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But the campaign had caused lasting devastation, the exact numbers may never be known, but most historians estimate that millions of Russians were either executed or shipped off to the dreaded Siberian gulags between 1936 and '38. Perhaps the Soviet psyche suffered just as much damage, as an entire nation and its attendant culture sank into a deep-seated paranoia and a frightened submission to the state, the effects of which are still being felt in Russia today. This was, not coincidentally, the era when Stalin's "cult of personality" rose to overwhelming prominence in the Soviet Union, as history was rewritten to make him the hero of every circumstance, his writings were handed out to schoolchildren with a reverence once reserved for the Bible, his childhood was mythologized and every reference to his name accompanied by phrases like "Leader of Genius of the Proletarian Revolution," "Supreme Genius of Humanity," and so on, fear had conditioned the Russians to forego all independent
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Some historians like James von Geldern (2005) “The idealized figure of Stalin represented in mass culture also spoke to a perceived need for vigorous leadership in Soviet society. Thus Stalin often appeared in a magnetic aura of charisma that went far beyond his political role, leaving many of the Soviet citizens lucky enough to meet him mesmerized.”2 have described the cult surrounding Stalin as one of the most perfect ever invented, certainly on such a massive scale, and among his efforts was a significant rewriting of Russian history that aimed to establish him as a much more important player during the revolution than had been the case, although he had certainly been influential. After his death, his successor Nikita Khrushchev argued that Stalin's cult of personality was contrary to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism and had gone too far towards the elevation of Stalin to the role of a virtual superhuman. This supports the argument that through the use of propaganda, Staling was able to achieve almost a god-like persona, which is another one of his great …show more content…
It goes in depth about what Stalin aimed to achieve with his despotic reforms, purges and famines. This booked has helped me a lot to get an insight on what was really going on during Stalin’s rule because the book was written in 1935, therefore the information in it was distorted by years. It helped me to understand what it was like to be alive during those years and what people outside the Soviet Union thought of Stalin, because it was borderline impossible to say a bad word about Stalin if you lived in the USSR, let alone write a book discussing and evaluating his successes and failures. The book provided me with a good historical debate and was overall a very helpful source of
Some historians like James von Geldern (2005) “The idealized figure of Stalin represented in mass culture also spoke to a perceived need for vigorous leadership in Soviet society. Thus Stalin often appeared in a magnetic aura of charisma that went far beyond his political role, leaving many of the Soviet citizens lucky enough to meet him mesmerized.”2 have described the cult surrounding Stalin as one of the most perfect ever invented, certainly on such a massive scale, and among his efforts was a significant rewriting of Russian history that aimed to establish him as a much more important player during the revolution than had been the case, although he had certainly been influential. After his death, his successor Nikita Khrushchev argued that Stalin's cult of personality was contrary to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism and had gone too far towards the elevation of Stalin to the role of a virtual superhuman. This supports the argument that through the use of propaganda, Staling was able to achieve almost a god-like persona, which is another one of his great …show more content…
It goes in depth about what Stalin aimed to achieve with his despotic reforms, purges and famines. This booked has helped me a lot to get an insight on what was really going on during Stalin’s rule because the book was written in 1935, therefore the information in it was distorted by years. It helped me to understand what it was like to be alive during those years and what people outside the Soviet Union thought of Stalin, because it was borderline impossible to say a bad word about Stalin if you lived in the USSR, let alone write a book discussing and evaluating his successes and failures. The book provided me with a good historical debate and was overall a very helpful source of