Joseph Stalin's obituary

Mikayel Kamendatyan's work

From March the 6^th, 1953, Stalin has been belonging to history. A totalitarian leader who successfully transformed the non-developed Russia into world’s second superpower, turned to be as mortal as his lowest servants.

Joseph Djugashvili (known as Stalin i.e. man of steel) came from a poor Georgian family. As a young man his ideology was over one idea that is to make Georgia independent from the Russian Empire. In September 1888 Stalin enters the Gori Church School, in September 1894 he enrolls in Tiflis Theological Seminary. Stalin’s and his mother’s (who was a devoted Christian) primary vision for the boy’s future was Joseph’s becoming a priest and serving in Georgian churches. Who could have ever thought that “a future priest” is going to become the worst oppressor of the church and religion? However in 1901 he was elected one of the eight Committee members for Russian Social Democratic Labour Party in Tbilisi.

During Stalin’s rule the Soviet Union strongly contributed to the outcomes of World War Two by stopping the Nazi expansion in Asia and assisting the Allies in Europe. That his achievements were notable- cannot be gainsaid. He took a backward agrarian country and transformed it into one of the mightiest industrial power on Earth. He built mighty armies and air fleets that threw back the German attacks and then reduced all Eastern Europe to Vassal States of Moscow. He fostered the world’s Communist movement until it reached such dimensions that it conquered China and presented the greatest challenge ever faced by the Western Civilization.

But his people and other people paid enormous price for these achievements. At his doorstep must be laid the millions of victims claimed by the collectivization campaign and the famine which accompanied it in the early 1930. Moving forward one must admit that his reign of terror inside the borders of USSR was one of the means accomplishing his goal and turning the USSR into a mighty and industrial superpower.

In Stalin’s account must be reckoned the guilt for the cynical deal with Hitler in 1939 which gave the “go-ahead” signal for the World War Two and its enormous sacrifices. On his conscience, if he had any, lay the burden of shame for the enslavement of millions in the forced labour camps, and for the semi-enslavement of the millions of workers chained to the factories by legislative fiat. From Stalin’s example of deceit and falsehood came the inspiration for the world of lies in which the Communist-ruled peoples of the world live today. He wore the mantle of the high priest of Utopian Communism, but his rule produced a reality most reminiscent of George Orwell’s vision of hell on Earth.