Talk:Joseph Stalin

Josif Stalin

His actual first name is not Josef nor Joseph. It is russian version of these 2; Josif.

That may be his Russian language name (or more accurately the Russian translation of his Georgian language name), but this is an English language Wikipedia. According to en:Wikipedia:Naming conventions (common names) it should be at the most commonly used name in the English language, which is Joseph Stalin, like it is on EN en:Joseph Stalin (Josif=18,000 hits[1], Joseph=863,000[2], with Josef in between). Freshstart 20:12, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

Holodomor

what rubbish: "He also made a famine in Ukraine, and many people died."

Maybe there should be some mention that a Nazi AND Nazi financed author wrote the statement about the so called "Ukraine" famine. Which also was a tasty nugget used for American propaganda.

-G

Is the museum dedicated to Holodomor, with documents confirming government's involvement and many photos capturing it's horrors, in your mind also run and financed by Nazis? And what about every 90+ y/o person born and raised in Ukrainian country side sharing very similar stories about the lack of food like never before? Gritsyk (talk) 08:24, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

Stalin as Leader

The first sentence on the page, "Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death." is not accurate. From the point where he joined the Politburo - I don't remember what year that was but I _think_ it was 1918, although it may well have been earlier by a few years - Stalin was _a_ leader of the Soviet Union but he functioned in a relatively collegial atmosphere among other Bolshevik luminaries like Zinoviev, Lunacharsky, Trotsky, Bukharin and several others. Lenin, until his first stroke in 1922, tolerated some discussion within the Politburo but tended to make the final decisions about all important matters. When Lenin was placed on sick leave to recover from his stroke (which was followed by further strokes and then death in 1924), Stalin gradually sidelined his peers and is generally conceded to have only become the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union in 1929 at the so-called "Congress of the Victors". Robert Conquest has covered this complex matter in considerable detail in various of his books and I don't propose to rehash it here. However, I think it bears mentioning in some fashion. Otherwise, readers are likely to think that Stalin simply took over without any dissent even within the Party when Lenin fell ill. That simply wasn't the case. Stalin was, in fact, a rather minor figure initially who managed to parley his role as General-Secretary into supreme power only very gradually.

I realize this is a "simple" version of Wikipedia though and perhaps this drastic oversimplification is considered appropriate in this context.Unfortunately, en.wikipedia shows very similar wording: "Stalin ... was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953." Here too the truth is vastly oversimplified.

Laying out the whole story of Stalin's rise to undisputed leadership may well be too much for Wikipedia; I could certainly sympathize with that since Wikipedia is not trying to tell the entire story in all its gory detail lest it become a compendium of every fact known about every subject. However, I think it is eminently reasonable to summarize the reality in one or two sentences and then refer readers to sources that go into considerably greater detail. I would propose something along this line: "Stalin ... was one of several leaders of the Soviet Union beginning with joining the Politburo in 1918 (? - I'd want to check that; it might have been earlier) and gradually drove out his rivals until he was effectively the only leader by 1929, a situation which persisted until his death in 1953." That would be followed by a footnote pointing readers to the appropriate book. (I think that book is Robert Conquest's The Great Terror but I say that from memory without being able to look at the book to verify that is the one that details Stalin's rise.) Even this proposal is not wholly accurate since it implies that Stalin eliminated the Politburo by 1929 and visibly took all decisions by himself which is certainly not the case. The Politburo was retained but, by 1929, was composed almost entirely of people who Stalin had groomed and who he knew would not oppose him. However, even then, one rival, Kirov, emerged so Stalin had him assassinated in 1934, as detailed in Robert Conquest's book The Kirov Murder.

184.175.48.100 (talk) 19:43, 11 June 2014 (UTC)

Sabotage

This article appears to have been sabotaged. E.g., the article says "Stalin invaded Poland on 18 September 1939. In the subsequent World War II, Stalin stayed neutral but signed a deal of peace with Germany's leader Adolf Hitler." This is very misleading.

1) Stalin was in no way "neutral" after attacking Poland. Stalin occupied Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia in June 1940. Stalin entered into the "German-Soviet Commercial Agreement" (also known as "Economic Agreement of February 11, 1940") with Hitler, where Stalin sent raw materials to the German war industry and got some of the produced weapons back as payment.

2) "Deal of peace" is a very misleading expression to be used for the Molotow-Ribbentrop agreement. This was an agreement where Hitler and Stalin agreed not to attack each other. Further, an addendum to this agreement was about how Hitler and Stalin should share Europe between them. This way the two dictators could attack various other countries. Hitler occupied countries in Western Europe and USSR occupied countries in Eastern Europe according to the addendum to the Molotow-Ribbentrop agreeement.

3) The Molotow-Ribbentrop agreement was signed BEFORE the Nazi/USSR attack on Poland, not after as the article implies.

It is very sad that a Wikipedia article is so heavily sabotaged.

PP

Can an admin please protect this page. Thanks! SHB2000 (talk) 05:27, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

SHB2000, requests to protect the pages are made at Administrators' noticeboard and I have made one for this page. ~ Hulged (talk) 05:55, 5 August 2021 (UTC)

As we are seeing a lot of vandalism, mostly from IP editors, I have semi-protected the page. If you are a user which now cannot edit the page, please discuss the changes here, and a named editor will post them on the page. Thanks. Eptalon (talk) 17:53, 6 March 2022 (UTC)