Executions carried out on teenage girls. Hundreds of thousands of Poles deported to Siberia and millions of famine victims in Ukraine. These are just some of the murderous "achievements" of Joseph Stalin.
As always, all positions in the TOP7 ranking are based on the articles we publish. This time we have selected 7 texts depicting the crimes that Joseph Stalin had on his conscience. You can read more about the Red Car HERE.
Stalin is responsible for…
7. Tens of millions of victims of labor camps
Construction of the Białomorski Canal. According to Solzhenitsyn, up to a quarter of a million victims of the Stalinist terror died and died with her.
It is impossible to estimate the exact number of victims who lost their lives in labor camps. However, according to Alexander Solzhenitsyn (who himself went through the hell of the Gulag) from 1923 to 1956, up to 60,000,000 citizens of the Soviet Union were killed in the camps . The overwhelming majority of them lost their lives during Stalin's rule.
However, it should be remembered that not only the inhabitants of the USSR were sent to labor camps. People from other countries were also sent there. Including hundreds of thousands of Poles or German prisoners of war. They all had to work under inhumane conditions, and death was lurking at every turn (read more on this topic).
6. Murder of 111,000 USSR citizens of Polish origin
Nikolai Yezhov (right), it was he who supervised the execution of Stalin's order, as a result of which 110,000 citizens of the USSR of Polish origin lost their lives.
On the strength of an order issued by Stalin in August 1937, the so-called "Polish operation" began. Over the next 14 months, the Soviet repression apparatus arrested some 150,000 people. The only criterion was their Polish origin.
The detainees were accused of collaborating with intelligence services from the Vistula River and preparing the ground for the Polish invasion of the Soviet Union. Those who did not want to plead guilty were subjected to brutal torture. As a result of the "Polish operation", 111,000 people were shot. Another tens of thousands were sent to labor camps (read more about this).
5. Executions even carried out on children
The NKVD had no mercy even for teenage girls.
Seeing conspiracies everywhere and oppositionists who wanted to overthrow him, Stalin unleashed terror on an unprecedented scale. Anyone could turn out to be an enemy of the people and a spy working for a hostile state.
Tens of millions of people were sent to labor camps, and millions were executed on the basis of NKVD sentences . No one was shown any mercy. Shots in the back of the head killed both men, women and old men, as well as teenage girls (read more about this).
4. Deportation deep into the USSR of approximately 320,000 citizens of pre-war Poland
Stalin was responsible for the deportation to the East of about 320,000 citizens of pre-war Poland.
After the invasion of Poland on September 17, 1939, the eastern regions of the Second Polish Republic were incorporated into the Soviet Union. Stalin, wishing to counteract any manifestations of resistance, decided to carry out large-scale resettlements from the occupied territories.
As a result of four deportation operations from February 1940 to June 1941, about 320,000 citizens of the Second Polish Republic were expelled . This number included approximately 200,000-210,000 Poles, 70,000 Jews, 25,000 Ukrainians and 20,000 Belarusians (read more on this topic).
3. Almost 700,000 victims of the Great Purge
The dock of defendants during the second Moscow trial.
"A revolution like Saturn devours its own children." Danton's words perfectly illustrate what happened in the Soviet Union after Stalin took full power. The paranoid dictator decided to crack down on all (real and imaginary) opposition.
The arrests hit party members, the military and even the security apparatus. Bestial torture caused detainees to confess to the most absurd allegations. As a result, in the years 1937-1938 alone, almost 700,000 citizens of the Soviet Union were shot by a special court of the NKVD (read more about this).
2. The Katyn Massacre
Mass grave of officers murdered in Katyn. Photo taken during the exhumation in 1943.
For decades, the USSR authorities and Polish communists tried to blame the Germans for the Katyn massacre. But it was Stalin on March 5, 1940 gave the order that resulted in the murder of almost 22,000 citizens of pre-war Poland.
In addition to the Polish Army officers, the death pits in Katyn, Kharkiv and Miednoje included, among others, officials, policemen, landowners and prison service employees. Discussions continue to this day on what pushed Stalin to commit this crime (read more on this).
1. Great Famine in Ukraine
One of the millions of victims of the Holodomor.
Ruthless collectivization, carried out by order of Stalin at the turn of the 1920s and 1930s, led to the famine in the Soviet Union. The catastrophe hit Ukraine particularly hard. To make matters worse, when it turned out that the kolkhozes did not produce enough food, the Soviet dictator decided to take advantage of the situation and crack down on the Ukrainian national movement.
Draconian penalties were introduced for hiding food, and during brutal requisitions, almost all accumulated supplies were taken from the peasants. We didn't have to wait long for the effects. Entire villages were dying out, and cannibalism became a real scourge. To this day, it is not known exactly how many victims were consumed by the Great Famine. According to various estimates, it was from 4 to 10 million human lives. Suffice it to mention that the average life expectancy of women born in Ukraine in 1933 was 8 years, and that of men only 5 years (read more on this topic).
You can read about the horror of the Great Famine in the latest book by Anne Applebaum:
