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Whether this speech was ever given by Stalin is still the subject of dispute by historians. According to Viktor Suvorov's book Icebreaker, Soviet historians laid special emphasis on claiming that no Politburo meeting took place on 19 August 1939, but the Russian military historian Dmitri Volkogonov has found the evidence that a meeting really took place on that day.
On his front, Stalin became determined to conquer Lvov; in focusing on this goal, he disobeyed orders to transfer his troops to assist Mikhail Tukhachevsky's forces at the Battle of Warsaw in early August, which ended in a major defeat for the Red Army. [160] Stalin then returned to Moscow, [161] where Tukhachevsky blamed him for the loss. [162]
Lenin died on 21 January 1924. Stalin was given the honour of organizing his funeral. Upon Lenin's death, Stalin was officially hailed as his successor as the leader of the ruling Communist Party and of the Soviet Union itself. Against Lenin's wishes, he was given a lavish funeral and his body was embalmed and put on display.
After Stalin's death, Patriarch Alexy I composed a personal statement of condolence to the Soviet Council of Ministers: "His death is a heavy grief for our Fatherland and for all the people who inhabit it. The whole Russian Orthodox Church, which will never forget his benevolent attitude to Church needs, feels great sorrow at his death.
According to Stalin's secretary, Boris Bazhanov, Stalin was jubilant over Lenin's death while "publicly putting on the mask of grief". [ 186 ] Some Marxist theoreticians have disputed the view that Stalin's dictatorship was a natural outgrowth of the Bolsheviks' actions, as Stalin eliminated most of the original central committee members from ...
The history of the Soviet Union between 1927 and 1953, commonly referred to as the Stalin Era or the Stalinist Era, covers the period in Soviet history from the establishment of Stalinism through victory in the Second World War and down to the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953.
Critics say the historian is being punished over his efforts to uncover Stalin's crimes as Putin vies to rehabilitate the Soviet leader's image. Russia extends prison sentence for Gulag historian ...
The trials are generally seen as part of Stalin's Great Purge, a campaign to rid the party of current or prior opposition, including Trotskyists and leading Bolshevik cadre members from the time of the Russian Revolution or earlier, who might even potentially become a figurehead for the growing discontent in the Soviet populace resulting from ...