How Stalin Went From Nobody To Ruthless Dictator

Comments · 30

• CH

  @Chronostodon · 5 days ago (edited)

  Trotsky was a peculiar character. Not only was he a paragon of revolutionaries, he was an exceptionally brilliant orator, a student of the French Revolution, and a highly educated, well-read, well-spoken, and well-traveled intellectual. People would wait for his speeches; he would walk in, deliver his speech, and leave, while the audience continued applauding after he was gone. In this respect, he was even better than Lenin himself. He was the S list intellectual figure, so to speak.<br><br>By comparison, Stalin was an uneducated peasant, street thug, a school dropout who couldn&apos;t speak Russian properly. Stalin knew it, and Trotsky knew it. Stalin would attend meetings, but Trotsky and his followers who were all students of the French Revolution, would barely acknowledge him, knowing he had little to contribute to their discussions. They engaged in highly intellectual debates that were beyond Stalin&apos;s reach and understanding, making him look like a dumb, uneducated oaf.<br><br>Stalin took note of that humiliation and held the grudge. It was one of many factors behind what followed: once he finally ascended to the top, he came after them one by one and eliminated them.<br><br>Stalin, though, had one thing on Trotsky: Trotsky was so convinced of his own intellectual superiority in revolutionary thought that he could come across as arrogant. After giving rousing speeches, he would often leave immediately without meeting ordinary people. Stalin, by contrast, was not someone who could produce revolutionary ideas or deliver speeches with Trotsky’s flair, but he was more down-to-earth. Before and after his speeches, he would meet ordinary people, often walking down the aisles and mingling with them. Perhaps he genuinely wanted to cultivate the image of a man of the people, or perhaps he was compensating for his lack of rhetorical brilliance. Either way, he won their hearts. Trotsky won minds; Stalin won hearts when the two were competing for influence.

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• CU

  @curtiswilson859 · 3 hours ago (edited)

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2DYVYAxoRw&amp;t=5440">1:30:40</a> When I first read Orwell, I didn’t understand the end of 1984 is almost certainly this

• RA

  @rajkoner · 1 day ago

  Why the impact of secret microphones is not being considered?? &nbsp;Stalin already used it to find the best time to sell his Grain.. May be he used the same to identify the list.. May be its not random..it&apos;s the microphone whom he and Beria have access to....

• GO

  @gonono1966 · 5 days ago

  I think the chaos of Russian revolutions created Stalins personality of paranoia, cruelty, etc... This personality could survive the chaos and rise to absolute power. It just happened.<br><br>Even with hindsight situation is very hard to understand. In 1917 many world leaders made a lot of awful mistakes. It&apos;s important to study this.

• FR

  @frode-d2s · 6 days ago

  I&apos;m confused, Do they claim that Churchill is strongly against the rise of the U.S.S.R because he sends what he think is &apos;humane&apos; weapons to fight them with, or that he sympathize in some weird way because he sends &apos;humane&apos; weapons ? I understand that they think Churchill is against the rise of U.S.S.R but if one was a hardliner one might send rifles, tanks, money, food, artillery, not pistols, pistols wold ofcorse be a statement that you intend to fight but.. it&apos;s just not the same dedication

• CA

  @Cardesse-Montaklar · 6 days ago

  part of the reason trotsky is outmaneuvered, which the hosts and the guest leave out, is that trotsky is personally very unpopular with the other bolsheviks. he behaved arrogantly and disrespectfully, apparently he made a point of conspicuously reading novels during official meetings

  9

• RO

  @rolandscales9380 · 5 days ago

  I had a Russian colleague who wouldn&apos;t hear a word against Stalin. Or Putin. Or even Margaret Thatcher.

  3

• GO

  @GoloMedia-q9g · 2 days ago (edited)

  Complete bias. Stalin wasn&apos;t nobody, he was underground revolutionary, the type people Lenin wanted to attract. He was a true believer and went jail several times. Stalin was also a political Commissar, same rank as Lt General &nbsp;during the Russian Civil war &nbsp;worked closely with Buddony, and Voroshilov captured Tsarisyn and almost captured Lvov. &nbsp;Western propagandas from the guest. Stalin was super intelligent , willing to in take risk that other Bolsheviks did not.

  2

• MA

  @marcuslarsson9548 · 6 days ago

  Except the cia themself said Stalin was subordinate to the party

  5

• JD

  @JDRRobb · 9 hours ago

  <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2DYVYAxoRw&amp;t=4040">1:07:20</a> How is the West&apos;s version of Stalin&apos;s wife accepted but not the Russian one. How did the West know above Russia. Not explained...<br>Many examples of this here, Western version over the Russian... How did they know? 😶‍🌫️<br>Not saying it wasn&apos;t correct, but we need corroboration...

• GM

  @gmdtvh · 1 day ago

  The most terrifying thing is that the current regime in Moscow is reviving the cult of Stalin. I don&apos;t think the world is aware how scary this is.

  1

• AN

  @AnEnemy100 · 5 days ago

  Anyone interested in this period really should read the full text of Open Letter To Stalin by Fyodor ‘Raskolnikov’ Ilyin. <br><br>It is an excellent accusation against Stalin from a communist perspective and includes this line which had me in stitches:<br><br>“You are a cook who prepares spicy dishes, which are inedible for a normal human stomach.”

  2