Stalin

2 Pages 438 Words

Stalin was one of the world’s most vicious leaders. Many things were written about him and his reign. One of these writings was “Stalin and State Terror”; written by Nadezhda Mandelstam a man who lived through the many years of the frightening daily life that Russia lived though during the beginning of the 20th century. Although it is not known exactly when Mandelstam wrote his memoirs it appears to be written in the 1950’s after Stalin’s rule was over. This document shows how the people of Russia during Stalin’s rule were scared into living the “perfect life” that Stalin believed they should.
When writing his memoir Mandelstam mentions many heart ripping truths. He brought up his childhood when he pondered the French Revolution and whether anyone could actually survive a horrible terror such as that not knowing one-day he would himself. But then finding out first hand that everyone is a victim no one goes untouched not even the killers themselves. It hurt Russia so much it took several generations to get over it. Intimidation was the main purpose of the terror not to keep people safe and secure like police work was supposed to do. Stalin kept people in fear by killing ordinary people who had done nothing wrong. And when he believed that the fear was dying he would start a whole new wave of killing to keep the next generation in line. But he couldn’t kill everyone; there was always someone to live to tell the story.
There were many lies to cover up the reason of the terror, but the real reason was Stalin’s extreme paranoia. This case of paranoia caused the death of 15,000,000 people. Instead of bringing Russia up to a stronger place in the world it weakened it from the inside out. And put the people of Russia into extreme fear. During this terror no one was left unaffected, the whole country from the frozen north to the deserted plains and the humid coast, was left untouched by the terror. The government is s...