This series continues to surprise me. At no point does it sound particularly promising. The narrator uses a voice with a built-in sneer and doesn't hesitate to make value judgments -- "evil," "brutal," "despotic." Yet, at the same time, the narration is entirely willing to grant the subject -- not just Stalin -- the virtue of his flaws. Nobody else could have organized the USSR effectively enough to repel the invading Nazis, says expert Paul McNally. And there are occasional quotes from diaries and modern historians, with the sources identified by name.
We all know Stalin the tyrant, but this program shows us the extent of his paranoia. Twice, he had Soviet attempts to assassinate Hitler blocked. He feared that, with Hitler dead, Germany would join with the Western Allies in an attack on Russia.
And -- this isn't in the film but it's a fascinating expression of Stalin's character -- the British were developing a jet engine during the war and offered to explain its construction openly to Soviet engineers, inviting them to the aircraft plants. Stalin had his representatives wear shoes with gum soles so that they would pick up metal filings from the shop floor. Stalin assumed the Brits would lie about the metals they were using.
It may be true that no one else could have saved Mother Russia from the Nazis. Stalin is a widely respected figure in Russia today. About one out of four Russians claim they would vote for him, and the communist party of Poland is petitioning the Russian Orthodox Church to have Stalin made into a saint. And, after all, the USSR entered World War II a nation of farmers using wooden plows. He turned it into an industrialized superpower, one of only two real winners after the war.
Yet, things seem to disappear quickly down the memory hole. Stalin was a real mean bastard. He killed more Russians than Hitler. He lopped the intellectual and political head off Poland by murdering 50,000 Polish aristocrats, artists, and scientists in the Katyn Forest -- and then blaming it on the Nazis. And the West went along with the lie. The Nazis were enemies. It was only during the Cold War that it was determined that the executions were carried out under Stalin's orders. In a way, we tend to revise history to accord with our current judgments. We may call it the social construction of history.
We all know Stalin the tyrant, but this program shows us the extent of his paranoia. Twice, he had Soviet attempts to assassinate Hitler blocked. He feared that, with Hitler dead, Germany would join with the Western Allies in an attack on Russia.
And -- this isn't in the film but it's a fascinating expression of Stalin's character -- the British were developing a jet engine during the war and offered to explain its construction openly to Soviet engineers, inviting them to the aircraft plants. Stalin had his representatives wear shoes with gum soles so that they would pick up metal filings from the shop floor. Stalin assumed the Brits would lie about the metals they were using.
It may be true that no one else could have saved Mother Russia from the Nazis. Stalin is a widely respected figure in Russia today. About one out of four Russians claim they would vote for him, and the communist party of Poland is petitioning the Russian Orthodox Church to have Stalin made into a saint. And, after all, the USSR entered World War II a nation of farmers using wooden plows. He turned it into an industrialized superpower, one of only two real winners after the war.
Yet, things seem to disappear quickly down the memory hole. Stalin was a real mean bastard. He killed more Russians than Hitler. He lopped the intellectual and political head off Poland by murdering 50,000 Polish aristocrats, artists, and scientists in the Katyn Forest -- and then blaming it on the Nazis. And the West went along with the lie. The Nazis were enemies. It was only during the Cold War that it was determined that the executions were carried out under Stalin's orders. In a way, we tend to revise history to accord with our current judgments. We may call it the social construction of history.
