that the war would be the best opportunity to weaken both the Western nations and Nazi Germany, and make Germany suitable for "Sovietization". Whether this speech was ever delivered to the public and what its content was is still debated. (see Alleged Stalin's speech on August 19, 1939).
Stalin (in background to the right) looks on as Molotov signs the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.Officially a non-aggression treaty only, the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had a secret annex according to which Central Europe was divided into the two powers' respective spheres of influence. The USSR was promised an eastern part of Poland, primarily populated with Ukrainians and Belarusians in case of its dissolution, as long as Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Finland were recognized as parts of the Soviet sphere of influence. Another clause of the treaty was that Bessarabia, then part of Romania, was to be joined to the Moldovan ASSR, and become the Moldovan SSR under control of Moscow.
On September 1, 1939, the German invasion of Poland started World War II. Stalin decided to intervene, and on September 17 the Red Army entered eastern Poland and occupied the territory assigned to it by the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact.
In November 1939, Stalin sent troops over the Finnish border, provoking war, and probably intended to annex Finland into the Soviet Union, as he had already done in Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia. But the Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland proved to be far more difficult than Stalin and the Red Army were prepared for, and the Soviets sustained surprisingly high casualties. By some estimates, the Soviet Union lost as many as 391,800 lives in this four-month war against Finland alone, or more than the United States suffered in all of World War Two against Germany and Japan (1941-45). The Soviets finally prevailed over Finland in March, 1940, but only succeeded in occupying the eastern region of Karelia (10% of Finnish territory), a classic example of a pyrrhic victory, and Finland remained an independent country to the present day. The serious problems of the Soviet Army had been revealed to the rest of the world, including Germany.
On March 5, 1940, the Soviet leadership approved an order of execution for more than 25,700 Polish "nationalist, educators and counterrevolutionary" activists in the parts of the Ukraine and Belarus republics that had been annexed from Poland. This event has become known as the Katyn Massacre.[67]
In June 1941, Hitler broke the pact and invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. Although expecting war with Germany, Stalin may not have expected an invasion to come so soon—and the Soviet Union was relatively unprepared for this invasion. An alternative theory suggested by Viktor Suvorov claims that Stalin had made aggressive preparations from the late 1930s on and was about to invade Germany in summer 1941. Thus, he believes Hitler only managed to forestall Stalin and the German invasion was in essence a pre-emptive strike. This theory was supported by Igor Bunich, Mikhail Meltyukhov (see Stalin's Missed Chance) and Edvard Radzinsky (see Stalin: The First In-Depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives). Most Western historians reject this thesis, though.
In the diary of General Fedor von Boch, it is also mentioned that the Abwehr fully expected a Soviet attack against German forces in Poland no later than 1942. Such speculations are difficult to substantiate, however, as information on the Soviet Army from 1939 to 1941 remains classified, but it is known that the Soviets had received some warnings of the German invasion through their foreign intelligence agents, such as Richard Sorge.
Even though Stalin received intelligence warnings of a German attack,[68] he sought to avoid any obvious defensive preparation which might further provoke the Germans, in the hope of buying time to modernize and strengthen his military forces. In the initial hours after the German attack commenced, Stalin hesitated, wanting to ensure that the German attack was sanctioned by Hitler, rather than the unauthorized action of a rogue general.[3]
The Germans initially made huge advances, capturing and killing millions of Soviet troops. The Soviet Red Army put up fierce resistance during the war's early stages, but they were plagued by an ineffective defense doctrine against (despite quite modern equipment, such as first heavy tank in the world - KV, etc)the, well-trained and experienced German forces.
Stalin feared that Hitler would use disgruntled Soviet citizens to fight his regime, particularly people imprisoned in the Gulags. He thus ordered the NKVD to take care of the situation. They responded by murdering around one hundred thousand political prisoners throughout the western parts of the Soviet Union, with methods that included bayoneting people to death and tossing grenades into crowded cells.[69] Many others were simply deported east.[70][71][72]
Hitler's experts had expected eight weeks of war, and early indications appeared to support their predictions. However, the invading German forces were eventually driven back in December 1941 near Moscow.
The Big Three: British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Stalin at the Yalta Conference.Stalin met in several conferences with Churchill and/or Roosevelt in Moscow, Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam to plan military strategy (Truman taking the place of the deceased Roosevelt).
In these conferences, his first appearances on the world stage, Stalin proved to be a formidable negotiator. Anthony Eden, the British Foreign Secretary noted:
"Marshal Stalin as a negotiator was the toughest proposition of all. Indeed, after something like thirty years' experience of international conferences of one kind and another, if I had to pick a team for going into a conference room, Stalin would be my first choice. Of course the man was ruthless and of course he knew his purpose. He never wasted a word. He never stormed, he was seldom even irritated."[73]
His shortcomings as strategist are frequently noted regarding massive Soviet loss of life and early Soviet defeats. An example of it is the summer offensive of 1942, which led to even more losses by the Red Army and recapture of initiative by the Germans. Stalin eventually recognized his lack of know-how and relied on his professional generals to conduct the war.
Yet Stalin did rapidly move Soviet industrial production east of the Volga River, far from Luftwaffe-reach, to sustain the Red Army's war machine with astonishing success. Additionally, Stalin was well aware that other European armies had utterly disintegrated when faced with Nazi military efficacy and responded effectively by subjecting his army to galvanizing terror and unrevolutionary, nationalist appeals to patriotism. He also appealed to the Russian Orthodox church and images of national Russian heroes. On November 6, 1941, Stalin addressed the whole nation of the Soviet Union for the second time (the first time was earlier that year on July 2).
According to Stalin's Order No. 227 of July 27, 1942, any commander or commissar of a regiment, battalion or army, who allowed retreat without permission from above was subject to military tribunal. The Soviet soldiers who surrendered were declared traitors; however most of those who survived the brutality of German captivity were mobilized again as they were freed. Between 5% and 10% of them were sent to Gulag (As "traitors of Homeland". Soviet Criminal Code, §58, clause 1B: criminal conviction - 10 or later 25 years of labor camp plus 5 years without "citizen rights").
Time magazine (1943-01-04). Time had previously named Stalin Man of the Year for the year 1939.In the war's opening stages, the retreating Red Army also sought to deny resources to the enemy through a scorched earth policy of destroying the infrastructure and food supplies of areas before the Germans could seize them. Unfortunately, this, along with abuse by German troops, caused inconceivable starvation and suffering among the civilian population that were left behind.
According to recent figures, of an estimated four millions POW's taken by the Russians, including Germans, Japanese, Hungarians, Romanians and others, some 580,000 never returned, presumably victims of privation or the Gulags, compared with 3.5 million Soviet POW that died in German camps out of the 5.6 million taken.[74]
Returning Soviet soldiers who had surrendered were viewed with suspicion and some were killed. According to historian Alan Bullock:
“ The huge number of Russian troops taken prisoner in the first eighteen months of the war convinced Stalin that many of them must have been traitors who had deserted at the first opportunity. Any soldier who had been a prisoner was henceforth suspect … All such, whether generals, officers, or ordinary soldiers, were sent to special concentration camps where the NKVD investigated them … Twenty percent were sentenced to death or twenty-five years in camps; only 15 to 20 percent were allowed to return to their homes. The remainder were condemned to shorter sentences (five to ten years), to exile in Siberia, and forced labor - or were killed or died on the way home. [75] ”
Post-war era
This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
(tagged since January 2007)
Stalin and Zhukov on the tribune of Lenin's Mausoleum.Domestically, Stalin was seen as a great wartime leader who had led the Soviets to victory against the Nazis. His early cooperation with Hitlerism was forgotten. That cooperation included helping the German Army violate the Versailles Treaty limitations with training in the Soviet Union, the notorious Molotov-von Ribbentrop treaty which partitioned Poland (giving Soviet Union what is now Bylorussia), and granted the Soviet Union a free hand in Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia) and Soviet trade with Hitler to counteract the expected French and British trade blockades.
By the end of the 1940s, Russian patriotism increased due to successful propaganda efforts. For instance, some inventions and scientific discoveries were claimed by Russian propaganda. Examples include the boiler, reclaimed by father and son Cherepanovs; the electric bulb, by Yablochkov and Lodygin; the radio, by Popov; and the airplane, by Mozhaysky. Stalin's internal repressive policies continued (including in newly acquired territories), but never reached the extremes of the 1930s, in part because the smarter party functionaries had learned caution.
Internationally, Stalin viewed Soviet consolidation of power as a necessary step to protect the USSR by surrounding it with countries with friendly governments like the variety seen in Finland, to act as a cordon sanitaire (buffer) against possible invaders, while the "West" sought a similar buffer against communist expansion. These competing policies led to an admirable stability, where successful Soviet Aggression would depend on enthusiastic cooperation by the satellite nations.
He had hoped that the American withdrawal and demobilization would lead to increased communist influence, especially in Europe. Each side might view the other's defensive actions as destabilizing provocations and these security dilemmas frayed relations between the Soviet Union and its former World War II western allies and led to a prolonged period of tension and distrust between East and West known as the Cold War (see also Iron curtain).
The Red Army ended World War II occupying much of the territory that had been formerly held by the Axis countries:
In Asia, the Red Army had overrun Manchuria in the last month of the war and then also occupied Korea above the 38th parallel north. Mao Zedong's Communist Party of China, though receptive to minimal Soviet support, defeated the pro-Western and heavily American-assisted Chinese Nationalist Party in the Chinese Civil War.
The Communists controlled mainland China while the Nationalists held a rump state on the island of Formosa (now Taiwan). The Soviet Union soon after recognized Mao's People's Republic of China, which it regarded as a new ally. The People's Republic claimed Taiwan, though it had never held authority there.
Diplomatic relations reached a high point with the signing of the 1950 Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance. Both countries provided military support to a new friendly state in North Korea. After various border conflicts, war broke out with U.S.-allied South Korea in 1950, starting the Korean War.
A meeting between Stalin and Mao Zedong after the CPC's 1949 victory over the KMT in the Chinese Civil War.In Europe, there were Soviet occupation zones in Germany and Austria. Hungary and Poland were under practical military occupation. From 1946-1948 coalition governments comprising communists were elected in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria and homegrown communist movements rose to power in Yugoslavia and Albania.
These nations became known as the "Communist Bloc." Britain and the United States supported the anti-communists in the Greek Civil War and suspected the Soviets of supporting the Greek communists although Stalin refrained from getting involved in Greece, dismissing the movement as premature. Albania remained an ally of the Soviet Union, but Yugoslavia broke with the USSR in 1948. Greece, Italy and France received enormous support from the population, which were at the very least friendly towards Moscow.
Both Superpowers viewed Germany as key. In retaliation to the Western formation of Trizonia, Stalin determined to take action.
Armed with intelligence from the British agent Donald Duart Maclean and other British and American espionage agents, Stalin was well aware that the United States had not proceeded with mass production of atomic weapons, indeed, had not even assembled any after the last was used at Nagasaki. large numbers would have been needed to destroy Soviet or Communist land forces either in Europe or the Far East. He therefore ordered a blockade of West Berlin, which was under British, French, and U.S. occupation, to test the Western powers.
The Berlin Blockade failed due to the unexpected massive aerial resupply campaign carried out by the Western powers known as the Berlin Airlift. In 1949, Stalin conceded defeat and ended the blockade. After West Germany was formed by the union of the three Western occupation zones, the Soviets declared East Germany a separate country in 1949, ruled by the communists.
Stalin originally supported the creation of Israel in 1948. The USSR was one of the first nations to recognize the new country.[76] Golda Meir came to Moscow as the first Israeli Ambassador to the USSR that year. But he later changed his mind and came out against Israel.
Contrary to America's policy which restrained armament (limited equipment was provided for infantry and police forces) to South Korea, Stalin also extensively armed Kim Il Sung's North Korean army and air forces with military equipment (to include T-34/85 tanks) and "advisors" far in excess of that required for defensive purposes) in order to facilitate Kim's (a former Soviet Officer) aim to conquer the rest of the Korean peninsula. Soviet pilots flew Soviet aircraft from Chinese bases against United Nations aircraft defending South Korea. Post cold war research in Soviet Archives reveal that the Korean War was begun by Kim Il-sung with the express permission of Stalin.
In Stalin's last year of life, one of his last major foreign policy initiatives was the 1952 Stalin Note for German reunification and Superpower disengagement from Central Europe, but Britain, France, and the United States viewed this with suspicion and rejected the offer.
Stalin as theorist
Main article: Stalinism
Stalin made few contributions to Communist (or, more specifically, Marxist-Leninist) theory, but the contributions he did make were accepted and upheld by all Soviet political scientists during his rule.
Among Stalin's contributions were his "Marxism and the National Question", a work praised by Lenin; his "Trotskyism or Leninism", which was a factor in the "liquidation of Trotskyism as an ideological trend" within the CPSU(B).
Stalin's Collected Works (in 13 volumes) was released in 1949. A subsequent 16 volume American Edition appeared, in which one volume consisted of the book "History of the CPSU(B) Short Course", although when released in 1938 this book was credited to a commission of the Central Committee.
In 1933, Stalin put forward the theory of aggravation of the class struggle along with the development of socialism, arguing that the further the country would move forward, the more acute forms of struggle will be used by the doomed remnants of exploiter classes in their last desperate efforts - and that, therefore, political repression was necessary.
In 1936, Stalin announced that the society of the Soviet Union consisted of two non-antagonistic classes: workers and kolkhoz peasantry. These corresponded to the two different forms of property over the means of production that existed in the Soviet Union: state property (for the workers) and collective property (for the peasantry). In addition to these, Stalin distinguished the stratum of intelligentsia. The concept of "non-antagonistic classes" was entirely new to Leninist theory.
Stalin and his supporters have highlighted the notion that socialism can be built and consolidated by a country as underdeveloped as Russia during the 1920s. Indeed this might be the only means in which it could be built in a hostile environment.[77]
Death
Stalin's body lying in state in the House of Trade Unions in Moscow.On March 1, 1953, after an all-night dinner with interior minister Lavrenty Beria and future premiers Georgi Malenkov, Nikolai Bulganin and Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin did not emerge from his room the next day, having probably suffered a stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body.
Although his guards thought that it was odd for him not to rise at his usual time, they were under orders not to disturb him. He was not discovered until that evening. He died four days later, on March 5, 1953, at the age of 74, and was buried on March 9. His daughter Svetlana recalls the scene as she stood by his death bed "He suddenly opened his eyes and cast a glance over everyone in the room. It was a terrible glance. Then something incomprehensible and awesome happened. He suddenly lifted his left hand as though he were pointing to something above and bringing down a curse upon all of us. The next moment after a final effort the spirit wrenched itself free of the flesh." Officially, the cause of death was listed as a cerebral hemorrhage. His body was preserved in Lenin's Mausoleum until October 31, 1961, when his body was removed from the Mausoleum and buried next to the Kremlin walls as part of the process of de-Stalinization.
Stalin's Grave by the Kremlin Wall NecropolisIt has been suggested that Stalin was assassinated. The ex-Communist exile Avtorkhanov argued this point as early as 1975. The political memoirs of Vyacheslav Molotov, published in 1993, claimed that Beria had boasted to Molotov that he poisoned Stalin: "I took him out."
Khrushchev wrote in his memoirs that Beria had, immediately after the stroke, gone about "spewing hatred against [Stalin] and mocking him", and then, when Stalin showed signs of consciousness, dropped to his knees and kissed his hand. When Stalin fell unconscious again, Beria immediately stood and spat.
In 2003, a joint group of Russian and American historians announced their view that Stalin ingested warfarin, a powerful rat poison that inhibits coagulation of the blood and so predisposes the victim to hemorrhagic stroke (cerebral hemorrhage). Since it is flavorless, warfarin is a plausible weapon of murder. The facts surrounding Stalin's death will probably never be known with certainty.[78]
His demise arrived at a convenient time for Beria and others, who feared being swept away in yet another purge. It is believed that Stalin felt Beria's power was too great and threatened his own. Whether or not Beria or another usurper was directly responsible for his death, it is true that the politburo did not summon medical attention for Stalin for more than a day after he was found.
N.B. Radzinsky in Stalin: The First In-Depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents From Russia's Secret Archives notes that while Stalin was preparing Beria's downfall, he first had his head of security killed and thereby allowed Beria to interfere with the bodyguard arrangements for "the Boss". The head of security on that night gave the guards the never before heard order, allegedly from the Boss, that they were not required that night and they could go to bed. Next morning there was no activity from the Boss's room. This was extremely convenient since the purge - which had already started against the Jewish doctors, was scheduled to start reaching the current politburo members including Beria and Kruschev, not to mention the already deposed Molotov. According to Radzinsky, this was also the resumption of the Terror in order to ensure absolute obedience of the nation in anticipation of a planned apocalypse. Apparently Stalin intended to use his lead in the development of a hydrogen bomb to his advantage by engineering a conflict with the west. This he thought, could be achieved by building on the show trials of "the Jewish doctors" and embracing an anti-semitic expulsion of "the Jews" to Siberia.
Cult of personality
Roses for Stalin (1949), painting by Boris Vladimirski.Stalin created a cult of personality in the Soviet Union around both himself and Lenin. The embalming of the Soviet founder in Lenin's Mausoleum was performed over the objection of Lenin's widow, Nadezhda Krupskaya. Stalin became the focus of massive adoration and even worship.
Numerous towns, villages and cities were renamed after the Soviet leader (see List of places named after Stalin) and the Stalin Prize and Stalin Peace Prize were named in his honor. He accepted grandiloquent titles (e.g. "Coryphaeus of Science," "Father of Nations," "Brilliant Genius of Humanity," "Great Architect of Communism," "Gardener of Human Happiness," and others), and helped rewrite Soviet history to provide himself a more significant role in the revolution. At the same time, according to Khrushchev, he insisted that he be remembered for "the extraordinary modesty characteristic of truly great people."
Many statues and monuments were erected to glorify Stalin but all of them distorted Stalin's true build. Going by these monuments and statues it would be easy to assume that Stalin was a tall and well built man not unlike Tsar Alexander III. This was not the case however; photographic evidence suggests he was between 5 ft 5 in and 5 ft 6 in (165 - 168 cm)[24]. His physical stature was exaggerated in all portraits and statues to avoid any image of weakness that could harm his cult of personality.
Trotsky criticized the cult of personality built around Stalin as being against the values of socialism and Bolshevism, in that it exalted the individual above the party and class and it disallowed criticism of Stalin. The personality cult reached new levels during the Great Patriotic War, with Stalin's name even being included in the new Soviet national anthem.
Stalin became the focus of a body of literature encompassing poetry as well as music, paintings and film. Artists and writers vied with each other in fawning devotion, crediting Stalin with almost god-like qualities, and suggesting he single-handedly won the Second World War.
It is debatable as to how much Stalin relished the cult surrounding him. The Finnish communist Tuominen records a sarcastic toast proposed by Stalin at a New Year Party in 1935:
“ Comrades! I want to propose a toast to our patriarch, life and sun, liberator of nations, architect of socialism [he rattled off all the appellations applied to him in those days] – Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, and I hope this is the first and last speech made to that genius this evening.[79] ”
In recent years, support of Stalin has resurged. Millions of Russians, exasperated with the downfall of the economy and political instability after the breakup of the Soviet Union, want Stalin back. A recent controversial poll revealed that over thirty-five percent of Russians would vote for Stalin if he were still alive.[80] This is seen by some as a return of Stalin's cult. In Krasnoyarsk, it has been decided to rebuild a communist-era memorial complex dedicated to Josef Stalin.[81] Also, a new statue of Stalin is to be erected in Moscow, “returning his once-ubiquitous image to the streets after an absence of four decades, a top city official said yesterday”, as reported by The Scotsman.[82]
Policies and accomplishments
Grutas Park is home to only one monument of Stalin, originally set up in Vilnius.Under Stalin's rule the Soviet Union was transformed from an agricultural nation into a global superpower, although at the cost of millions of lives. The USSR's industrialization was successful in that the country was able to defend against and eventually defeat the Axis invasion in World War II, though at an enormous cost in human life; and in 1957, four years after Stalin's death, to put into orbit the first ever artificial satellite, Sputnik 1. However, libertarian historian Robert Conquest and other Westerners claim that the USSR was bound for industrialization, and that its speed along this course was not necessarily improved by Bolshevik influence. It has also been argued that Stalin was partially responsible for the initial military disasters and enormous human casualties during WWII, because Stalin eliminated many military officers during the purges, and especially the most senior ones, and rejected the massive amounts of intelligence warning of the German attack.[25]
While Stalin's social and economic policies laid the foundations for the USSR's emergence as a superpower, the harshness with which he conducted Soviet affairs was subsequently repudiated by his successors in the Communist Party leadership, notably in the denunciation of Stalinism by Nikita Khrushchev in February 1956. In his "Secret Speech", On the Personality Cult and its Consequences, delivered to a closed session of the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Khrushchev denounced Stalin for his cult of personality, and his regime for "violation of Leninist norms of legality".
However, his immediate successors preserved major elements of Stalin's rule, including the political monopoly of the Communist Party presiding over a command economy and a security service able to suppress dissent. The large-scale purges of Stalin's era were never repeated, but political repression continued, albeit on a lesser scale.
Other names
This article does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
This article has been tagged since January 2007.
His first name is also transliterated as Iosif. His original surname, ჯუღაშვილი, is also transliterated as Jugashvili or Jughashvili. The Russian transliteration is Джугашвили, which is in turn transliterated into English as Dzhugashvili and Djugashvili; – შვილი – shvili is a Georgian suffix meaning "child" or "son".
There are several etymologies of the ჯუღა (jugha) root. In one version, it is the Ossetian for "rubbish"; the surname Jugayev is common among Ossetians, and before the revolution the names in South Ossetia were traditionally written with the Georgian suffix, especially among Christianized Ossetians. In a second version, the name derives from the village of Jugaani in Kakhetia, eastern Georgia.
An article in the newspaper Pravda in 1988 claimed that the word derives from the Old Georgian for "steel" which might be the reason for his adoption of the name Stalin. Сталин (Stalin) is derived from combining the Russian сталь (stal), "steel", with the possessive suffix –ин (–in), a formula used by many other Bolsheviks, including Lenin.
It has also been said that, originally, "Stalin" was a conspiratorial nickname which stuck with him.
Like other Bolsheviks, he became commonly known by one of his revolutionary noms de guerre, of which Stalin was only the most prominent. He was also known as Koba, a Robin Hood-like brigand from the 1883 novel The Patricide by Alexander Kazbegi.[83]
Stalin is also reported to have used at least a dozen other names for the purpose of secret communications. Most of them remain unknown.
Directly following World War II, as the Soviets were negotiating with the Allies, Stalin often sent directions to Molotov as Druzhkov. Among his other nicknames and aliases were Ivanovich, Soso or Sosso (mainly his boyhood name), David, Nizharadze or Nijeradze, and Chizhikov.
Stalin was nicknamed "Uncle Joe" by the Western media. [84]
moa zeadong:Mao Zedong pronunciation (help·info) (Simplified Chinese: 毛泽东; Traditional Chinese: 毛澤東; Pinyin: Máo Zédōng; Wade-giles: Mao Tse-tung; December 26, 1893 – September 9, 1976) was a Chinese military and political leader, who led the Communist Party of China (CPC) to victory against the Kuomintang (KMT) in the Chinese Civil War, and was the leader of the People’s Republic of China (PRC) from its establishment in 1949 until his death in 1976. Mao is also recognized as a poet and calligrapher.[1]
Regarded as one of the most important figures in modern world history,[2] Mao is still a controversial figure today, over thirty years after his death. He is held in high regard in China where he is often portrayed as a great revolutionary and strategist who eventually defeated Chiang Kai-shek in the Chinese Civil War, and transformed the country into a major power through his Maoist policies. However, many of Mao's socio-political programs such as the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution are blamed by critics from both within and outside China for causing severe damage to the culture, society, economy and foreign relations of China, as well as enormous and unnecessary loss of lives, a peacetime death toll in the tens of millions.[3]
Although still officially venerated in China, his influence has been largely overshadowed by the political and economic reforms of Deng Xiaoping and other leaders since his death.[4][5]
Contents [hide]
1 Early life
2 Political ideas
3 War and Revolution
4 Leadership of China
4.1 Great Leap Forward
4.2 Cultural Revolution
5 Death
6 Cult of Mao
7 Legacy
8 Genealogy
9 Writings
9.1 Literary Figure
10 See also
11 References
12 Further reading
13 External links
13.1 Audio and video
Early life
This section is missing citations and/or needs footnotes.
Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. This article has been tagged since March 2007.
The eldest child of a relatively prosperous peasant family, Mao was born on December 26, 1893 in a village called Shaoshan in Xiangtan County (湘潭縣), Hunan province. His ancestors migrated from Jiangxi province during the Ming Dynasty, and had settled there as farmers. Due to his family's relative wealth, his father was able to send him to school and later to Changsha for more advanced schooling.
Names
Given name Style name
Trad. 毛澤東 潤之¹
Simp. 毛泽东 润之
Pinyin Máo Zédōng Rùnzhī
WG Mao Tse-tung Jun-chih
IPA /mau̯ː˧˥ tsɤ˧˥.tʊŋ˥/ /ʐuənː˥˩ tʂ̩˥/
Surname: Mao
¹Originally 詠芝(咏芝) then 润芝, in Xiangtan dialect
have the same pronunciation yùnzhī
During the 1911 Revolution, Mao enlisted as a soldier in a local regiment in Hunan which fought on the side of the revolutionaries. Once the Qing Dynasty had been effectively toppled, Mao left the army and returned to school.[6]
After graduating from the First Provincial Normal School of Hunan in 1918, Mao traveled with Professor Yang Changji, his high school teacher and future father-in-law, to Beijing during the May Fourth Movement in 1919. Professor Yang held a faculty position at Peking University. Because of Yang's recommendation, Mao worked as an assistant librarian at the University with Li Dazhao as curator. Mao registered as a part-time student at Beijing University and audited many lectures and seminars by famous intellectuals, such as Chen Duxiu, Hu Shi, Qian Xuantong, etc. During his stay in Beijing, he read as much as possible, and through his readings, he was introduced to Communist theories. He married Yang Kaihui, Professor Yang's daughter and also his fellow student, despite an existing marriage arranged by his father at home. Mao never acknowledged this marriage. In October 1930, the Kuomintang captured Yang Kaihui with her son, Anying. The KMT put them in prison. Anying, then 8, was forced to watch as the KMT tortured and killed her.[citation needed]
Mao turned down an opportunity to study in France because of poverty. Later, he claimed that it was because he firmly believed that China's problems could be studied and resolved only within China. Unlike his contemporaries, Mao concentrated on studying the peasant majority of China's population.
On July 23, 1921, Mao, age 27, attended the first session of the National Congress of the Communist Party of China in Shanghai. Two years later, he was elected as one of the five commissars of the Central Committee of the Party during the third Congress session. Later that year (1923), Mao returned to Hunan at the instruction of the CPC Central Committee and the Kuomintang Central Committee to organise the Hunan branch of the Kuomintang.[7] In 1924, he was a delegate to the first National Conference of the Kuomintang, where he was elected an Alternate Executive of the Central Committee. In 1924, he became an Executive of the Shanghai branch of the Kuomintang, and Secretary of the Organisation Department.
For a while, Mao remained in Shanghai, an important city that the CPC emphasized for the Revolution. However, the Party encountered major difficulties organizing labour union movements and building a relationship with its nationalist ally, the Kuomintang. The Party had become poor, and Mao was disillusioned with the revolution and moved back to Shaoshan. During his stay at home, Mao's interest in the revolution was rekindled after hearing of the 1925 uprisings in Shanghai and Guangzhou. His political ambitions returned, and he then went to Guangdong, the base of the Kuomintang, and took part in the preparations for the second session of the National Congress of Kuomintang. In October 1925, Mao became acting Propaganda Director of the Kuomintang.[7]
Political ideas
Main article: Maoism
Mao had a great interest in academic study as a child, encouraged by his father.[8] In addition to his limited formal education, Mao spent six months studying independently, and two years studying at a teacher training college in the United States.[8] Mao was first introduced to communism while working at Peking University, and in 1921 he co-founded the Chinese Communist Party (or CCP).[9]
In 1920, Mao also developed his theory of violent revolution. His theory was inspired by the Russian revolution and was likely influenced by the Chinese literary works: Outlaws of the Marsh and Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Mao sought to subvert the alliance of imperialism and feudalism in China. He thought the Nationalists to be both economically and politically vulnerable and thus that the revolution could not be steered by Nationalists. He concluded that violent revolution must be conducted by the proletariat under the supervision of a Communist party.
Throughout the 1920s, Mao led several labour struggles based upon his studies of the propagation and organization of the contemporary labour movements. [8]However, these struggles were successfully subdued by the government, and Mao fled from Changsha after he was labeled a radical activist. He pondered these failures and finally realized that industrial workers were unable to lead the revolution because they made up only a small portion of China's population, and unarmed labour struggles could not resolve the problems of imperial and feudal suppression.
Mao began to depend on Chinese peasants who later became staunch supporters of his theory of violent revolution. This dependence on the rural rather than the urban proletariat to instigate violent revolution distinguished Mao from his predecessors and contemporaries. Mao himself was from a peasant family, and thus he cultivated his reputation among the farmers and peasants and introduced them to Marxism[10][11]
War and Revolution
This section does not cite any references or sources.
Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. (help, get involved!)
Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.
(tagged since May 2007)
In 1927, Mao conducted the famous Autumn Harvest Uprising in Changsha, Hunan, as commander-in-chief. Mao led an army, called the "Revolutionary Army of Workers and Peasants", but was defeated and scattered after fierce battles. Afterwards, the exhausted troops were forced to leave Hunan for Sanwan, Jiangxi, where Mao re-organized the scattered soldiers, rearranging the military division into smaller regiments. Mao also ordered that each company must have a party branch office with a commissar as its leader who would give political instructions based upon superior mandates. This military rearrangement in Sanwan, Jiangxi initiated the CPC's absolute control over its military force and has been considered to have the most fundamental and profound impact upon the Chinese revolution. Later, they moved to the Jinggang Mountains, Jiangxi.
In the Jinggang Mountains, Mao persuaded two local insurgent leaders to pledge their allegiance to him. There, Mao joined his army with that of Zhu De, creating the Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of China, Red Army in short. (the Fourth Front of Workers' and Peasants' Red Army of China).
From 1931 to 1934, Mao helped establish the Soviet Republic of China and was elected Chairman of this small republic in the mountainous areas in Jiangxi. Here, Mao was married to He Zizhen. His previous wife, Yang Kaihui, had been arrested and executed in 1930, just three years after their departure.
In Jiangxi, Mao's authoritative domination, especially that of the military force, was challenged by the Jiangxi branch of the CPC and military officers. Mao's opponents, among whom the most prominent was Li Wenlin, the founder of the CPC's branch and Red Army in Jiangxi, were against Mao's land policies and proposals to reform the local party branch and army leadership. Mao reacted first by accusing the opponents of opportunism and kulakism and then set off a series of systematic suppressions of them.[12] Later the suppressions were turned into bloody physical elimination. It is reported that horrible forms of torture and killing took place. Jung Chang and Jon Halliday claim that victims were subjected to a red-hot gun-rod being rammed into the anus, and that there were many cases of cutting open the stomach and scooping out the heart.[13] The estimated number of the victims amounted to several thousands and could be as high as 186,000.[14] Through the so-called revolutionary terrorism, or red terrorism, Mao's authority and domination in Jiangxi was secured and reassured.
Mao, with the help of Zhu De, built a modest but effective army, undertook experiments in rural reform and government, and provided refuge for Communists fleeing the rightist purges in the cities. Mao's methods are normally referred to as Guerrilla warfare; but he himself made a distinction between guerrilla warfare (youji zhan) and Mobile Warfare (yundong zhan).
Mao's Guerrilla Warfare and Mobile Warfare was based upon the fact of the poor armament and military training of the red army which consisted mainly of impoverished peasants, who, however, were all encouraged by revolutionary passions and aspiring after a communist utopia.
Around 1930, there had been more than ten regions, usually entitled "soviet areas," under control of the CPC.[15] The prosperity of "soviet areas" startled and worried Chiang Kai-shek, chairman of the Kuomintang government, who waged five waves of besieging campaigns against the "central soviet area." More than one million Kuomintang soldiers were involved in these five campaigns, four out of which were defeated by the red army led by Mao. By June 1932 (the height of its power), the Red Army had no less than 45,000 soldiers, with a further 200,000 local militia acting as a subsidiary force.[16]
Under increasing pressures from the KMT encirclement campaigns, there was a struggle for power within the Communist leadership. Mao was removed from his important positions and replaced by individuals (including Zhou Enlai) who appeared loyal to the orthodox line advocated by Moscow and represented within the CPC by a group known as the 28 Bolsheviks.
Mao in 1935
Mao in 1938, writing On Protracted WarChiang Kai-shek, who had earlier assumed nominal control of China due in part to the Northern Expedition, was determined to eliminate the Communists. By October 1934, he had them surrounded, prompting them to engage in the "Long March," a retreat from Jiangxi in the southeast to Shaanxi in the northwest of China. It was during this 9,600 kilometer (5,965 mile), year-long journey that Mao emerged as the top Communist leader, aided by the Zunyi Conference and the defection of Zhou Enlai to Mao's side. At this Conference, Mao entered the Standing Committee of the Politburo of the Communist Party of China.
According to the standard Chinese Communist Party line, from his base in Yan'an, Mao led the Communist resistance against the Japanese in the Second Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).[citation needed] More critical examinations of his role reveal that Mao was primarily concerned with expanding CPC influence and weakening the KMT[citation needed]; Under Mao's leadership CPC officials arranged ceasefires with the Japanese in central areas to protect Japanese train lines and allow time for an increase in CPC membership, all while pretending to be vigorously opposing the Japanese. In fact, as of late 1940, Mao was so focused on opposition to the KMT that he confided to top CPC officials that he wished for continued Japanese occupation of China. [17] Mao further consolidated power over the Communist Party in 1942 by launching the Zheng Feng, or "Rectification" campaign against rival CPC members such as Wang Ming, Wang Shiwei, and Ding Ling. Also while in Yan'an, Mao divorced He Zizhen and married the actress Lan Ping, who would become known as Jiang Qing.
Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Zedong met in the wartime capital of Chongqing, to toast to the Chinese victory over Japan, but their shaky alliance was short-lived.During the Sino-Japanese War, Mao Zedong's strategies were opposed by both Chiang Kai-shek and the United States. The US regarded Chiang as an important ally, able to help shorten the war by engaging the Japanese occupiers in China. Chiang, in contrast, sought to build the ROC army for the certain conflict with Mao's communist forces after the end of World War II. This fact was not understood well in the US, and precious lend-lease armaments continued to be allocated to the Kuomintang. In turn, Mao spent part of the war (as to whether it was most or only a little is disputed) fighting the Kuomintang for control of certain parts of China. Both the Communists and Nationalists have been criticised for fighting amongst themselves rather than allying against the Japanese Imperial Army. However the Nationalists were better equipped and did most of the fighting against the Japanese army in China.[18]
In 1944, the Americans sent a special diplomatic envoy, called the Dixie Mission, to the Communist Party of China. According to Edwin Moise, in Modern China: A History 2nd Edition:
Most of the Americans were favourably impressed. The CPC seemed less corrupt, more unified, and more vigorous in its resistance to Japan than the Guomindang. United States fliers shot down over North China...confirmed to their superiors that the CPC was both strong and popular over a broad area. In the end, the contacts with the USA developed with the CPC led to very little.
Then again, modern commentators have disputed such claims. Amongst others, Willy Lam stated that during the war with Japan:
The great majority of casualties sustained by Chinese soldiers were borne by KMT, not Communist divisions. Mao and other guerrilla leaders decided at the time to conserve their strength for the "larger struggle" of taking over all of China once the Japanese Imperial Army was decimated by the U.S.-led Allied Forces.[18]
Mao in 1946 at Yan'anAfter the end of World War II, the US continued to support Chiang Kai-shek, now openly against the Communist Red Army (led by Mao Zedong) in the civil war for control of China. The US support was part of its view to contain and defeat world communism. Likewise, the Soviet Union gave quasi-covert support to Mao (acting as a concerned neighbor more than a military ally, to avoid open conflict with the US) and gave large supplies of arms to the Communist Party of China, although newer Chinese records indicate the Soviet "supplies" were not as large as previously believed, and consistently fell short of the promised amount of aid.
On January 21, 1949, Kuomintang forces suffered massive losses against Mao's Red Army. In the early morning of December 10, 1949, Red Army troops laid siege to Chengdu, the last KMT-occupied city in mainland China, and Chiang Kai-shek evacuated from the mainland to Taiwan (Formosa) that same day.
Leadership of China
The People's Republic of China was established on October 1, 1949. It was the culmination of over two decades of civil and international war. From 1954 to 1959, Mao was the Chairman of the PRC. During this period, Mao was called Chairman Mao (毛主席) or the Great Leader Chairman Mao (伟大领袖毛主席). The Communist Party assumed control of all media in the country and used it to promote the image of Mao and the Party. The Nationalists under General Chiang Kai-Shek were vilified as were countries such as the United States of America and Japan. The Chinese people were exhorted to devote themselves to build and strengthen their country. In his speech declaring the foundation of the PRC, Mao announced: "The Chinese people have stood up!"
Mao took up residence in Zhongnanhai, a compound next to the Forbidden City in Beijing, and there he ordered the construction of an indoor swimming pool and other buildings. Mao often did his work either in bed or by the side of the pool, preferring not to wear formal clothes unless absolutely necessary, according to Dr. Li Zhisui, his personal physician. (Li's book, The Private Life of Chairman Mao, is regarded as controversial, especially by those sympathetic to Mao.)
Mao’s first political campaigns after founding the People’s Republic were land reform and the suppression of counter-revolutionaries, which centered on mass executions, often before organized crowds. These campaigns of mass repression targeted former KMT officials, businessmen, former employees of Western companies, intellectuals whose loyalty was suspect, and significant numbers of rural gentry.[19] The U.S. State department in 1976 estimated that there may have been a million killed in the land reform, 800,000 killed in the counterrevolutionary campaign.[20] Mao himself claimed a total of 700,000 killed during these early years (1949–53).[21] However, because there was a policy to select "at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution",[22] 1 million deaths seems to be an absolute minimum, and many authors agree on a figure of between 2 million and 5 million dead.[23][24] In addition, at least 1.5 million people were sent to "reform through labour" camps (laogai).[25] Mao’s personal role in ordering mass executions is undeniable.[26][27] He defended these killings as necessary for the securing of power.[28]
Following the consolidation of power, Mao launched the First Five-Year Plan (1953-8). The plan aimed to end Chinese dependence upon agriculture in order to become a world power. With the USSR's assistance, new industrial plants were built and agricultural production eventually fell to a point where industry was beginning to produce enough capital that China no longer needed the USSR's support. The success of the First Five Year Plan was to encourage Mao to instigate the Second Five Year Plan, the Great Leap Forward, in 1958. Mao also launched a phase of rapid collectivization. The CPC introduced price controls as well as a Chinese character simplification aimed at increasing literacy. Land was taken from landlords and more wealthy peasants and given to poorer peasants. Large scale industrialization projects were also undertaken.
Programs pursued during this time include the Hundred Flowers Campaign, in which Mao indicated his supposed willingness to consider different opinions about how China should be governed. Given the freedom to express themselves, liberal and intellectual Chinese began opposing the Communist Party and questioning its leadership. This was initially tolerated and even encouraged. However, after a few months, Mao's government reversed its policy and persecuted those, totalling perhaps 500,000, who criticized, and were merely alleged to have criticized, the Party in what is called the Anti-Rightist Movement. Authors such as Jung Chang have alleged that the Hundred Flowers Campaign was merely a ruse to root out "dangerous" thinking.[29] Others such as Dr Li Zhisui have suggested that Mao had initially seen the policy as a way of weakening those within his party who opposed him, but was surprised by the extent of criticism and the fact that it began to be directed at his own leadership.[citation needed] It was only then that he used it as a method of identifying and subsequently persecuting those critical of his government. The Hundred Flowers movement led to the condemnation, silencing, and death of many citizens, also linked to Mao's Anti-Rightist Movement, with death tolls possibly in the millions.
Great Leap Forward
Main article: Great Leap Forward
In January 1958, Mao launched the second Five-Year Plan known as the Great Leap Forward, a plan intended as an alternative model for economic growth to the Soviet model focusing on heavy industry that was advocated by others in the party. Under this economic program, the relatively small agricultural collectives which had been formed to date were rapidly merged into far larger people's communes, and many of the peasants ordered to work on massive infrastructure projects and the small-scale production of iron and steel. All private food production was banned; livestock and farm implements were brought under collective ownership.
Under the Great Leap Forward, Mao and other party leaders ordered the implementation of a variety of unproven and unscientific new agricultural techniques by the new communes. Combined with the diversion of labour to steel production and infrastructure projects and the reduced personal incentives under a commune system this led to an approximately 15% drop in grain production in 1959 followed by further 10% reduction in 1960 and no recovery in 1961. In an effort to win favour with their superiors and avoid being purged, each layer in the party hierarchy exaggerated the amount of grain produced under them and based on the fabricated success, party cadres were ordered to requisition a disproportionately high amount of the true harvest for state use primarily in the cities and urban areas but also for export. The net result, which was compounded in some areas by drought and in others by floods, was that the rural peasants were not left enough to eat and many millions starved to death in what is thought to be the largest famine in human history. This famine was a direct cause of the death of tens of millions of Chinese peasants between 1959 and 1962. Further, many children who became emaciated and malnourished during years of hardship and struggle for survival, died shortly after the Great Leap Forward came to an end in 1962 (Spence, 553).
The extent of Mao's knowledge as to the severity of the situation has been disputed. According to some, most notably Dr. Li Zhisui, Mao was not aware of anything more than a mild food and general supply shortage until late 1959.
"But I do not think that when he spoke on July 2, 1959, he knew how bad the disaster had become, and he believed the party was doing everything it could to manage the situation"
Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, in Mao: the Unknown Story, alleged that Mao knew of the vast suffering and that he was dismissive of it, blaming bad weather or other officials for the famine.
"Although slaughter was not his purpose with the Leap, he was more than ready for myriad deaths to result, and hinted to his top echelon that they should not be too shocked if they happened (438-439)."
Whatever the case, the Great Leap Forward led to millions of deaths in China. Mao lost esteem among many of the top party cadres and was eventually forced to abandon the policy in 1962, also losing some political power to moderate leaders, notably Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping. However, Mao and national propaganda claimed that he was only partly to blame. As a result, he was able to remain Chairman of the Communist Party, with the Presidency transferred to Liu Shaoqi.
The Great Leap Forward was a disaster for China. Although the steel quotas were officially reached, almost all of it made in the countryside was useless lumps of iron, as it had been made from assorted scrap metal in home made furnaces with no reliable source of fuel such as coal. According to Zhang Rongmei, a geometry teacher in rural Shanghai during the Great Leap Forward:
We took all the furniture, pots, and pans we had in our house, and all our neighbors did likewise. We put all everything in a big fire and melted down all the metal.
Moreover, most of the dams, canals and other infrastructure projects, which millions of peasants and prisoners had been forced to toil on and in many cases die for, proved useless as they had been built without the input of trained engineers, whom Mao had rejected on ideological grounds.
Mao, shown here with Henry Kissinger and Zhou Enlai.In the Party Congress at Lushan in July/August 1959, several leaders expressed concern that the Great Leap Forward was not as successful as planned. The most direct of these was Minister of Defence and Korean War General Peng Dehuai. Mao, fearing loss of his position, orchestrated a purge of Peng and his supporters, stifling criticism of the Great Leap policies.
There is a great deal of controversy over the number of deaths by starvation during the Great Leap Forward. Until the mid 1980s, when official census figures were finally published by the Chinese Government, little was known about the scale of the disaster in the Chinese countryside, as the handful of Western observers allowed access during this time had been restricted to model villages where they were deceived into believing that Great Leap Forward had been a great success. There was also an assumption that the flow of individual reports of starvation that had been reaching the West, primarily through Hong Kong and Taiwan, must be localised or exaggerated as China was continuing to claim record harvests and was a net exporter of grain through the period. Censuses were carried out in China in 1953, 1964 and 1982. The first attempt to analyse this data in order to estimate the number of famine deaths was carried out by American demographer Dr Judith Banister and published in 1984. Given the lengthy gaps between the censuses and doubts over the reliability of the data, an accurate figure is difficult to ascertain. Nevertheless, Banister concluded that the official data implied that around 15 million excess deaths incurred in China during 1958-61 and that based on her modelling of Chinese demographics during the period and taking account of assumed underreporting during the famine years, the figure was around 30 million. The official statistic is 20 million deaths, as given by Hu Yaobang.[30] Various other sources have put the figure between 20 and 72 million.[3]
On the international front, the period was dominated by the further isolation of China, due to start of the Sino-Soviet split which resulted in Khrushchev withdrawing all Soviet technical experts and aid from the country. The split was triggered by border disputes, and arguments over the control and direction of world communism, and other disputes pertaining to foreign policy. Most of the problems regarding communist unity resulted from the death of Stalin and his replacement by Khrushchev. Stalin had established himself as the successor of "correct" Marxist thought well before Mao controlled the Communist Party of China, and therefore Mao never challenged the suitability of any Stalinist doctrine (at least while Stalin was alive). Upon the death of Stalin, Mao believed (perhaps because of seniority) that the leadership of the "correct" Marxist doctrine would fall to him. The resulting tension between Khrushchev (at the head of a politically/militarily superior government), and Mao (believing he had a superior understanding of Marxist ideology) eroded the previous patron-client relationship between the CPSU and CPC. In China, the formerly favourable Soviets were now denounced as "revisionists" and listed alongside "American imperialism" as movements to oppose.
Partly-surrounded by hostile American military bases (reaching from South Korea, Japan, Okinawa, and Taiwan), China was now confronted with a new Soviet threat from the north and west. Both the internal crisis and the external threat called for extraordinary statesmanship from Mao, but as China entered the new decade the statesmen of the People's Republic were in hostile confrontation with each other.
At a large Communist Party conference in Beijing in January 1962, called the "Conference of the Seven Thousand," State President Liu Shaoqi denounced the Great Leap Forward as responsible for widespread famine.[31] The overwhelming majority of delegates expressed agreement, but Defense Minister Lin Biao staunchly defended Mao.[31] A brief period of liberalization followed while Mao and Lin plotted a comeback.[31] Liu and Deng Xiaoping rescued the economy by disbanding the people's communes, introducing elements of private control of peasant smallholdings and importing grain from Canada and Australia to mitigate the worst effects of famine.
Cultural Revolution
Main article: Cultural Revolution
Liu Shaoqi and Deng Xiaoping's prominence gradually became a challenge to Mao's position of power. Liu and Deng, then the State President and General Secretary, respectively, had favoured the idea that Mao should be removed from actual power but maintain his ceremonial and symbolic role, and the party will uphold all of his positive contributions to the revolution. They attempted to marginalize Mao by taking control of economic policy and asserting themselves politically as well.
Facing the prospect of losing his place on the political stage, Mao responded to Liu and Deng's movements by launching the Cultural Revolution in 1966. Under the pretext that certain liberal "bourgeois" elements of society, labeled as class enemies, continue to threaten the socialist framework under the existing dictatorship of the proletariat, the idea that a Cultural Revolution must continue after armed struggle allowed Mao to circumvent the Communist hierarchy by giving power directly to the Red Guards, groups of young people, often teenagers, who set up their own tribunals. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao closed the schools in China and the young intellectuals living in cities were ordered to the countryside. They were forced to manufacture weapons for the Red Army. The Revolution led to the destruction of much of China's cultural heritage and the imprisonment of a huge number of Chinese citizens, as well as creating general economic and social chaos in the country. Millions of lives were ruined during this period, as the Cultural Revolution pierced into every part of Chinese life, depicted by such Chinese films as To Live, The Blue Kite and Farewell My Concubine. It is estimated that hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, perished in the violence of the Cultural Revolution.[3] When Mao was informed of such losses, particularly that people had been driven to suicide, he blithely commented that China "could do with a few less people". [32]
Mao greets United States President Richard Nixon (right) during his visit to China in 1972It was during this period that Mao chose Lin Biao, who seemed to echo all of Mao's ideas, to become his successor. Mao and Lin Biao formed an alliance leading up to the Cultural Revolution in order for the purges to succeed. Mao needed Lin's clout for his plan to work. In return, Lin was made Mao's successor. By 1971, however, because of Lin's grip over the military and Mao's own paranoia, a divide between the two men became clear, and it was unclear whether Lin was planning a military coup or an assassination attempt. Lin Biao died trying to flee China, probably anticipating his arrest, in a suspicious plane crash over Mongolia. It was declared that Lin was planning to depose Mao, and he was posthumously expelled from the CPC. At this time, Mao lost trust in many of the top CPC figures. The highest-ranking Soviet Bloc intelligence defector, Lt. Gen. Ion Mihai Pacepa described his conversation with Nicolae Ceauşescu who told him about a plot to kill Mao Zedong with the help of Lin Biao organized by KGB.[33]
In 1969, Mao declared the Cultural Revolution to be over, although the official history of the People's Republic of China marks the end of the Cultural Revolution in 1976 with Mao's death. In the last years of his life, Mao was faced with declining health due to either Parkinson's disease or, according to Li Zhisui, motor neurone disease, as well as lung ailments due to smoking and heart trouble. Mao remained passive as various factions within the Communist Party mobilized for the power struggle anticipated after his death.
Death
Mao Zedong died at the age of 82, on September 9, 1976 at 10 minutes past midnight in Beijing. He died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly known in the U.S as Lou Gehrig's Disease and elsewhere as Motor Neurone Disease. Mao had been in poor health for several years and had declined visibly for some months prior to his death. His body lay in state at the Great Hall of the People. A memorial service was held in Tiananmen Square on September 18, 1976. There was a three minute silence observed during this service. His body was later placed into the Mausoleum of Mao Zedong, although he wished to be cremated and had been one of the first high-ranking officials to sign the "Proposal that all Central Leaders be Cremated after Death" in November 1956. [34]
As anticipated after Mao’s death, there was a power struggle for control of China. On one side was the left wing led by the Gang of Four, who wanted to continue the policy of revolutionary mass mobilization. On the other side was the right wing opposing these policies. Among the latter group, the restorationists, led by Chairman Hua Guofeng, advocated a return to central planning along the Soviet model, whereas the reformers, led by Deng Xiaoping, wanted to overhaul the Chinese economy based on market-oriented policies and to de-emphasize the role of Maoist ideology in determining economic and political policy. Eventually, the reformers won control of the government. Deng Xiaoping, with clear seniority over Hua Guofeng, defeated Hua in a bloodless power struggle shortly afterwards.
Cult of Mao
Mao's figure is largely symbolic both in China and in the global communist movement as a whole. During the Cultural Revolution, Mao's already glorified image manifested into a personality cult that stretched into every part of Chinese life. Mao presented himself as an enemy of landowners, businessmen, and Western and American imperialism, as well as an ally of impoverished peasants, farmers and workers.
At the 1958 Party congress in Chengdu, Mao expressed support for the idea of personality cults if they venerated figures who were genuinely worthy of adulation:
“ There are two kinds of personality cults. One is a healthy personality cult, that is, to worship men like Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Stalin. Because they hold the truth in their hands. The other is a false personality cult, i.e. not analysed and blind worship. ”
In 1962, Mao proposed the Socialist Education Movement (SEM) in an attempt to "protect" the peasants against the temptations of feudalism and the sprouts of capitalism that he saw re-emerging in the countryside (due to Liu's economic reforms). Large quantities of politicised art were produced and circulated — with Mao at the centre. Numerous posters and musical compositions referred to Mao as "A red sun in the centre of our hearts" (我们心中的红太阳) and a "Savior of the people" (人民的大救星).
The Cult of Mao proved vital in starting the Cultural Revolution. China's youth had mostly been brought up during the Communist era, and they had been told to love Mao. Thus they were his greatest supporters. Their feelings for him were so strong that many followed his urge to challenge all established authority.
In October 1966, Mao's Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, which was known as the Little Red Book was published. Party members were encouraged to carry a copy with them and possession was almost mandatory as a criterion for membership. Over the years, Mao's image became displayed almost everywhere, present in homes, offices and shops. His quotations were typographically emphasised by putting them in boldface or red type in even the most obscure writings. Music from the period emphasized Mao's stature, as did children's rhymes. The phrase Long Live Chairman Mao for ten thousand years was commonly heard during the era, which was traditionally a phrase reserved for the reigning Emperor.
After the Cultural Revolution, there are some people who still worship Mao in family altars or even temples for Mao.[35]
Legacy
Mao's legacy has produced a large amount of controversy. Many historians and academics are critical of Mao, especially his many campaigns to suppress political enemies and gain international renown, some comparing him to Hitler and Stalin.[36]
Supporters of Mao credit him with advancing the social and economic development of Chinese society. They point out that before 1949, for instance, the illiteracy rate in Mainland China was 80 percent, and life expectancy was a meager 35 years. At his death, illiteracy had declined to less than seven percent, and average life expectancy had increased to more than 70 years (alternative statistics also quote improvements, though not nearly as dramatic). In addition to these increases, the total population of China increased 57% to 700 million, from the constant 400 million mark during the span between the Opium War and the Chinese Civil War. Supporters also state that, under Mao's government, China ended its "Century of Humiliation" from Western imperialism and regained its status as a major world power. They also state their belief that Mao also industrialized China to a considerable extent and ensured China's sovereignty during his rule. Many, including some of Mao's supporters, view the Kuomintang, which Mao drove off the mainland, as having been corrupt.
They also argue that the Maoist era improved women's rights by abolishing prostitution, a phenomenon that was to return after Deng Xiaoping and post-Maoist CPC leaders increased liberalization of the economy. Indeed, Mao once famously remarked that "Women hold up half the heavens". A popular slogan during the Cultural Revolution was, "Break the chains, unleash the fury of women as a mighty force for revolution!"
Skeptics observe that similar gains in literacy and life expectancy occurred after 1949 on the small neighboring island of Taiwan, which was ruled by Mao's opponents, namely Chiang Kai-Shek and the Kuomintang, even though they themselves perpetrated substantial repression in their own right. The government that continued to rule Taiwan was composed of the same people ruling the Mainland for over 20 years when life expectancy was so low, yet life expectancy there also increased. A counterpoint, however, is that the United States helped Taiwan with aid, along with Japan and other countries, until the early 1960s when Taiwan asked that the aid cease. The mainland was under economic sanctions from the same countries for many years. The mainland also broke with the USSR after disputes, which had been aiding it.
Another comparison has been between India and China. Noam Chomsky commented on a study by the Indian economist Amartya Sen.
He observes that India and China had "similarities that were quite striking" when development planning began 50 years ago, including death rates. "But there is little doubt that as far as morbidity, mortality and longevity are concerned, China has a large and decisive lead over India" (in education and other social indicators as well). In both cases, the outcomes have to do with the "ideological predispositions" of the political systems: for China, relatively equitable distribution of medical resources, including rural health services and public distribution of food, all lacking in India. [37]
The United States placed a trade embargo on China as a result of its involvement in the Korean War, lasting until Richard Nixon decided that developing relations with China would be useful in also dealing with the Soviet Union.
Mao's military writings continue to have a large amount of influence both among those who seek to create an insurgency and those who seek to crush one, especially in manners of guerrilla warfare, at which Mao is popularly regarded as a genius for. As an example, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) followed Mao's examples of guerrilla warfare.
One of the last publicly displayed portraits of Mao Zedong at the Tiananmen gate.The ideology of Maoism has influenced many communists around the world, including Third World revolutionary movements such as Cambodia's Khmer Rouge,[38] The Communist Party of Peru, and the revolutionary movement in Nepal. The Revolutionary Communist Party, USA also claims Marxism-Leninism-Maoism as its ideology, as do other Communist Parties around the world which are part of the Revolutionary Internationalist Movement. The Revolutionary Internationalist Socialist Party, USA (RISP-USA) claims that Marxism-Leninism-Maoism-RISP Thought (MLMRT) is a modern day extension and advance of Marxism-Leninism-Maoism. China itself has moved sharply away from Maoism since Mao's death, and most people outside of China who describe themselves as Maoist regard the Deng Xiaoping reforms to be a betrayal of Maoism, in line with Mao's view of "Capitalist roaders" within the Communist Party.
As the Chinese government instituted free market economic reforms starting in the late 1970s and as later Chinese leaders took power, less recognition was given to the status of Mao. This accompanied a decline in state recognition of Mao in later years in contrast to previous years when the state organized numerous events and seminars commemorating Mao's 100th birthday. Nevertheless, the Chinese government has never officially repudiated the tactics of Mao.
In the mid-1990s, Mao Zedong's picture began to appear on all new renminbi currency from the People’s Republic of China. This was officially instituted as an anti-counterfeiting measure as Mao's face is widely recognized in contrast to the generic figures that appear in older currency.[citation needed] On March 13, 2006, a story in the People's Daily reported that a proposal had been made to print the portraits of Sun Yat-sen and Deng Xiaoping.[39]
In 2006, the Chinese government issued a new set of high school history textbooks which omit Mao, with the exception of a single mention in a section on etiquette. Chinese students now only learn about Mao in junior high school.[40]
Mao lived in the government complex in Zhongnanhai, Beijing.
Genealogy
Mao Zedong had several wives which contributed to a large family. These were:
Luo Yixiu (罗一秀, 1889-1910) of Shaoshan: married 1907 to 1910
Yang Kaihui (杨开慧, 1901-1930) of Changsha: married 1921 to 1927, executed by the Kuomintang in 1930
He Zizhen (贺子珍, 1910-1984) of Jiangxi: married May 1928 to 1939
Jiang Qing: (江青, 1914-1991), married 1939 to Mao's death
From left to right: Mao Zetan, Mao Zemin, Wen Qimei, Mao Zedong. At Changsha, 1919. Note how Mao wears the robe of a scholar, thus displaying his advanced education, while his brothers wear the clothes of peasants.His ancestors were:
Wen Qimei (文七妹, 1867-1919), mother. She was illiterate and a devout Buddhist.
Mao Yichang (毛贻昌, 1870-1920), father, courtesy name Mao Shunsheng (毛顺生) or also known as Mao Jen-sheng
Mao Enpu (毛恩普), paternal grandfather
He had several siblings:
Mao Zemin (毛泽民, 1895-1943), younger brother
Mao Zetan (毛泽覃, 1905-1935), younger brother
Mao Zehong, sister (executed by the Kuomintang in 1930)
Mao Zedong's parents altogether had six sons and two daughters. Two of the sons and both daughters died young, leaving the three brothers Mao Zedong, Mao Zemin, and Mao Zetan. Like all three of Mao Zedong's wives, Mao Zemin and Mao Zetan were communists. Like Yang Kaihui, both Zemin and Zetan were killed in warfare during Mao Zedong's lifetime.
Note that the character ze (泽) appears in all of the siblings' given names. This is a common Chinese naming convention.
From the next generation, Zemin's son, Mao Yuanxin, was raised by Mao Zedong's family. He became Mao Zedong's liaison with the Politburo in 1975. Sources like Li Zhisui (The Private Life of Chairman Mao) say that he played a role in the final power-struggles.[41]
Mao Zedong had several children:
Mao Anying (毛岸英): son to Yang, married to Liu Siqi (刘思齐), who was born Liu Songlin (刘松林), killed in action during the Korean War
Mao Anqing (1923-2007): son to Yang, married to Shao Hua (邵华), son Mao Xinyu (毛新宇), grandson Mao Dongdong (last surviving known male line of Mao).
Li Min (李敏): daughter to He, married to Kong Linghua (孔令华), son Kong Ji'ning (孔继宁), daughter Kong Dongmei (孔冬梅)
Li Ne (Chinese:李讷; Pinyin: Lĭ Nè): daughter to Jiang (whose birth given name was Li), married to Wang Jingqing (王景清), son Wang Xiaozhi (王效芝)
Sources suggest that Mao did have other children during his revolutionary days; in most of these cases the children were left with peasant families because it was difficult to take care of the children while focusing on revolution. Two English researchers who retraced the entire Long March route in 2002-2003 Stepping into history (HTML) (English). China Daily (2003-11-23). Retrieved on 2007-07-31. located a woman who they believe might well be a missing child abandoned by Mao to peasants in 1935.[citation needed] Ed Jocelyn and Andrew McEwen hope a member of the Mao family will respond to requests for a DNA test.[citation needed]
Writings
Mao was a prolific writer of political and philosophical literature.[42] Mao is the attributed author of Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-Tung, known in the West as the "Little Red Book" and in Cultural-revolution China as the "Red Treasure Book" (紅宝书): this is a collection of short extracts from his speeches and articles, edited by Lin Biao and ordered topically. Mao wrote several other philosophical treatises, both before and after he assumed power. These include:
On Practice (《实践论》); 1937
On Contradiction (《矛盾论》); 1937
On Protracted War (《论持久战》); 1938
In Memory of Norman Bethune (《纪念白求恩》); 1939
On New Democracy (《新民主主义论》); 1940
Talks at the Yan'an Forum on Literature and Art (《在延安文艺座谈会上的讲话》); 1942
Serve the People (《为人民服务》); 1944
On the Correct Handling of the Contradictions Among the People (《正确处理人民内部矛盾问题》); 1957
The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains (《愚公移山》); 1957
Mao was also a skilled calligrapher with a highly personal style. In China, Mao was considered a master calligrapher during his lifetime.[43] His calligraphy can be seen today throughout mainland China.[44]
Literary Figure
Politics aside, Mao is considered one of modern China's most influential literary figures, and was an avid poet, mainly in the classical ci and shi forms. His poems are all in the traditional Chinese verse style. Mao was also an ardent calligrapher, giving rise to a new form of Chinese calligraphy called "Mao-style" or Maoti, which had gained increasing popularity since his death. There currently exists various competitions specializing in Mao-style calligraphy.[45]
As did most Chinese intellectuals of his generation, Mao received rigorous education in Chinese classical literature. His style was deeply influenced by the great Tang Dynasty poets Li Bai and Li He. He is considered to be a romantic poet, in contrast to the realist poets represented by Du Fu.
Many of Mao's poems are still popular in China and a few are taught as a mandatory part of the elementary school curriculum. Some of his most well-known poems are: Changsha (1925), The Double Ninth (1929.10), Loushan Pass (1935), The Long March (1935), Snow (1936.02), The PLA Captures Nanjing (1949.04), Reply to Li Shuyi (1957.05.11), and Ode to the Plum Blossom (1961.12).
and of course: hitlerAdolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was Chancellor of Germany in 1933, and Führer from 1934 to 1945. He led the National Socialist German Workers Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, the Nazi Party).
He gained power during Germany's period of crisis after World War I. He used propaganda and charismatic oratory, emphasizing nationalism, anti-Semitism, and anti-Communism. After restructuring the economy and rearming the military, he established a totalitarian dictatorship. He pursued an aggressive foreign policy to expand German Lebensraum (living space), and triggered World War II by invading Poland, much of which was also annexed to form the Großdeutsches Reich ("Greater German Reich").
Though Nazi Germany and the Axis Powers occupied most of Europe and parts of Asia at their zenith, they were eventually defeated by the Allies. By the end of the war, Hitler's policies of territorial conquest and racial subjugation had brought death and destruction to tens of millions of people, including the genocide of some six million Jews in what is now known as the Holocaust.
In the final days of the war, Hitler and his new wife, Eva Braun, committed suicide in his underground bunker in Berlin, as the city was overrun by the Red Army of the Soviet Union.
Contents [hide]
1 Early years
1.1 Childhood and heritage
1.2 Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich
1.3 World War I
2 Entry into politics
2.1 Beer Hall Putsch
2.2 Mein Kampf
2.3 Rebuilding of the party
3 Rise to power
3.1 Brüning Administration
3.2 Cabinets of Papen and Schleicher
3.3 Appointment as Chancellor
3.4 Reichstag fire and the March elections
3.5 "Day of Potsdam" and the Enabling Act
3.6 Removal of remaining limits
4 Third Reich
4.1 Economy and culture
4.2 Rearmament and new alliances
4.3 The Holocaust
5 World War II
5.1 Opening moves
5.2 Path to defeat
5.3 Defeat and death
6 Legacy
7 Religious beliefs
8 Health and sexuality
8.1 Health
8.2 Sexuality
9 Family
10 Hitler in various media
10.1 Movie clip
10.2 Oratory and rallies
10.3 Recorded in private conversation
10.4 Documentaries during the Third Reich
10.5 Television
10.6 Documentaries post Third Reich
10.7 Dramatizations
11 See also
12 References
13 Further reading
14 External links
Early years
Childhood and heritage
Adolf Hitler as an infant.Adolf Hitler was born in Braunau am Inn, Austria, the fourth child of six.[1] His father, Alois Hitler, (1837–1903), was a customs official. His mother, Klara Pölzl, (1860–1907), was Alois' third wife. She was also his cousin, so a papal dispensation had to be obtained for the marriage. Of Alois and Klara's six children, only Adolf and his sister Paula reached adulthood.[2] Hitler's father also had a son, Alois Jr, and a daughter, Angela, by his second wife.[2]
Alois Hitler was born illegitimate. For the first 39 years of his life he bore his mother's surname, Schicklgruber. In 1876, he took the surname of his stepfather, Johann Georg Hiedler. The name was spelled Hiedler, Huetler, Huettler and Hitler and probably changed to "Hitler" by a clerk. The origin of the name is either from the German word Hittler and similar, "one who lives in a hut", "shepherd", or from the Slavic word Hidlar and Hidlarcek.
Allied propaganda exploited Hitler's original family name during World War II. Pamphlets bearing the phrase "Heil Schicklgruber" were airdropped over German cities. But he was legally born a Hitler and was also related to Hiedler via his maternal grandmother, Johanna Hiedler.
The name "Adolf" comes from Old High German for "noble wolf" (Adel=nobility + wolf).[3] Hence, one of Hitler's self-given nicknames was Wolf or Herr Wolf—he began using this nickname in the early 1920s and was addressed by it only by intimates (as "Uncle Wolf" by the Wagners) up until the fall of the Third Reich.[4] The names of his various headquarters scattered throughout continental Europe (Wolfsschanze in East Prussia, Wolfsschlucht in France, Werwolf in Ukraine, etc.) reflect this. By his closest family and relatives, Hitler was known as "Adi".
As a boy, Hitler said he was often whipped by his father. Years later he told his secretary, "I then resolved never again to cry when my father whipped me. A few days later I had the opportunity of putting my will to the test. My mother, frightened, took refuge in the front of the door. As for me, I counted silently the blows of the stick which lashed my rear end."[5]
Hitler's paternal grandfather was most likely one of the brothers Johann Georg Hiedler or Johann Nepomuk Hiedler. There were rumours that Hitler was one-quarter Jewish and that his grandmother, Maria Schicklgruber, became pregnant while working as a servant in a Jewish household. The implications of these rumours were politically explosive for the proponent of a racist ideology. Opponents tried to prove that Hitler had Jewish or Czech ancestors. Although these rumours were never confirmed, for Hitler they were reason enough to conceal his origins. According to Robert G. L. Waite in The Psychopathic God: Adolf Hitler, Hitler made it illegal for German women to work in Jewish households, and after the "Anschluss" (annexation) of Austria, Hitler turned his father's hometown into an artillery practice area. Waite says that Hitler's insecurities in this regard may have been more important than whether Judaic ancestry could have been proven by his peers.
Hitler's family moved often, from Braunau am Inn to Passau, Lambach, Leonding, and Linz. The young Hitler was a good student in elementary school. But in the sixth grade, his first year of high school (Realschule) in Linz, he failed and had to repeat the grade. His teachers said that he had "no desire to work." One of Hitler's classmates in the Realschule was Ludwig Wittgenstein, one of the great philosophers of the 20th century. A book by Kimberley Cornish suggests that conflict between Hitler and some Jewish students, including Wittgenstein, was a critical moment in Hitler's formation as an anti-Semite.[6]
Wittgenstein and Hitler in school in a photograph taken at the Linz Realschule in 1903.Hitler claimed his educational slump was a rebellion against his father, who wanted the boy to follow him in a career as a customs official; Hitler wanted to become a painter instead. This explanation is further supported by Hitler's later description of himself as a misunderstood artist. However, after Alois died on January 3, 1903, Hitler's schoolwork did not improve. At age 16, Hitler dropped out of high school without a degree.
Early adulthood in Vienna and Munich
From 1905 on, Hitler lived a bohemian life in Vienna on an orphan's pension and support from his mother. He was rejected twice by the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna (1907–1908), citing "unfitness for painting," and was told his abilities lay instead in the field of architecture.[7] His memoirs reflect a fascination with the subject:
“ The purpose of my trip was to study the picture gallery in the Court Museum, but I had eyes for scarcely anything but the Museum itself. From morning until late at night, I ran from one object of interest to another, but it was always the buildings which held my primary interest."[8] ”
Following the school rector's recommendation, he too became convinced this was the path to pursue, yet he lacked the proper academic preparation for architecture school:
“ In a few days I myself knew that I should some day become an architect. To be sure, it was an incredibly hard road; for the studies I had neglected out of spite at the Realschule were sorely needed. One could not attend the Academy's architectural school without having attended the building school at the Technic, and the latter required a high-school degree. I had none of all this. The fulfillment of my artistic dream seemed physically impossible.[9] ”
On December 21, 1907, Hitler's mother died of breast cancer at age 47. Ordered by a court in Linz, Hitler gave his share of the orphans' benefits to his sister Paula. When he was 21, he inherited money from an aunt. He struggled as a painter in Vienna, copying scenes from postcards and selling his paintings to merchants and tourists.
After being refused a second time from the Academy of Arts, Hitler ran out of money. In 1909, he sought refuge in a homeless shelter. By 1910, he had settled into a house for poor working men.
Hitler says he first became an anti-Semite in Vienna, which had a large Jewish community, including Orthodox Jews who had fled from pogroms in Russia. But according to a childhood friend, August Kubizek, Hitler was a "confirmed anti-Semite" before he left Linz, Austria. Vienna at that time was a hotbed of traditional religious prejudice and 19th century racism. Hitler may have been influenced by the writings of the ideologist and anti-Semite Lanz von Liebenfels and polemics from politicians such as Karl Lueger, founder of the Christian Social Party and mayor of Vienna, the composer Richard Wagner, and Georg Ritter von Schönerer, leader of the pan-Germanic Away from Rome! movement. Hitler claims in Mein Kampf that his transition from opposing anti-Semitism on religious grounds to supporting it on racial grounds came from having seen an Orthodox Jew, but actually it seems Hitler was not very anti-Semitic in these years. He often was a guest for dinner in a noble Jewish house, and Jewish merchants tried to sell his paintings.[10]
Hitler may also have been influenced by Martin Luther's On the Jews and their Lies. Kristallnacht took place on November 10—Luther's birthday.
“ There were very few Jews in Linz. In the course of centuries the Jews who lived there had become Europeanized in external appearance and were so much like other human beings that I even looked upon them as Germans. The reason why I did not then perceive the absurdity of such an illusion was that the only external mark which I recognized as distinguishing them from us was the practice of their strange religion. As I thought that they were persecuted on account of their faith my aversion to hearing remarks against them grew almost into a feeling of abhorrence. I did not in the least suspect that there could be such a thing as a systematic anti-Semitism.
Once, when passing through the inner City, I suddenly encountered a phenomenon in a long caftan and wearing black side-locks. My first thought was: Is this a Jew? They certainly did not have this appearance in Linz. I carefully watched the man stealthily and cautiously but the longer I gazed at the strange countenance and examined it feature by feature, the more the question shaped itself in my brain: Is this a German?[11]
”
In Mein Kampf, Hitler refers to Martin Luther as a great warrior, a true statesmen, and a great reformer, alongside Wagner and Frederick the Great.[12] Wilhelm Röpke, writing after the Holocaust, concluded that "without any question, Lutheranism influenced the political, spiritual and social history of Germany in a way that, after careful consideration of everything, can be described only as fateful."[13]
Hitler claimed that Jews were enemies of the Aryan race. He held them responsible for Austria's crisis. He also identified certain forms of Socialism and Bolshevism, which had many Jewish leaders, as Jewish movements, merging his anti-Semitism with anti-Marxism. Blaming Germany's military defeat on the 1918 Revolutions, he considered Jews the culprit of Imperial Germany's downfall and subsequent economic problems as well.
Generalising from tumultuous scenes in the parliament of the multi-national Austria monarchy, he decided that the democratic parliamentary system was unworkable. However, according to August Kubizek, his one-time roommate, he was more interested in Wagner's operas than in his politics.
Hitler received the final part of his father's estate in May 1913 and moved to Munich. He wrote in Mein Kampf that he had always longed to live in a "real" German city. In Munich, he became more interested in architecture and, he says, the writings of Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Moving to Munich also helped him escape military service in Austria for a time, but the Austrian army arrested him finally. After a physical exam (during which his height was measured at 173 cm, or 5 ft 8 in) and a contrite plea, he was deemed unfit for service and allowed to return to Munich. However, when Germany entered World War I in August 1914, he petitioned King Ludwig III of Bavaria for permission to serve in a Bavarian regiment. This request was granted, and Adolf Hitler enlisted in the Bavarian army.[14]
World War I
A young Hitler (left) posed with other German soldiersHitler served in France and Belgium as a runner for the 16th Bavarian Reserve Regiment (called Regiment List after its first commander), which exposed him to enemy fire.[15] He drew cartoons and instructional drawings for the army newspaper.
Hitler was twice decorated for bravery. He received the Iron Cross, Second Class, in 1914 and the Iron Cross, First Class, in 1918, an honour rarely given to a Gefreiter.[16] However, because the regimental staff thought Hitler lacked leadership skills, he was never promoted to Unteroffizier. Other historians say that the reason he was not promoted is that he was not a German citizen. His duties at regimental headquarters, while often dangerous, gave Hitler time to pursue his artwork. In 1916, Hitler was wounded in the leg but returned to the front in March 1917. He received the Wound Badge later that year. Sebastian Haffner, referring to Hitler's experience at the front, suggests he did have at least some understanding of the military.
On October 15, 1918, Hitler was admitted to a field hospital, temporarily blinded by a mustard gas attack. The English psychologist David Lewis[17] and Bernhard Horstmann indicate the blindness may have been the result of a conversion disorder (then known as hysteria). Hitler said it was during this experience that he became convinced the purpose of his life was to "save Germany". Some scholars, notably Lucy Dawidowicz,[18] argue that an intention to exterminate Europe's Jews was fully formed in Hitler's mind at this time, though he probably had not thought through how it could be done. Most historians think the decision was made in 1940 or 1941, and some think it came as late as 1942.
Two passages in Mein Kampf mention the use of poison gas:
“ At the beginning of the Great War, or even during the War, if twelve or fifteen thousand of these Jews who were corrupting the nation had been forced to submit to poison-gas…then the millions of sacrifices made at the front would not have been in vain.[19] ”
“ These tactics are based on an accurate estimation of human weakness and must lead to success, with almost mathematical certainty, unless the other side also learns how to fight poison gas with poison gas. The weaker natures must be told that here it is a case of to be or not to be.[20] ”
Hitler had long admired Germany, and during the war he had become a passionate German patriot, although he did not become a German citizen until 1932. He was shocked by Germany's capitulation in November 1918 even while the German army still held enemy territory.[21] Like many other German nationalists, Hitler believed in the Dolchstoßlegende ("dagger-stab legend") which claimed that the army, "undefeated in the field", had been "stabbed in the back" by civilian leaders and Marxists back on the home front. These politicians were later dubbed the November Criminals.
The Treaty of Versailles deprived Germany of various territories, demilitarized the Rhineland and imposed other economically damaging sanctions. The treaty re-created Poland, which even moderate Germans regarded as an outrage. The treaty also blamed Germany for all the horrors of the war, something which major historians like John Keegan now consider at least in part to be victor's justice: most European nations in the run-up to World War I had become increasingly militarised and were eager to fight. The culpability of Germany was used as a basis to impose reparations on Germany (the amount was repeatedly revised under the Dawes Plan, the Young Plan, and the Hoover Moratorium). Germany in turn perceived the treaty and especially the paragraph on the German guilt as a humiliation. For example, there was a nearly total demilitarisation of the armed forces, allowing Germany only six battleships, no submarines, no air force, an army of 100,000 without conscription and no armoured vehicles. The treaty was an important factor in both the social and political conditions encountered by Hitler and his Nazis as they sought power. Hitler and his party used the signing of the treaty by the "November Criminals" as a reason to build up Germany so that it could never happen again. He also used the "November Criminals" as scapegoats, although at the Paris peace conference, these politicians had had very little choice in the matter.
Entry into politics
Main article: Hitler's political beliefs
A copy of Adolf Hitler's forged DAP membership card. His actual membership number was 555 (the 55th member of the party - the 500 was added to make the group appear larger) but later the number was reduced to create the impression that Hitler was one of the founding members (Ian Kershaw Hubris). Hitler had wanted to create his own party, but was ordered by his superiors in the Reichswehr to infiltrate an existing one instead.After World War I, Hitler remained in the army and returned to Munich, where he - in contrast to his later declarations - participated in the funeral march for the murdered Bavarian prime minister Kurt Eisner.[22] After the suppression of the Bavarian Soviet Republic, he took part in "national thinking" courses organized by the Education and Propaganda Department (Dept Ib/P) of the Bavarian Reichswehr Group, Headquarters 4 under Captain Karl Mayr. Scapegoats were found in "international Jewry", communists, and politicians across the party spectrum, especially the parties of the Weimar Coalition.
In July 1919, Hitler was appointed a Verbindungsmann (police spy) of an Aufklärungskommando (Intelligence Commando) of the Reichswehr, both to influence other soldiers and to infiltrate a small party, the German Workers' Party (DAP). During his inspection of the party, Hitler was impressed with founder Anton Drexler's anti-Semitic, nationalist, anti-capitalist and anti-Marxist ideas, which favoured a strong active government, a "non-Jewish" version of socialism and mutual solidarity of all members of society.
Here Hitler also met Dietrich Eckart, one of the early founders of the party and member of the occult Thule Society.[23] Eckart became Hitler's mentor, exchanging ideas with him, teaching him how to dress and speak, and introducing him to a wide range of people. Hitler thanked Eckart by paying tribute to him in the second volume of Mein Kampf.
Hitler was discharged from the army in March 1920 and with his former superiors' continued encouragement began participating full time in the party's activities. By early 1921, Hitler was becoming highly effective at speaking in front of large crowds. In February, Hitler spoke before a crowd of nearly six thousand in Munich. To publicize the meeting, he sent out two truckloads of party supporters to drive around with swastikas, cause a commotion and throw out leaflets, their first use of this tactic. Hitler gained notoriety outside of the party for his rowdy, polemic speeches against the Treaty of Versailles, rival politicians (including monarchists, nationalists and other non-internationalist socialists) and especially against Marxists and Jews.
The DAP was centered in Munich, a hotbed of German nationalists who included Army officers determined to crush Marxism and undermine the Weimar republic. Gradually they noticed Hitler and his growing movement as a vehicle to hitch themselves to. Hitler traveled to Berlin to visit nationalist groups during the summer of 1921, and in his absence there was a revolt among the DAP leadership in Munich.
The party was run by an executive committee whose original members considered Hitler to be overbearing. They formed an alliance with a group of socialists from Augsburg. Hitler rushed back to Munich and countered them by tendering his resignation from the party on July 11, 1921. When they realized the loss of Hitler would effectively mean the end of the party, he seized the moment and announced he would return on the condition that he would be given dictatorial powers. Infuriated committee members (including Drexler) held out at first. Meanwhile an anonymous pamphlet appeared entitled Adolf Hitler: Is he a traitor?, attacking Hitler's lust for power and criticizing the violent men around him. Hitler responded to its publication in a Munich newspaper by suing for libel and later won a small settlement.
The executive committee of the DAP eventually backed down and Hitler's demands were put to a vote of party members. Hitler received 543 votes for and only one against. At the next gathering on 29 July 1921, Adolf Hitler was introduced as Führer of the National Socialist Party, marking the first time this title was publicly used. Hitler changed the name of the party to the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei or National Socialist German Workers Party.
Hitler's beer hall oratory, attacking Jews, social democrats, liberals, reactionary monarchists, capitalists and communists, began attracting adherents. Early followers included Rudolf Hess, the former air force pilot Hermann Göring, and the army captain Ernst Röhm, who became head of the Nazis' paramilitary organization, the SA (Sturmabteilung, or "Storm Division"), which protected meetings and attacked political opponents. Hitler also assimilated independent groups, such as the Nuremberg-based Deutsche Werkgemeinschaft, led by Julius Streicher, who became Gauleiter of Franconia. Hitler also attracted the attention of local business interests, was accepted into influential circles of Munich society, and became associated with wartime General Erich Ludendorff during this time.
Beer Hall Putsch
Main article: Beer Hall Putsch
Encouraged by this early support, Hitler decided to use Ludendorff as a front in an attempted coup later known as the Beer Hall Putsch (sometimes as the Hitler Putsch or Munich Putsch). The Nazi Party had copied Italy's fascists in appearance and also had adopted some programmatical points, and in 1923, Hitler wanted to emulate Mussolini's "March on Rome" by staging his own "Campaign in Berlin". Hitler and Ludendorff obtained the clandestine support of Gustav von Kahr, Bavaria's de facto ruler, along with leading figures in the Reichswehr and the police. As political posters show, Ludendorff, Hitler and the heads of the Bavarian police and military planned on forming a new government.
On November 8, 1923, Hitler and the SA stormed a public meeting headed by Kahr in the Bürgerbräukeller, a large beer hall outside of Munich. He declared that he had set up a new government with Ludendorff and demanded, at gunpoint, the support of Kahr and the local military establishment for the destruction of the Berlin government.[24] Kahr withdrew his support and fled to join the opposition to Hitler at the first opportunity.[25] The next day, when Hitler and his followers marched from the beer hall to the Bavarian War Ministry to overthrow the Bavarian government as a start to their "March on Berlin", the police dispersed them. Sixteen NSDAP members were killed.[26]
Hitler fled to the home of Ernst Hanfstaengl and contemplated suicide. He was soon arrested for high treason. Alfred Rosenberg became temporary leader of the party. During Hitler's trial, he was given almost unlimited time to speak, and his popularity soared as he voiced nationalistic sentiments. A Munich personality became a nationally known figure. On April 1, 1924, Hitler was sentenced to five years' imprisonment at Landsberg Prison. Hitler received favoured treatment from the guards and had much fan mail from admirers.[27] He was pardoned and released from jail in December 1924, as part of a general amnesty for political prisoners. He served nine months of his sentence, or just over a year if time on remand is included.[27]
Mein Kampf
Main article: Mein Kampf
While at Landsberg he dictated Mein Kampf (My Struggle, originally entitled "Four Years of Struggle against Lies, Stupidity, and Cowardice") to his deputy Rudolf Hess.[27] The book, dedicated to Thule Society member Dietrich Eckart, was an autobiography and an exposition of his ideology. It was published in two volumes in 1925 and 1926, selling about 240,000 copies between 1925 and 1934. By the end of the war, about 10 million copies had been sold or distributed (newly-weds and soldiers received free copies).
Hitler spent years dodging taxes on the royalties of his book and had accumulated a tax debt of about 405,500 Reichsmarks (€6 million in today's money) by the time he became chancellor (at which time his debt was waived).[28][29]
The copyright of Mein Kampf in Europe is claimed by the Free State of Bavaria and scheduled to end on December 31, 2015. Reproductions in Germany are authorized only for scholarly purposes and in heavily commented form. The situation is however unclear. Historian Werner Maser, in an interview with Bild am Sonntag has stated that Peter Raubal, son of Hitler's nephew, Leo Raubal, would have a strong legal case for winning the copyright from Bavaria if he pursued it. Raubal has stated he wants no part of the rights to the book, which could be worth millions of euros.[30] The uncertain status has led to contested trials in Poland and Sweden. Mein Kampf, however, is published in the U.S., as well as in other countries such as Turkey and Israel, by publishers with various political positions.
Rebuilding of the party
At the time of Hitler's release, the political situation in Germany had calmed and the economy had improved, which hampered Hitler's opportunities for agitation. Though the Hitler Putsch had given Hitler some national prominence, his party's mainstay was still Munich.
Since Hitler was still banned from public speeches, he appointed Gregor Strasser, who in 1924 had been elected to the Reichstag, as Reichsorganisationsleiter, authorizing him to organize the party in northern Germany. Strasser, joined by his younger brother Otto and Joseph Goebbels, steered an increasingly independent course, emphasizing the socialist element in the party's programme. The Arbeitsgemeinschaft der Gauleiter Nord-West became an internal opposition, threatening Hitler's authority, but this faction was defeated at the Bamberg Conference in 1926, during which Goebbels joined Hitler.
After this encounter, Hitler centralized the party even more and asserted the Führerprinzip ("Leader principle") as the basic principle of party organization. Leaders were not elected by their group but were rather appointed by their superior and were answerable to them while demanding unquestioning obedience from their inferiors. Consistent with Hitler's disdain for democracy, all power and authority devolved from the top down.
A key element of Hitler's appeal was his ability to evoke a sense of offended national pride caused by the Treaty of Versailles imposed on the defeated German Empire by the Western Allies. Germany had lost economically important territory in Europe along with its colonies and in admitting to sole responsibility for the war had agreed to pay a huge reparations bill totaling 132 billion marks. Most Germans bitterly resented these terms, but early Nazi attempts to gain support by blaming these humiliations on "international Jewry" were not particularly successful with the electorate. The party learned quickly, and soon a more subtle propaganda emerged, combining anti-Semitism with an attack on the failures of the "Weimar system" and the parties supporting it.
Adolf Hitler, behind Hermann Göring, at a Nazi rally in Nuremberg in 1928.Having failed in overthrowing the Republic by a coup, Hitler pursued the "strategy of legality": this meant formally adhering to the rules of the Weimar Republic until he had legally gained power and then transforming liberal democracy into a Nazi dictatorship. Some party members, especially in the paramilitary SA, opposed this strategy; Röhm ridiculed Hitler as "Adolphe Legalité".
Rise to power
Main article: Hitler's rise to power
Nazi Party Election Results
Date Votes Percentage Seats in Reichstag Background
May 1924 1,918,300 6.5 32 Hitler in prison
December 1924 907,300 3.0 14 Hitler is released from prison
May 1928 810,100 2.6 12
September 1930 6,409,600 18.3 107 After the financial crisis
July 1932 13,745,800 37.4 230 After Hitler was candidate for presidency
November 1932 11,737,000 33.1 196
March 1933 17,277,000 43.9 288 During Hitler's term as Chancellor of Germany
Brüning Administration
The political turning point for Hitler came when the Great Depression hit Germany in 1930. The Weimar Republic had never been firmly rooted and was openly opposed by right-wing conservatives (including monarchists), Communists and the Nazis. As the parties loyal to the democratic, parliamentary republic found themselves unable to agree on counter-measures, their Grand Coalition broke up and was replaced by a minority cabinet. The new Chancellor, Heinrich Brüning of the Roman Catholic Centre Party, lacking a majority in parliament, had to implement his measures through the president's emergency decrees. Tolerated by the majority of parties, the exception soon became the rule and paved the way for authoritarian forms of government.
The Reichstag's initial opposition to Brüning's measures led to premature elections in September 1930. The republican parties lost their majority and their ability to resume the Grand Coalition, while the Nazis suddenly rose from relative obscurity to win 18.3% of the vote along with 107 seats in the Reichstag, becoming the second largest party in Germany.
Brüning's measure of budget consolidation and financial austerity brought little economic improvement and was extremely unpopular. Under these circumstances, Hitler appealed to the bulk of German farmers, war veterans and the middle class, who had been hard-hit by both the inflation of the 1920s and the unemployment of the Depression. Hitler received little response from the urban working classes and traditionally Catholic regions.
Hitler's niece Geli Raubal was found dead in her bedroom in his Munich apartment (his half-sister Angela and her daughter Geli had been with him in Munich since 1929), an apparent suicide. Geli, who was believed to be in some sort of romantic relationship with Hitler, was 19 years younger than he was and had used his gun. His niece's death is viewed as a source of deep, lasting pain for him.[31]
In 1932, Hitler intended to run against the aging President Paul von Hindenburg in the scheduled presidential elections. Though Hitler had left Austria in 1913, he still had not acquired German citizenship and hence could not run for public office. In February, however, the state government of Brunswick, in which the Nazi Party participated, appointed Hitler to some minor administrative post and also gave him citizenship on February 25, 1932.[32] The new German citizen ran against Hindenburg, who was supported by a broad range of reactionary nationalist, monarchist, Catholic, republican and even social democratic parties, and against the Communist presidential candidate. His campaign was called "Hitler über Deutschland" (Hitler over Germany).[33] The name had a double meaning; besides an obvious reference to Hitler's dictatorial intentions, it also referred to the fact that Hitler was campaigning by aircraft.[33] This was a brand new political tactic that allowed Hitler to speak in two cities in one day, which was practically unheard of at the time. Hitler came in second on both rounds, attaining more than 35% of the vote during the second one in April. Although he lost to Hindenburg, the election established Hitler as a realistic alternative in German politics.
Cabinets of Papen and Schleicher
Hindenburg, influenced by the Camarilla, became increasingly estranged from Brüning and pushed his Chancellor to move the government in a decidedly authoritarian and right-wing direction. This culminated, in May 1932, with the resignation of the Brüning cabinet.
Hindenburg appointed the nobleman Franz von Papen as chancellor, heading a "Cabinet of Barons". Papen was bent on authoritarian rule and, since in the Reichstag only the conservative DNVP supported his administration, he immediately called for new elections in July. In these elections, the Nazis achieved their biggest success yet and won 230 seats.
The Nazis had become the largest party in the Reichstag without which no stable government could be formed. Papen tried to convince Hitler to become Vice-Chancellor and enter a new government with a parliamentary basis. Hitler, however, rejected this offer and put further pressure on Papen by entertaining parallel negotiations with the Centre Party, Papen's former party, which was bent on bringing down the renegade Papen. In both negotiations, Hitler demanded that he, as leader of the strongest party, must be Chancellor, but Hindenburg consistently refused to appoint the "Bohemian private" to the Chancellorship.
After a vote of no-confidence in the Papen government, supported by 84% of the deputies, the new Reichstag was dissolved, and new elections were called in November. This time, the Nazis lost some seats but still remained the largest party in the Reichstag.
After Papen failed to secure a majority, he proposed to dissolve the parliament again along with an indefinite postponement of elections. Hindenburg at first accepted this, but after General Kurt von Schleicher and the military withdrew their support, Hindenburg instead dismissed Papen and appointed Schleicher, who promised he could secure a majority government by negotiations with both the Social Democrats, the trade unions, and dissidents from the Nazi Party under Gregor Strasser. In January 1933, however, Schleicher had to admit failure in these efforts and asked Hindenburg for emergency powers along with the same postponement of elections that he had opposed earlier, to which the president reacted by dismissing Schleicher.
Appointment as Chancellor
Meanwhile, Papen tried to get his revenge on Schleicher by working toward the General's downfall, through forming an intrigue with the camarilla and Alfred Hugenberg, media mogul and chairman of the DNVP. Also involved were Hjalmar Schacht, Fritz Thyssen and other leading German businessmen. They financially supported the Nazi Party, which had been brought to the brink of bankruptcy by the cost of heavy campaigning. The businessmen also wrote letters to Hindenburg, urging him to appoint Hitler as leader of a government "independent from parliamentary parties" which could turn into a movement that would "enrapture millions of people."[34]
Finally, the president reluctantly agreed to appoint Hitler Chancellor of a coalition government formed by the NSDAP and DNVP. Hitler and two other Nazi ministers (Frick, Göring) were to be contained by a framework of conservative cabinet ministers, most notably by Papen as Vice-Chancellor and by Hugenberg as Minister of the Economy. Papen wanted to use Hitler as a figure-head, but the Nazis had gained key positions, most notably the Ministry of the Interior. On the morning of 30 January 1933, in Hindenburg's office, Adolf Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor during what some observers later described as a brief and simple ceremony. The Nazis' seizure of power subsequently became known as the Machtergreifung. Hitler established the Reichssicherheitsdienst as his personal bodyguards.
Reichstag fire and the March elections
Having become Chancellor, Hitler foiled all attempts to gain a majority in parliament and on that basis persuaded President Hindenburg to dissolve the Reichstag again. Elections were scheduled for early March, but on 27 February 1933, the Reichstag building was set on fire.[35] Since a Dutch independent communist was found in the building, the fire was blamed on a Communist plot to which the government reacted with the Reichstag Fire Decree of 28 February which suspended basic rights, including habeas corpus. Under the provisions of this decree, the German Communist Party and other groups were suppressed, and communist functionaries and deputies were arrested, put to flight, or murdered.
Campaigning continued, with the Nazis making use of paramilitary violence, anti-Communist hysteria, and the government's resources for propaganda. On election day, 6 March, the NSDAP increased its result to 43.9% of the vote, remaining the largest party, but its victory was marred by its failure to secure an absolute majority, necessitating maintaining a coalition with the DNVP.[36]
Parade of SA troops past Hitler. Nuremberg, November 1935.
"Day of Potsdam" and the Enabling Act
On 21 March the new Reichstag was constituted with an opening ceremony held at Potsdam's garrison church. This "Day of Potsdam" was staged to demonstrate reconciliation and union between the revolutionary Nazi movement and "Old Prussia" with its elites and virtues. Hitler appeared in a tail coat and humbly greeted the aged President Hindenburg.
Because of the Nazis' failure to obtain a majority on their own, Hitler's government confronted the newly elected Reichstag with the Enabling Act that would have vested the cabinet with legislative powers for a period of four years. Though such a bill was not unprecedented, this act was different since it allowed for deviations from the constitution. Since the bill required a two-thirds majority in order to pass, the government needed the support of other parties. The position of the Catholic Centre Party, the third largest party in the Reichstag, turned out to be decisive: under the leadership of Ludwig Kaas, the party decided to vote for the Enabling Act. It did so in return for the government's oral guarantees regarding the Church's liberty, the concordats signed by German states and the continued existence of the Centre Party.
On 23 March the Reichstag assembled in a replacement building under extremely turbulent circumstances. Some SA men served as guards within while large groups outside the building shouted slogans and threats toward the arriving deputies. Kaas announced that the Centre would support the bill amid "concerns put aside.", while Social Democrat Otto Wels denounced the act in his speech. At the end of the day, all parties except the Social Democrats voted in favour of the bill. The Enabling Act was dutifully renewed by the Reichstag every four years, even through World War II.
Removal of remaining limits
With this combination of legislative and executive power, Hitler's government further suppressed the remaining political opposition. The KPD and the SPD were banned, while all other political parties dissolved themselves. Labour unions were merged with employers' federations into an organisation under Nazi control, and the autonomy of German state governments was abolished.
Hitler also used the SA paramilitary to push Hugenberg into resigning and proceeded to politically isolate Vice Chancellor Papen. Because the SA's demands for political and military power caused much anxiety among military leaders, Hitler used allegations of a plot by the SA leader Ernst Röhm to purge the SA's leadership during the Night of the Long Knives. Opponents unconnected with the SA were also murdered, notably Gregor Strasser and former Chancellor Kurt von Schleicher.[37]
President Paul von Hindenburg died on 2 August 1934. Rather than holding new presidential elections, Hitler's cabinet passed a law proclaiming the presidency dormant and transferred the role and powers of the head of state to Hitler as Führer und Reichskanzler (leader and chancellor).[38] Thereby Hitler also became supreme commander of the military, whose officers then swore an oath not to the state or the constitution but to Hitler personally.[38] In a mid-August plebiscite, these acts found the approval of 84.6%[39] of the electorate. Combining the highest offices in state, military and party in his hand, Hitler had attained supreme rule that could no longer be legally challenged.
Third Reich
Main article: Nazi Germany
Having secured supreme political power, Hitler went on to gain their support by convincing most Germans he was their saviour from the economic Depression, communism, the "Judeo-Bolsheviks," and the Versailles Treaty, along with other "undesirable" minorities. The Nazis eliminated opposition through a process known as Gleichschaltung.
Economy and culture
Hitler oversaw one of the greatest expansions of industrial production and civil improvement Germany had ever seen, mostly based on debt flotation and expansion of the military. Nazi policies toward women strongly encouraged them to stay at home to bear children and keep house. In a September 1934 speech to the National Socialist Women's Organization, Adolf Hitler argued that for the German woman her “world is her husband, her family, her children, and her home.” This policy was reinforced by bestowing the Cross of Honor of the German Mother on women bearing four or more babies. The unemployment rate was cut substantially, mostly through arms production and sending women home so that men could take their jobs. Given this, claims that the German economy achieved near full employment are at least partly artifacts of propaganda from the era. Much of the financing for Hitler's reconstruction and rearmament came from currency manipulation by Hjalmar Schacht, including the clouded credits through the Mefo bills. The negative effects of this inflation were offset in later years by the acquisition of foreign gold from the treasuries of conquered nations.
Hitler also oversaw one of the largest infrastructure-improvement campaigns in German history, with the construction of dozens of dams, autobahns, railroads, and other civil works. Hitler's policies emphasised the importance of family life: men were the "breadwinners", while women's priorities were to lie in bringing up children and in household work. This revitalising of industry and infrastructure came at the expense of the overall standard of living, at least for those not affected by the chronic unemployment of the later Weimar Republic, since wages were slightly reduced in pre-World-War-II years, despite a 25% increase in the cost of living.[40] Labourers and farmers, the traditional voters of the NSDAP, however, saw an increase in their standard of living.
Hitler's government sponsored architecture on an immense scale, with Albert Speer becoming famous as the first architect of the Reich. While important as an architect in implementing Hitler's classicist reinterpretation of German culture, Speer proved much more effective as armaments minister during the last years of World War II. In 1936, Berlin hosted the summer Olympic games, which were opened by Hitler and choreographed to demonstrate Aryan superiority over all other races, achieving mixed results. Olympia, the movie about the games and other documentary propaganda films for the German Nazi Party were directed by Hitler's personal filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl.
Although Hitler made plans for a Breitspurbahn (broad gauge railroad network), they were preempted by World War II. Had the railroad been built, its gauge would have been three metres, even wider than the old Great Western Railway of Britain.
Hitler contributed slightly to the design of the car that later became the Volkswagen Beetle and charged Ferdinand Porsche with its design and construction.[41] Production was also deferred because of the war.
Adolf Hitler, considered Sparta to be the first National Socialist state, and praised its early eugenics treatment of deformed children.[42]
He awarded the Order of the German Eagle, the Third Reich's highest distinction, to the industrialist Emil Kirdorf in April 1937, in reward for his financial support during his rise to power. The next year, he organized state funerals for him.
Rearmament and new alliances
Main articles: Axis Powers and Tripartite Treaty
In March 1935, Hitler violated the Treaty of Versailles by reintroducing conscription, building a massive military machine, including a new Navy (Kriegsmarine) and an Air Force (Luftwaffe). The enlistment of vast numbers of men and women in the new military seemed to solve unemployment problems but seriously distorted the economy. For the first time in 20 years, Germany's armed forces were as strong as France's.
Hitler, Mannerheim and Ryti in FinlandIn March 1936, Hitler again violated the treaty by reoccupying the demilitarized zone in the Rhineland. When Britain and France did nothing, he grew bolder. In July 1936, the Spanish Civil War began when the military, led by General Francisco Franco, rebelled against the elected Popular Front government. After receiving an appeal for help from General Franco in July 1936, Hitler sent troops to support Franco, and Spain served as a testing ground for Germany's new forces and their methods, including the bombing of undefended towns such as Guernica in April 1937, prompting Pablo Picasso's famous eponymous Guernica painting.
An Axis was declared between Germany and Italy by Count Galeazzo Ciano, foreign minister of Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini on 25 October 1936. The Tripartite Treaty was then signed by Saburo Kurusu of Imperial Japan, Hitler, and Ciano on 27 September 1940. It was later expanded to include Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. They were collectively known as the Axis Powers. Then on 5 November 1937, at the Reich Chancellory, Adolf Hitler held a secret meeting with the War and Foreign Ministers plus the three service chiefs, recorded in the Hossbach Memorandum and stated his plans for acquiring "living space" (Lebensraum) for the German people.
The Holocaust
Main article: The Holocaust
One of the foundations of Hitler's and the NSDAP's social policies was the concept of racial hygiene. It was based on the ideas of Arthur de Gobineau, eugenics, and social Darwinism. Applied to human beings, "survival of the fittest" was interpreted as requiring racial purity and killing off "life unworthy of life." The first victims were crippled and retarded children in a program dubbed Action T4.[43] After a public outcry, Hitler made a show of ending this program, but the killings in fact continued.
Between 1939 and 1945, the SS, assisted by collaborationist governments and recruits from occupied countries, systematically killed somewhere between 11 and 14 million people, including about 6 million Jews,[44] in concentration camps, ghettos and mass executions, or through less systematic methods elsewhere. Besides being gassed to death, many also died as a result of starvation and disease while working as slave labourers (sometimes benefiting private German companies in the process, because of the low cost of such labour). Along with Jews, non-Jewish Poles (over 3 million casualties), alleged communists or political opposition, members of resistance groups, Catholic and Protestant opponents, homosexuals, Roma, the physically handicapped and mentally retarded, Soviet prisoners of war (possibly as many as 3 million), Jehovah's Witnesses, anti-Nazi clergy, trade unionists, and psychiatric patients were killed. One of the biggest centres of mass-killing was the extermination camp complex of Auschwitz-Birkenau. Hitler never visited the concentration camps and did not speak publicly about the killing in precise terms.
The massacres that led to the coining of the word "genocide" (the Endlösung der jüdischen Frage or "Final Solution of the Jewish Question") were planned and ordered by leading Nazis, with Himmler playing a key role. While no specific order from Hitler authorizing the mass killing of the Jews has surfaced, there is documentation showing that he approved the Einsatzgruppen, killing squads that followed the German army through Poland and Russia and that he was kept well informed about their activities. The evidence also suggests that in the fall of 1941 Himmler and Hitler decided upon mass extermination by gassing. During interrogations by Soviet intelligence officers declassified over fifty years later, Hitler's valet Heinz Linge and his military aide Otto Gunsche said Hitler had "pored over the first blueprints of gas chambers."
To make for smoother cooperation in the implementation of this "Final Solution", the Wannsee conference was held near Berlin on 20 January 1942, with fifteen senior officials participating, led by Reinhard Heydrich and Adolf Eichmann. The records of this meeting provide the clearest evidence of planning for the Holocaust. On 22 February, Hitler was recorded saying to his associates, "we shall regain our health only by eliminating the Jews".
World War II
Main article: World War II
Opening moves
Hitler and Mussolini in Munich, 1940On 12 March 1938, Hitler pressured Austria into unification with Germany (the Anschluss) and made a triumphal entry into Vienna on 14 March. .[45][46] Next, he intensified a crisis over the German-speaking Sudetenland districts of Czechoslovakia.[47] This led to the Munich Agreement of September 1938, which authorized the annexation and immediate military occupation of these districts by Germany.[48] As a result of the summit, Hitler was TIME magazine's Man of the Year for 1938.[49] British prime minister Neville Chamberlain hailed this agreement as "Peace in our time", but by giving way to Hitler's military demands Britain and France also left Czechoslovakia to Hitler's mercy.[48] Hitler ordered Germany's army to enter Prague on 15 March 1939, and from Prague Castle proclaimed Bohemia and Moravia a German protectorate.
After that, Hitler claimed German grievances relating to the Free City of Danzig and the Polish Corridor, that Germany had ceded under the Versailles Treaty. Britain had not been able to reach an agreement with the Soviet Union for an alliance against Germany, and, on 23 August 1939, Hitler concluded a secret non-aggression pact (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact) with Stalin on which it was likely agreed that the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany would partition Poland. On 1 September Germany invaded the western portion of Poland. Having guaranteed assistance to Poland, Britain and France declared war on Germany on 3 September but did not immediately act. Not long after this, on 17 September, Soviet forces invaded eastern Poland.
During this Phoney War, Hitler built up his forces. In April 1940, he ordered German forces to march into Denmark and Norway. In May 1940, Hitler ordered his forces to attack France, conquering the Netherlands, Luxembourg and Belgium in the process. France surrendered on 22 June 1940. This series of victories convinced his main ally, Benito Mussolini of Italy, to join the war on Hitler's side in May 1940.
Adolf Hitler in Paris, 1940.Britain, whose defeated forces had evacuated France from the coastal town of Dunkirk, continued to fight alongside Canadian forces in the Battle of the Atlantic. After having his overtures for peace systematically rejected by the British Government, now led by Winston Churchill, Hitler ordered bombing raids on the British Isles, leading to the Battle of Britain, a prelude of the planned German invasion. The attacks began by pounding the Royal Air Force airbases and the radar stations protecting South-East England. However, the Luftwaffe failed to defeat the Royal Air Force by the end of October 1940. Air superiority for the invasion, code-named Operation Sealion, could not be assured, and Hitler ordered bombing raids to be carried out on British cities, including London and Coventry, mostly at night.
Path to defeat
On 22 June 1941, three million German troops attacked the Soviet Union, breaking the non-aggression pact Hitler had concluded with Stalin two years earlier. This invasion, Operation Barbarossa, seized huge amounts of territory, including the Baltic states, Belarus, and Ukraine. It also encircled and destroyed many Soviet forces. But the Germans were stopped short of Moscow in December 1941 by the Russian winter and fierce Soviet resistance. The invasion failed to achieve the quick triumph Hitler wanted.
Hitler's declaration of war against the United States on 11 December 1941, four days after the Empire of Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, set him against a coalition that included the world's largest empire (the British Empire), the world's greatest industrial and financial power (the United States), and the world's largest army (the Soviet Union).
In late 1942, German forces were defeated in the second battle of El Alamein, thwarting Hitler's plans to seize the Suez Canal and the Middle East. In February 1943, the Battle of Stalingrad ended with the encirclement and destruction of the German 6th Army. Shortly thereafter came the gigantic Battle of Kursk (1,300,000 Russians, 3,600 tanks, 20,000 artillery pieces and 2,400 aircraft, versus 900,000 Germans, 2,700 tanks, and 2,000 aircraft). From Stalingrad on, Hitler's military judgment became increasingly erratic, and Germany's military and economic position deteriorated. Hitler's health was also deteriorating. His left hand trembled. The biographer Ian Kershaw and others believe that he may have suffered from Parkinson's disease.[50] Syphilis has also been suspected as a cause of at least some of his symptoms, although the evidence is slight.[51]
Following the allied invasion of Italy (Operation Husky) in 1943 Hitlers ally, Mussolini, was deposed by Pietro Badoglio who surrendered to the Allies. Throughout 1943 and 1944, the Soviet Union steadily forced Hitler's armies into retreat along the Eastern Front. On 6 June 1944, the Western Allied armies landed in northern France in what was the largest amphibious operation ever conducted, Operation Overlord. Realists in the German army knew defeat was inevitable, and some officers plotted to remove Hitler from power. In July 1944, one of them, Claus von Stauffenberg, planted a bomb at Hitler's military headquarters in Rastenburg, but Hitler narrowly escaped death. He ordered savage reprisals, resulting in the executions of more than 4,900 people[52] (sometimes by starvation in solitary confinement followed by slow strangulation). The main resistance movement was destroyed, although smaller isolated groups such as Red Orchestra continued to operate.
Defeat and death
Main article: Death of Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler, accompanied by other German officials, grimly inspects bomb damage in a German city in 1944.By late 1944, the Red Army had driven the Germans from Soviet territory and entered Central Europe. The Western Allies were also advancing into Germany. Germany had lost the war, but Hitler allowed no retreat or regrouping for his forces while hoping to negotiate a separate peace with America and Britain, hopes buoyed by the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on 12 April 1945.[53][54] Hitler's stubbornness and defiance of military realities also allowed the holocaust to continue. He also ordered the complete destruction of all German industrial infrastructure before it could fall into the hands of the Allies, saying that Germany's failure to win the war forfeited its right to survive.[55] Execution of the plan was entrusted to arms minister Albert Speer, who disobeyed the order.[55]
In April 1945, Soviet forces were attacking the outskirts of Berlin. Hitler's followers urged him to flee to the mountains of Bavaria to make a last stand in the National Redoubt. But Hitler was determined to either live or die in the capital.
On 20 April Hitler celebrated his 56th birthday in the "Führer's shelter" (Führerbunker) below the Reich Chancellery (Reichskanzlei). The garrison commander of the besieged "fortress Breslau" (Festung Breslau), General Hermann Niehoff, had chocolates distributed to his troops, where possible, in honor of Hitler's birthday.[56]
By 21 April, Georgi Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front had broken through the defenses of German General Gotthard Heinrici's Army Group Vistula during the Battle of the Seelow Heights. The Soviets were now advancing towards Hitler's bunker with little to stop them. Ignoring the facts, Hitler saw salvation in the ragtag units commanded by one of his favorite generals, Felix Steiner. For Hitler's purposes, Steiner's command became known as "Army Detachment Steiner" (Armeeabteilung Steiner). However, the "Army Detachment Steiner" existed primarily on paper. It was something more than a corps but less than an army. Hitler ordered Steiner to attack the northern flank of the huge salient created by the break through of Zhukov's 1st Belorussian Front. Meanwhile, the German Ninth Army, which had just been pushed south of the salient, was ordered to attack north in a pincer attack.
Late on 21 April, Heinrici called Hans Krebs Chief German General Staff of the Supreme Army Command (Oberkommando des Heeres or OKH) and told him that Hitler's plan could not be implemented. Heinrici asked to speak to Hitler but was told by Krebs that Hitler was too busy to take his call.
On 22 April, during one of his last military conferences, Hitler interrupted the report to ask what had happened to General Steiner's offensive. There was a long silence. Then Hitler was told that the attack had never been launched, and that the withdrawal from Berlin of several units for Steiner's army, on Hitler's orders, had so weakened the front that the Russians had broken through into Berlin. This was too much for Hitler. he asked everyone except Wilhelm Keitel, Hans Krebs, Alfred Jodl, Wilhelm Burgdorf, and Martin Bormann to leave the room,[57] and launched a tirade against the perceived treachery and incompetence of his commanders. This culminated in an oath to stay in Berlin, head up the defense of the city, and shoot himself at the end.[58]
Before the day ended, Hitler again found salvation in a new plan that included General Walther Wenck's Twelfth Army.[59] This new plan had Wenck turn his army—currently facing the Americans to the west—and attack towards the east to relieve Berlin.[59] Twelfth Army was to link up with Ninth Army and break through to the city. Wenck did attack and, in the confusion, managed to make temporary contact with the Potsdam garrison. But the link with the Ninth Army, like the plan in general, was ultimately unsuccessful.[60]
On 23 April, after committing to stay in Berlin with Hitler, Joseph Goebbels made the following proclamation to the people of Berlin:
“ I call on you to fight for your city. Fight with everything you have got, for the sake of your wives and your children, your mothers and your parents. Your arms are defending everything we have ever held dear, and all the generations that will come after us. Be proud and courageous! Be inventive and cunning! Your Gauleiter is amongst you. He and his colleagues will remain in your midst. His wife and children are here as well. He, who once captured the city with 200 men, will now use every means to galvanize the defense of the capital. The battle for Berlin must become the signal for the whole nation to rise up in battle…[61] ”
Also on 23 April, second in command of the Third Reich and commander of the Luftwaffe Hermann Göring sent a telegram from Berchtesgaden in Bavaria. In his telegram, Göring argued that, since Hitler was cut off in Berlin, he should assume leadership of Germany as Hitler's designated successor. Göring' telegram mentioned a time limit after which he would consider Hitler incapacitated.[62] Hitler responded, in anger, by having Göring arrested, and when he wrote his will on April 29, Göring was removed from all his positions in the government.[62][63][64]
By the end of the day on 27 April, the commander of the Berlin Defense Area, found the city to be completely cut off from the rest of Germany.
On 28 April, Hitler discovered that SS leader Heinrich Himmler was trying to inform the Allies (through the Swedish diplomat Count Folke Bernadotte) that Germany was prepared to discuss surrender terms.[65] Hitler responded as he did with Göring, ordering his arrest and removing him from office, while having his representative in Berlin Hermann Fegelein shot.[66][63]
During the night of 28 April, General Wenck reported to the German Supreme Army Command (Oberkommando des Heeres or OKH) in Fuerstenberg that his Twelfth Army had been forced back along the entire front. Wenck noted that no further attacks towards Berlin were possible. General Alfred Jodl (Supreme Army Command) did not provide this information to Hans Krebs in Berlin until early in the morning of 30 April.
On 29 April, Hans Krebs, Wilhelm Burgdorf, Joseph Goebbels, and Martin Bormann witnessed and signed the last will and testament of Adolf Hitler.[63] Hitler dictated the document to his private secretary, Traudl Junge.[67] Hitler was also that day informed of the violent death of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini on 28 April, which is presumed to have increased his determination to avoid capture.[68]
Cover of US newspaper The Stars and Stripes, May 1945On 30 April 1945, after intense street-to-street combat, when Soviet troops were spotted within a block or two of the Reich Chancellory, Hitler committed suicide, shooting himself while simultaneously biting into a cyanide capsule.[69][70] Hitler's body and that of Eva Braun (his mistress whom he had married the day before) were put in a bomb crater,[71] doused in gasoline by Otto Günsche and other Führerbunker aides, and set alight as the Red Army advanced and shelling continued.[69] Hitler also had his dog Blondi poisoned before his suicide to test the poison he and Eva Braun were going to take.
On 2 May, General Weidling surrendered Berlin unconditionally to the Russians. When Russian forces reached the Chancellory, they found his body and an autopsy was performed using dental records to confirm the identification. The remains of Hitler and Braun were secretly buried by SMERSH at their headquarters in Magdeburg.[72] In 1970, when the facility was about to be turned over to the East German government, the remains were reportedly exhumed and thoroughly cremated.[72] According to the Russian Federal Security Service, a fragment of human skull stored in its archives and displayed to the public in a 2000 exhibition came from the remains of Hitler's body and is all that remains of Hitler. However, the authenticity of the skull has been challenged by many historians and researchers.[72]
Legacy
Further information: Consequences of German Nazism and Neo-Nazism
Outside the building in Braunau am Inn, Austria where Adolf Hitler was born is a memorial stone warning of the horrors of World War IIHitler, the Nazi Party and the results of Nazism have been regarded in most of the world as evil. Historical and cultural portrayals of Hitler in the west are, almost by consensus, condemnatory. The display of swastikas or other Nazi symbols is prohibited in Germany and Austria. Holocaust denial is prohibited in both countries.
However some people have referred to Hitler's legacy in neutral or favourable terms. Former Egyptian President Anwar Sadat wrote favourably of Hitler in 1953.[73] Louis Farrakhan has referred to him as a "very great man".[74] Bal Thackeray, leader of the right-wing Hindu Shiv Sena party in the Indian state of the Maharashtra, declared in 1995 that he was an admirer of Hitler.[75]
Outside of Hitler's birthplace in Braunau am Inn, Austria is a stone marker engraved with the following message:
FÜR FRIEDEN FREIHEIT
UND DEMOKRATIE
NIE WIEDER FASCHISMUS
MILLIONEN TOTE MAHNEN
Loosely translated, it reads: "For Peace, Freedom and Democracy - Never Again Fascism - Remember the Millions Dead"
Religious beliefs
Main articles: Adolf Hitler's religious beliefs and Nazi Mysticism
Hitler was raised by Roman Catholic parents, but as a boy he rejected Catholicism. Apparently, after Hitler left home, he never attended Mass or received the sacraments.[76]
In later life, Hitler often praised the Christian heritage, German culture, and a belief in Christ. But his private statements, as reported by his intimates, are more mixed, showing Hitler as a religious man but also critical of Christianity.[77] However, in contrast to other Nazi leaders, Hitler did not adhere to esoteric ideas, occultism, or neo-paganism,[77] and ridiculed such beliefs in Mein Kampf.[78] Rather, Hitler advocated a "Positive Christianity",[79] a belief system purged from what he objected to in traditional Christianity, and which reinvented Jesus as a fighter against the Jews.
Hitler spoke of his Christianity as a motivation for his anti-Semitism. In a speech Hitler gave in Munich on April 12, 1922, and later published in "My New Order", he stated:
“ My feeling as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded only by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who - God's truth! - was greatest, not as a sufferer, but as a fighter.
In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison.
Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross.
As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice...
And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery.
When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exploited."[80][81]
”
Hitler believed in Arthur de Gobineau's ideas of struggle for survival between the different races, among which the "Aryan race"—guided by "Providence"—was supposed to be the torchbearers of civilization and the Jews as enemies of all civilization. Whether his anti-semitism was influenced by older Christian ideas remains disputed.
Among Christian denominations, Hitler favored Protestantism, which was more open to such reinterpretations. At the same time, he adopted some elements of the Catholic Church's hierarchical organization, liturgy and phraseology in his politics.[82][83]
Health and sexuality
Health
Main articles: Adolf Hitler's medical health and Vegetarianism of Adolf Hitler
Hitler's health has long been the subject of debate. He has variously been said to have suffered from irritable bowel syndrome, skin lesions, irregular heartbeat, Parkinson's disease,[51] syphilis,[51] and a strongly suggested addiction to methamphetamine. One film exists that shows his left hand trembling, which might suggest Parkinson's.[84] Beyond that, the evidence is sparse.
After the early 1930s, Hitler generally followed a vegetarian diet, although he ate meat on occasion. There are reports of him disgusting his guests by giving them graphic accounts of the slaughter of animals in an effort to make them shun meat.[85] A fear of cancer (from which his mother died) is the most widely cited reason, though many authors also assert Hitler had a profound and deep love of animals. He did consume dairy products and eggs, however. Martin Bormann had a greenhouse constructed for him near the Berghof (near Berchtesgaden) to ensure a steady supply of fresh fruits and vegetables for Hitler throughout the war. Photographs of Bormann's children tending the greenhouse survive and, by 2005, its foundations were among the only ruins visible in the area which were associated with Nazi leaders.
Hitler was also a non-smoker and promoted aggressive anti-smoking campaigns throughout Germany. He reportedly promised a gold watch to any of his close associates who quit (and gave a few away). Several witness accounts relate that, immediately after his suicide was confirmed, many officers, aides, and secretaries in the Führerbunker lit cigarettes.[86]
Sexuality
Main article: Hitler's sexuality
Hitler presented himself publicly as a man without an intimate domestic life, dedicated to his political "mission", and to help in winning support from the women of Germany. He had a fiancée, Mimi Reiter in the 1920s, and later had a mistress, Eva Braun. He had a close bond with his half-niece Geli Raubal, which many commentators have claimed was sexual, although there is no evidence that proves this.[87] All three women attempted suicide during their relationship with him, a fact which has led to speculation that Hitler may have had unusual sexual fetishes, such as urolagnia, as was claimed by Otto Strasser. Reiter, the only one to survive the Nazi regime, denies this.[88] During the war and afterwards psychoanalysts offered numerous inconsistent psycho-sexual explanations of his pathology.[89] More recently Lothar Machtan has argued in his book The Hidden Hitler that Hitler was homosexual, while others argue that he was largely asexual.
Family
Main article: Hitler (disambiguation)
Paula Hitler, the last living member of Adolf Hitler's immediate family, died in 1960.
The most prominent and longest-living direct descendants of Adolf Hitler's father, Alois, was Adolf's nephew William Patrick Hitler. With his wife Phyllis, he eventually moved to Long Island, New York, and had four sons. None of William Hitler's children have yet had any children of their own.
Over the years various investigative reporters have attempted to track down other distant relatives of the Führer; many are now alleged to be living inconspicuous lives and have long since changed their last name.
Adolf Hitler's genealogyEva Braun, mistress and then wife
Alois Hitler, father
Klara Hitler, mother
Paula Hitler, sister
Alois Hitler, Jr., half-brother
Bridget Dowling, sister-in-law
William Patrick Hitler, nephew
Heinz Hitler, nephew
Angela Hitler Raubal, half-sister
Maria Schicklgruber, grandmother
Johann Georg Hiedler, presumed grandfather
Johann Nepomuk Hiedler, maternal great-grandfather, presumed great uncle and possibly Hitler's true paternal grandfather
Geli Raubal, niece
Hermann Fegelein, cousin through Hitler's marriage to Eva Braun
Hitler in various media
See also: Hitler in popular culture
Movie clip
Hitler at Berchtesgaden (file info) — Watch in browser
Video clips of Hitler at his mountain retreat in Berchtesgaden, Germany.
Problems seeing the videos? See media help.
Oratory and rallies
Main article: List of Adolf Hitler speeches
Hitler was a gifted orator who captivated many with his beating of the lectern and growling, emotional speech. He honed his skills by giving speeches to soldiers during 1919 and 1920. He had an ability to tell people what they wanted to hear (the stab-in-the-back, the Jewish-Marxists, Versailles). Over time Hitler perfected his delivery by rehearsing in front of mirrors and carefully choreographing his display of emotions with the message he was trying to convey. Munitions minister and architect Albert Speer, who may have known Hitler as well as anyone, said that Hitler was above all else an actor.[90][91]
Massive Nazi rallies were carefully staged by Albert Speer, which were designed to spark a process of self-persuasion for the participants. This process can be appreciated by watching Leni Riefenstahl's Triumph of the Will which chillingly presents the 1934 Nuremberg Rally
Hitler and Goebbels toned down their racism as Hitler gained electoral strength. In areas where antisemitism was strong they used code words (railing against "Bolshevists" with most people understanding that he meant "Jews"), and they ignored antisemitism in areas where it was not already strong. Many Germans were, as they said, "Nazi, but. . ." meaning that they thought Hitler had abandoned his shrill racism.
Recorded in private conversation
Hitler and Carl Gustaf Emil MannerheimHitler visited Finnish Field Marshal Mannerheim on 4 June 1942. During the visit an engineer of the Finnish broadcasting company YLE, Thor Damen, recorded Hitler and Mannerheim in conversation, something which had to be done secretly since Hitler never allowed recordings of him off-guard. [1] Today the recording is the only known recording of Hitler not speaking in an official tone. The recording captures 11 and a half minutes of the two leaders in private conversation. [2] Hitler speaks in a slightly excited, but still intellectually detached manner during this talk (the speech has been compared to that of the working class). The majority of the recording is a monologue by Hitler. In the recording, Hitler admits to underestimating the Soviet Union's ability to conduct war (some English transcripts exist [3] [4]).Recording on the YLE Internet Archive
Documentaries during the Third Reich
Hitler appeared in and was involved to varying degrees with a series of films by the pioneering filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl via Universum Film AG (UFA):
Der Sieg des Glaubens (The Victory of Faith, 1933).
Triumph des Willens (Triumph of the Will, 1934), co-produced by Hitler.
Tag der Freiheit: Unsere Wehrmacht (Day of Freedom: Our Armed Forces, 1935).
Olympia (1938).
Hitler was the central figure of the first three films; they focused on the party rallies of the respective years and are considered propaganda films. Hitler also featured prominently in the Olympia film. Whether the latter is a propaganda film or a true documentary is still a subject of controversy, but it nonetheless perpetuated and spread the propagandistic message of the 1936 Olympic Games depicting Nazi Germany as a prosperous and peaceful country.[92] As a prominent politician, Hitler was also featured in many newsreels.
Television
Hitler's attendance at various public functions including the 1936 Olympic games, and Nuremberg Rallies appeared in live television broadcasts made between 1935 and 1939. These events along with other programming highlighting activity by public officials were often repeated in public viewing rooms.[93]
Documentaries post Third Reich
The World at War (1974) is a Thames Television series which contains much information about Hitler and Nazi Germany, including an interview with his secretary, Traudl Junge.
Adolf Hitler's Last Days, from the BBC series "Secrets of World War II" tells the story about Hitler's last days during World War II.
The Nazis: A Warning From History (1997), a 6-part BBC TV series on how the cultured and educated Germans accepted Hitler and the Nazis up to its downfall. Historical consultant is Ian Kershaw.
Blind Spot: Hitler's Secretary (2002) is an exclusive 90 minute interview with Traudl Junge, Hitler's final trusted secretary. Made by Austrian Jewish director André Heller shortly before Junge's death from lung cancer, Junge recalls the last days in the Berlin bunker. Clips used in Downfall.
Undergångens arkitektur (Architecture of Doom) (1989) documentary about the National Socialist aesthetic as envisioned by Hitler.
Dramatizations
Hitler: The Last Ten Days (1973) is a movie depicting the days leading up to Adolf Hitler's death, starring Sir Alec Guinness.
The Bunker (1978) by James O'Donnell, describing the last days in the Führerbunker from 17 January 1945 to 2 March 1945. Made into the TV movie The Bunker (1981), starring Anthony Hopkins.
Hitler: The Rise of Evil (2003) is a two-part TV series about the early years of Adolf Hitler and his rise to power (up to 1933). Stars Robert Carlyle.
Der Untergang (Downfall) (2004) is a German movie about the last days of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, starring Bruno Ganz. This film is partly based on the autobiography of Traudl Junge, a favorite secretary of Hitler's. In 2002, Junge said she felt great guilt for "...liking the greatest criminal ever to have lived."
Hans-Jürgen Syberberg's Hitler - Ein Film aus Deutschland (Hitler, A Film From Germany), 1977. Originally presented on German television, this is a 7-hour work in 4 parts: The Grail; A German Dream; The End Of Winter's Tale; We, Children Of Hell. The director uses documentary clips, photographic backgrounds, puppets, theatrical stages, and other elements from almost all the visual arts, with the "actors" addressing directly the audience/camera, in order to approach and expand on this most taboo subject of European history of the 20th century.
Max is a 2002 Drama movie, that depicts a friendship between art dealer Max Rothman (who is Jewish) and a young Adolf Hitler as a failed painter in Vienna.