"Person of the Year" Joseph Stalin

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Time first named Stalin "Person of the Year" in 1939 for signing the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. The magazine then called the document the last attempt to resist the Third Reich by diplomacy and at the same time a sentence to Poland, which was divided by the pact between the USSR and Germany.

In 1942, Stalin again became "Person of the Year". This time, Time awarded the leader of the nations not for breaking the world order, but for fierce resistance to the invasion of the German army in the early years of the war.

“1942 became the year of blood and fortitude,” Time wrote in 1943, “And the man of 1942 was the one whose name in Russian means“steel”, and among the few words he knows in English there is also the American expression“tough guy ", tough guy. Only Joseph Stalin knows exactly how close to defeat Russia was in 1942, and only he knows exactly how he managed to lead the country over the edge of the abyss. The whole world, however, is clear what would have happened otherwise. And this is best understood by Adolf Hitler, whose past successes are crumbling to dust. If the German legions broke through Stalingrad, as strong as iron and destroyed the offensive potential of Russia, Hitler would become not only the "man of the year", but also the undivided master of Europe, and could prepare for the conquest of other continents. He could free up no less than 250 victorious divisions for new conquests in Asia and Africa. But Joseph Stalin managed to stop him. He already succeeded once - in 1941; but then, by the beginning of the war, the entire territory of Russia was at his disposal. In 1942, Stalin achieved much more. This is the second time he has deprived Hitler of all the fruits of his success."

How did Stalin see the American edition at the beginning of 1943? “Behind the dark brick towers of the Kremlin, in his office, sheathed with birch panels, Joseph Stalin, an impenetrable, practical, stubborn Asian, spent 16-18 hours a day at his desk. In front of him is a large globe, through which Stalin followed the campaign in the very places that he defended in 1917-20, during the civil war. And he again managed to defend these lands - with almost one force of will. His hair grew gray, and fatigue ripped his granite face with new lines. But he still holds firmly in his hands the reins of government; in addition, his abilities as a statesman, albeit belatedly, were recognized outside of Russia."

The following were noted as outstanding deeds of the Soviet leader. Stalin managed to overcome "long-standing suspicions of the" state of workers and peasants "and its head" on the part of Western leaders, he managed to defend Moscow and Stalingrad and prepared "a winter offensive that swept along the Don bend with the fury of a snowstorm that accompanied him." And although "in the rear, Stalin could offer people only hard work and black bread," in 1942, "he added to this the promise of victory, and called on the people to collective self-sacrifice to preserve what he had built by common efforts." “Production norms were raised, the apartments were not heated, the electricity was turned off four days a week. For the New Year, Russian children did not receive new toys and wooden figures of Santa Claus in a red coat as a gift. The adults had no smoked salmon, herring, goose, vodka or coffee on the table. But this did not prevent them from rejoicing. The homeland was saved for the second time in two years; victory and peace must be around the corner now!"

In addition, the newspaper noted, Stalin, who left his "impenetrable shell", showed himself to be "a skillful player at the international" card table "" and "skillfully used the world press to present his arguments about the need to increase aid to Russia."

According to the American magazine, in 1942, Stalin revealed himself "as a true statesman."And if earlier the Western world mocked the Bolsheviks, whom it considered only "bearded anarchists with a bomb in each hand", then 1942 clearly showed that the result of the activities of the Soviet leadership "was the creation of a powerful state led by a party that held out in power longer than any large party in other countries. " Stalin, taking a step away from the communist theory and focusing on building socialism in "a single country", achieved that "under him Russia became one of the four largest industrial powers in the world." “How successfully he coped with the task became clear when, during the Second World War, Russia surprised the whole world with its power. Stalin acted with abrupt methods, but they brought results,”concluded Time.

Translation:

Not one step back!

1942 was a year of blood and strength. The man whose name means "steel" in Russian, the one whose English vocabulary includes Americanism "tough guy" is "The Man of 1942". Only Joseph Stalin knows how close Russia was to the defeat in 1942. And only Joseph Stalin knows how he managed to save Russia.

But the whole world knows what the alternative could be, and the person who knew about it best was Adolf Hitler, who turned his past merits into dust.

If the German legions swept away the unshakable Stalingrad and destroyed the Russian strike forces, Hitler would be not only "Man of the Year", but also the undisputed master of Europe, looking for new continents to conquer. He would send at least 250 victorious divisions to Asia and Africa for new conquests. But Joseph Stalin stopped him. Stalin did it earlier - in 1941 - when he started from all over untouched Russia. But Stalin's achievement in 1942 was much more significant. Everything that Hitler could give, he took - for the second time.

People of Goodwill.

Beyond the heavy steps of the marching nations, beyond the abrupt sounds from the battlefields, in 1942 only a few who fought for peace were heard.

William Temple of Britain, who made the pilgrimage to Canterbury in 1942 and became the new archbishop, was one of them. His church-backed reform agenda brought religion closer to the center of public life in Britain than anything since the Cromwell Puritans. Temple challenged all established British institutions of economic privilege, betrothed on the basis of human economic freedom (which Britain casually dubbed socialism), perhaps in order to gain a permanent foothold in history.

Another person who left a similar mark was Henry J. Kaiser, the man who launched one of his Liberty for four days and 15 hours and, most importantly, preached like a down-to-earth businessman, “full production in full time. His holy gospel provoked American industry to lead the world out of the post-war depression.

The third person "marked" by history is Wendell Wilkie. His cycling around the world as a politician without an office may have had a more lasting impact on US-Soviet and US-Eastern relations than the US imagines.

But Wilkie's success is overshadowed by his inability to provide solid support to his party, and the fact that this happened precisely in 1942 - a year of war, when people of goodwill do not enjoy the same success as the military and politicians.

People of war.

The "fiery" Erwin Rommel and the "taciturn" Theodor von Bock were the main German generals of this year. These are people whose laurels were deserved in battles. Rommel, who walked 70 miles to Alexandria before being stopped by the British, has a reputation as one of the greatest virtuosos among warlords. Bock led a brilliant campaign - his army reached the western bank of the Volga, but the spark of victory did not burn in him.

The most high-profile conquests of this year - although not against the most powerful armies - Tomoyuki Yamashita with crooked "frog" legs smoked the British from Singapore, the Dutch from Indochina and the United States from the islands of Bataan and Corregidor. Within a year, Yamashita successfully conquered an entire empire for his country. On his side were the advantages in numbers, training and dullness of the countries of the Union, but Yamashita happily benefited from this.

Other were the military successes of the Yugoslav general Drazhe Mikhailovich, who profited by giving the defeated country victorious advice to fight for its freedom, even if the struggle seemed impossible. But a year earlier, thousands of his fellow citizens fled the country, perhaps because of even more mistrust in the exiled Yugoslav government than in Mikhailovich, who supported rival guerrilla groups pursuing their own interests. From the rocky peaks in southern Serbia, the excellent warrior Mikhailovich saw, instead of uniting his homeland, a picture of a struggle of intentions and a clash of ideologies that could lead to an explosion of civil wars in post-war Europe.

The United States, for its part, in 1942 gave its military a couple of chances for great achievement. The occupation of North Africa by General Eisenhower only put him on the verge of a real test. General McCarthur's brilliant agility and courage made him famous as a hero when he won a seemingly lost battle, but he still lacks the ability to achieve the crown of the true winner. On a special account among the American military for merits in battles is the name of Admiral William Halsey, who more than once, but again and again, takes on the task of pushing back the Japanese with his quick fights and crushing them with accurate strikes on the target.

Not a single soldier from Rommel to Halsey became the "Person of the Year" -42 for a good reason - not a single decisive victory was won during the year.

Politicians.

There is no more inappropriate place to search for "Person of the Year" -42 than exhausted France. But there are two French people who are not liked and not trusted by the States, but who, all the same, have risen to the top of the dirty political heap. One of them is Pierre Laval, who deserved the honor of meeting Hitler, to which the tragicomic Benito Mussolini was not invited. If Hitler wins, Pierre Laval may still be a happy man.

Jean François Darlan's deal with General Eisenhower might have benefited him, but his only reward was the assassin's bullet.

The political steps of the Japanese are much more significant. With horn-rimmed glasses and cigar anti-aircraft smoke, Premier Hideki Tojo appears as a character worthy of his nickname: Razor. He, like Stalin, is uncompromising. Like his people. It was a great political risk on his part to resist Britain and the United States, and he speculated on this for a whole year. His army captured Hong Kong, the Philippines, Singapore, the Dutch colonies in East India, and Burma. Never before has any country conquered so much in such a short time. And rarely has a country's combat capability been so grossly underestimated. Tojo, or the Emperor Hirohito, in whose name all Japanese are given the symbol of a holy war, could have received the title of "Man of the Year" if the explosive Japanese campaigns were not fading away.

For the big politicians of the United Nations, 1942 is a different story. The Chinese generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek is fiercely fighting the internal Chinese problems and the Japanese occupation. In Britain, Winston Churchill, 1940's Man of the Year, abandoned the victory in Egypt on the brink of defeat. Franklin, "Person of the Year" -41, has taken on a huge burden of problems, some he solves, the rest he leaves as before. He is stoically shifting the US stake in the fight against the Axis. But in 1942, the successes of Chiang Kai-shek, Churchill and Roosevelt would not be effective until 1943.

And, although they can prove their worth, they definitely pale in comparison with Joseph Stalin in 1942.

At the beginning of the year, Stalin was in an unenviable position. Within a year he was forced to surrender 400,000 miles of his territory in order to save most of the army. Most of the excellent tanks, aircraft and military equipment that he had stored for years against Nazi attacks were also lost. Lost about one third of Russia's industrial capacity, which he counted on to replenish. Russia has lost about half of the best agricultural areas.

Together with this loss, another blow fell on Stalin - the full-fledged war machine of the Nazis. For every trained soldier lost by Germany in last year's battles, he lost, perhaps much more. For every crumb of valuable experience for his soldiers and commanders, the Germans had the opportunity to receive the same amount.

Stalin still retained the incredible will of the Russians to resist - they have as much claim to fame as the British who stood up to the 1940 blitz. But these strong people were unable to forestall the loss of Belarus and Ukraine. Will they be able to do this in the case of the Don basin, Stalingrad, the Caucasus? Even the strongest will be crushed by incessant defeats.

In 1942, Stalin could only count on US help. And, as the further development of events showed, the aid was late and was stopped on the routes to the North Sea and in the Caucasus.

Stalin, with extremely scarce resources at his disposal, tried to find a solution by recruiting capable commanders into the army, increasing the army's resistance, morally supporting malnourished people, trying to get more help from the allies and force them to open a second front.

Only Stalin himself knows how he managed to make 1942 better for Russia than 1941. But he did it. Sevastopol has already been lost, the Don River basin is close to this, the Germans reached the Caucasus. But Stalingrad resisted. The Russians held their own. The Russian army returned after four offensive operations, in which the Germans suffered at the end of the year.

It was Russia that demonstrated greater strength than at any other moment in this war. The general who won that final battle was the man who led the Russians.

His human features.

Behind the dark towers of the Kremlin, in a birch-lined office, Joseph Stalin (pronounced Stal-in), an unpredictable, unwaveringly stubborn Asian, works 16-18 hours a day at his desk. In front of him is a huge globe, which reflects the course of the war in the territories that he himself defended in the civil war of 1917-1920. Stalin again defends them and mainly with the power of his mind. Gray hair has grown on the head, and signs of fatigue appear on the face, carved out of granite. *

But, ruling Russia, do not wait for interruptions, and outside the USSR they did not recognize his abilities for a long time.

Stalin's problem as a statesman was to show the seriousness of Russia’s position as an ally to Western leaders who had long regarded Stalin and his proletarian state with suspicion. Stalin, who seriously believed that the city named after him would quickly fall after the heroic siege that began on 24 August, desperately wanted allied help. Stalin the politician turned these desires into the hope of the Russian people. He convinced them that a second front on the continent had already been promised and thereby strengthened their tenacity.

For his army, Stalin came up with a motto: "Die, but do not retreat" ("Not one step back"). This motto was applied to Moscow, a heavily fortified city capable of withstanding mechanized attacks. Stalin decided to make something similar out of Stalingrad. While the Germans and Russians were killing each other in the bomb-chipped streets, Stalin was creating a winter offensive that would suddenly begin in the Don Basin with snowstorms helping it.

To maintain a stable situation inside the country, Stalin had only work and black bread. He promised to win in 1942 and called on the people to collectively sacrifice for the sake of what they were building collectively. Women and children were looking for brushwood in the forest. The ballerina canceled the show because she was exhausted after chopping wood. Production rates were raised, dwellings were not heated, and electricity was turned off 4 days a week. Russian children did not receive new toys for the New Year. And there were no wooden footprints of Santa Claus covered with red cloth. There was no smoked salmon, pickled herring, goose, vodka and coffee for adults. But there was a triumph! The homeland has been saved for the second time in two years, which means victory and peace will soon be.

The arrival of high-ranking politicians in Moscow in 1942 forced Stalin to throw off his impenetrable shell and show himself to be a hospitable host and a master who profits from international relations. At a banquet in honor of Winston Churchill, Averill Harriman and Wendell Wilkie, Stalin drank vodka and expressed himself directly. He sent his foreign minister, Vyacheslav Molotov, to London and Washington to seek the opening of a second front and stimulate slow shipments of military equipment. In two letters to Henry Cessedy, he used the headlines of the world's newspapers to insist on more active aid to Russia.

Stalin did not achieve a second front on the continent in 1942, but he publicly approved the opening of a second front in North Africa. On the day of the 25th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Stalin delivered a speech to the whole country, in which he analyzed past events and spoiled the mood in advance with his skillful policy.

Past.

The flames of revolution, fueled in 1917 by the leather-clad proletariat and pale dull intellectuals waving red flags, by 1942 had cooled to a one-party government - the government of a party that had remained in power longer than any other in the world. This entire system was built under the leadership of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, based on the principles of a Marxist economy without money and rejecting the right to earn capital by private entrepreneurship.

The world vilified the USSR and drew cartoons in which the first Bolsheviks were portrayed as anarchists with bushy sideburns, holding a bomb in each hand. But Lenin, faced with reality and an illiterate, war-burned people, partly departed from Marxist theory. Following his path, Stalin departed from Marxism even more, limiting himself to building socialism in a single state.

Ownership and disposal of the means of production should be in the hands of the state - it was this basic concept that kept Russia from shaking during all these years.

In the midst of the eternal Russian disorder, Stalin needed to give people enough food and improve their lot in the 20th century by industrial methods. So he collectivized the farms and turned Russia into one of the four great industrial countries in the world. How much he succeeded in this is evidenced by the strength of Russia that surprised the world in World War II. Stalin's measures were brutal, but justified.

The present.

Of all the countries, the United States should have been the first to understand Russia. But this did not happen - Russia was ignored, Stalin was treated with suspicion. The old prejudices and antics of the American Communists who flirted at the other end of the line were different. The Allies fought a common enemy, but Russia fought the best. And as allies after the war, they hold in their hands the keys to a successful peace.

The two peoples who talk a lot and draw the biggest schemes are the Americans and the Russians. Sentimental now and blindingly furious the next minute. They spend extensively on goods and pleasure, drink too much, argue endlessly. Builders.

The US has built factories and factories and reclaimed 3,000 miles of land wide. Russia is trying to catch up with the United States, doing the same with the help of a planned economy, which did not constrain the descendants of the American pioneers. Russians believe and hope to receive the same human rights that every American citizen enjoys. Americans may need a little Russian discipline at the end of the war.

Future.

In a speech delivered on the 25th anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, Stalin argued that the most important event in international politics, both for peace and for war, is the formation of the Allied Countries. "We are dealing with facts and events," he said, "indicating the restoration of friendly relations in the Anglo-Soviet-American coalition and our further rallying into a single military alliance." This is an honest view of the post-war world, as healthy and realistic as Stalin's view of relations with Germany. “Our goal,” he said, “is not to destroy the entire armed forces of Germany. Any intelligent person will understand that this is impossible in the case of Germany, as in the case of Russia. This is unreasonable on the part of the winner. But to destroy Hitler's army is necessary and possible."

It is not officially known what kind of military goals Stalin pursues, but sources in high circles claim that he does not need any new territories, except for the borders, which make Russia invulnerable to invasion. There is also information from high circles that, continuing the tradition of the "tough guy", Stalin asks the allies for permission to demolish Berlin to the ground - as a psychological lesson for the Germans and as a biblical burnt offering for his own heroic people.

December 21, 1938 Stalin turned 61 years old. For the last three years this date has not been mentioned in the Soviet press and has not been recorded in the Soviet encyclopedia.

We conclude this publication with the words from the speech of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, which he said in the British Parliament following his visit to Moscow in August 1942, which is in many respects consonant with the American publication of January 1943: “Russia was very lucky that when she was in agony, in Its head turned out to be such a tough military leader. This is an outstanding personality, suitable for harsh times. A person is inexhaustiblely courageous, domineering, direct in actions and even rude in his statements. (…) However, he retained a sense of humor, which is very important for all people and nations, and especially for big people and great nations. Stalin also impressed me with his cold-blooded wisdom, in the complete absence of any illusions."