We are currently in the midst of a group of entries intended as a collective response to various accusations thrown at Stalin by his detractors. This is being done not to whitewash his bloodstained figure. There is an angry bias on both sides of the ongoing controversy about Stalin’s role in history. My role is to represent Stalin without prejudice. He was of course a ruthless man, but so was, to no lesser extent, Peter the Great. It is unhealthy for the purpose of a historical debate to try to persuade the world that Stalin does not measure up to Mother Theresa. It is also historically counterproductive to set up a double standard, by which Peter I comes out as a great hero, and Comrade Stalin as a great villain. Such a double standard kills the credibility of the man’s critical assessment, convincing the large army of his apologists that the other side is involved in Stalin’s historical assassination because of its anti-Russian agenda, and by attacking Stalin’s person, they are attacking the Russian nation and her greatest historical achievements.
I am deliberately refusing to prioritize my Stalin-related issues. I know full well that the issue of the present entry has an extremely low priority in a normal debate. But I am not joining such a debate, where each side, motivated by mutual acrimony, carries a full clip of armor-piercing bullets and is prepared to shoot from the hip. My personal position in discussing such loaded historical issues must be clear already from my earlier series of entries united by the general theme of “Totalitarianism Without Prejudice.”
The most ridiculous of all anti-Stalin accusations that he was a mediocrity was hopefully refuted in a number of previous entries with an overwhelming sufficiency. This entry deals with another charge, intended to make Stalin look ridiculous.
The charge alleges that having promoted himself to the military rank of Generalissimus, Stalin’s exorbitant vanity had unwittingly pulled him into joining the rather unsavory “present company” of Franco and Chiang Kai-shek, thus making him a laughing stock of sorts.
Before we proceed with refuting the charge itself, let us put the history of its starting point straight. During the Great Fatherland War (Russia’s war against Germany [but not against Japan!] in World War II), Stalin had several national responsibilities, one of them very naturally being Commander-in Chief of the Soviet Armed Forces. Throughout the war he held the highest Soviet military rank of Marshal, and he still kept that rank at the time, when Nazi Germany signed its capitulation. It was in June 1945, while the war against Japan was still in progress, but the end of World War Two had long been a foregone conclusion, with Russia emerging as the war’s greatest victor, that Marshal Rokossovsky (see a separate entry on him later in this section) who was a great admirer of Stalin (despite the fact that in the 1930’s, he had been an innocent victim of what has been known as Stalinist repression) suggested that Comrade Stalin, by virtue of his colossal world-historical accomplishment, could no longer remain one of the many Soviet Marshals, but fully deserved the rarest, and most coveted of all military titles, that of Generalissimus. The irony was however that this supreme title was no longer on the books in the USSR. It had been awarded in Imperial Russia on just a handful of occasions (curiously, historians are still arguing about their exact number up to this day, but it is never found in excess of five), but it had been abolished after 1917. Having received Stalin’s consent to it, the title was reinstated on June 26, 1945, by a special decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and was awarded to Stalin on the very next day.
Proceeding now with refuting the charge, and the ridicule coming with it, I do not think that Comrade Stalin had been thinking or caring much about the ranks of his unsavory contemporaries, as he was, rather, history-oriented, seeking his legitimacy in the most hallowed pages of Russian history. Therefore, his real source of connection to the title, and the obvious reason why he was so genuinely eager to accept it was the fact, stressed by Rokossovsky to Stalin all along, that the title of Generalissimus had been previously awarded to the great military commander of Russia’s glorious past Alexander Vasilievich Suvorov.
Needless to say, seeing himself as Russian royalty and a successor of the greatest Russian heroes of the past, Stalin was deeply gratified to be awarded Suvorov’s rank, having just achieved a colossal military victory of which the old Russian soldier Suvorov would surely have been mighty proud.
The question of Stalin’s vanity must therefore be properly answered. He was always measuring himself by the yardstick of Russian history, and as a great Russian hero/villain leader (at least his historical “greatness” must be taken for granted!) his right to do so cannot be denied to him.
…This does not mean that Stalin’s detractors can’t still keep gloating over the unintended consequences of Stalin’s alleged self-promotion (I am not going to argue that Stalin himself was not behind Rokossovsky’s move), but, on my part at least, I have now put this whole matter in proper perspective.
I am deliberately refusing to prioritize my Stalin-related issues. I know full well that the issue of the present entry has an extremely low priority in a normal debate. But I am not joining such a debate, where each side, motivated by mutual acrimony, carries a full clip of armor-piercing bullets and is prepared to shoot from the hip. My personal position in discussing such loaded historical issues must be clear already from my earlier series of entries united by the general theme of “Totalitarianism Without Prejudice.”
The most ridiculous of all anti-Stalin accusations that he was a mediocrity was hopefully refuted in a number of previous entries with an overwhelming sufficiency. This entry deals with another charge, intended to make Stalin look ridiculous.
The charge alleges that having promoted himself to the military rank of Generalissimus, Stalin’s exorbitant vanity had unwittingly pulled him into joining the rather unsavory “present company” of Franco and Chiang Kai-shek, thus making him a laughing stock of sorts.
Before we proceed with refuting the charge itself, let us put the history of its starting point straight. During the Great Fatherland War (Russia’s war against Germany [but not against Japan!] in World War II), Stalin had several national responsibilities, one of them very naturally being Commander-in Chief of the Soviet Armed Forces. Throughout the war he held the highest Soviet military rank of Marshal, and he still kept that rank at the time, when Nazi Germany signed its capitulation. It was in June 1945, while the war against Japan was still in progress, but the end of World War Two had long been a foregone conclusion, with Russia emerging as the war’s greatest victor, that Marshal Rokossovsky (see a separate entry on him later in this section) who was a great admirer of Stalin (despite the fact that in the 1930’s, he had been an innocent victim of what has been known as Stalinist repression) suggested that Comrade Stalin, by virtue of his colossal world-historical accomplishment, could no longer remain one of the many Soviet Marshals, but fully deserved the rarest, and most coveted of all military titles, that of Generalissimus. The irony was however that this supreme title was no longer on the books in the USSR. It had been awarded in Imperial Russia on just a handful of occasions (curiously, historians are still arguing about their exact number up to this day, but it is never found in excess of five), but it had been abolished after 1917. Having received Stalin’s consent to it, the title was reinstated on June 26, 1945, by a special decree of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR, and was awarded to Stalin on the very next day.
Proceeding now with refuting the charge, and the ridicule coming with it, I do not think that Comrade Stalin had been thinking or caring much about the ranks of his unsavory contemporaries, as he was, rather, history-oriented, seeking his legitimacy in the most hallowed pages of Russian history. Therefore, his real source of connection to the title, and the obvious reason why he was so genuinely eager to accept it was the fact, stressed by Rokossovsky to Stalin all along, that the title of Generalissimus had been previously awarded to the great military commander of Russia’s glorious past Alexander Vasilievich Suvorov.
Needless to say, seeing himself as Russian royalty and a successor of the greatest Russian heroes of the past, Stalin was deeply gratified to be awarded Suvorov’s rank, having just achieved a colossal military victory of which the old Russian soldier Suvorov would surely have been mighty proud.
The question of Stalin’s vanity must therefore be properly answered. He was always measuring himself by the yardstick of Russian history, and as a great Russian hero/villain leader (at least his historical “greatness” must be taken for granted!) his right to do so cannot be denied to him.
…This does not mean that Stalin’s detractors can’t still keep gloating over the unintended consequences of Stalin’s alleged self-promotion (I am not going to argue that Stalin himself was not behind Rokossovsky’s move), but, on my part at least, I have now put this whole matter in proper perspective.
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