Tag Archives: Stalin

April 1 — The Day of Price Reductions in Stalin’s Time

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Stalingrad Pravda, April 1, 1953
“On the new reduction of the state retail prices for food and industrial goods”

Today at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden” we mark the true power of April the First – the day we were asked to forget!


Backup at Rumble.

On this day, every year, under Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin, there was yet another price reduction for all basic types of food and industrial goods. The regular post-war Stalinist reduction of prices for products and industrial goods was carried out from 1947 to April 1, 1954.

And after Iosif Stalin passed away, the other government gradually curtailed the annual price drop, advertising April 1 as a Fool’s day.

Video source

But that is not all!

The CIA feared that the USSR would… reduce the working day

The Soviet Union proposed this measure and doubled the standard of living to solve the problems it was facing at the time, such as the lack of wage control, insufficient economic efficiency, and a shortage of urban labour. Why did it work? And why did it worry the U.S. so much?

In 1956, the USSR implemented a wage increase that, within a decade, increased from 250 rubles per month to 500 and 600 for rural and urban workers respectively. It also reduced the working week from 48 hours to 41 over four years, with a view to further reducing it to 35 by 1968.

At first, the CIA was not concerned because it believed that reducing working hours would limit Soviet production and productivity, but by 1961, it was deeply concerned (remember, we are in the midst of the Cold War) that not only had these conditions not been affected, but they had actually improved in most cases.

With the reduction in working hours, hourly output increased by 10.5% in three years and by 10% in four. Employees performed better because they arrived more rested, given their more free time. Unemployment decreased, as more labour had to be hired to fill the vacant hours.

The reduction of the workday also enabled Soviet innovation. Since managers could no longer rely on long hours, they were forced to find advanced methods and develop new and improved technology to shorten working hours. This boosted both light and heavy industry.

Material from elOJOen, with the source at the CIA

The history of repressions devoid of emotion. Viktor Zemskov’s arguments and facts

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We present translations of two article in the newspaper “Argumenty i Fakty”:

– “The history of repressions devoid of emotion. Viktor Zemskov’s arguments and facts” from July 25, 2015, dispelling one of the myths surrounding Stalin – that of “tens of millions of repressed”, replacing it instead with impartial historical research.

– This is followed by a translation of an earlier article from 1989, “‘The Gulag Archipelago’: through the eyes of a writer and a statistician”, where Zemskov counters the misinformation in Solzhenicin’s work.

Read also: Myths about Stalin. Where do legs grow from? Reblog of a detailed research article!

Victor Nikolaevich Zemskov

The man who believed the facts

The official website of the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences reported that on July 21, 2015, Viktor Nikolaevich Zemskov, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Chief Researcher at the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Scientific Secretary of the Center for Military History of Russia, died suddenly at the age of 70.

“Viktor Nikolaevich’s whole life was inextricably linked with the Institute of Russian History of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he worked for more than 50 years,” the report says. — Viktor Nikolaevich became especially famous for his archival research. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, he was the discoverer of archival funds on the history of political repression in the USSR that had previously been closed to scientists.

Viktor Zemskov’s name won’t say much to a wide audience. His books were not published in millions of copies, they were not decorated with catchy titles. He preferred painstaking work with historical documents, rather than a pursuit of high-profile sensations.

In 1989, at the peak of “perestroika”, Zemskov joined the commission for determining population losses at the Department of History of the USSR Academy of Sciences, headed by Corresponding member of the USSR Academy of Sciences Yuri Polyakov. The Commission gained access to the statistical reports of the OGPU-NKVD-MVD-MGB, stored in the Central State Archive of the October Revolution.

These previously classified documents contained all the factual information about the real history of political repression during the Soviet period.

As already mentioned, Viktor Zemskov did not chase after sensations, but the research materials he published overturned ideas about the scale of political repression in the USSR.

The secret that has become disclosed

The historian, who had never hidden his negative attitude towards the Stalinist repressions, came to the conclusion that the data on tens and hundreds of millions of repressed people, which appeared in foreign studies and in media materials from the time of “perestroika”, do not reflect the reality.

Having thoroughly studied all the materials, Zemskov established that in the period from 1921 to 1953 in the USSR, 4,060,306 people were convicted of “counterrevolutionary and other particularly dangerous state crimes”, of which 799,455 people were sentenced to capital punishment.

Zemskov also refuted the popular statement about “a country where every second person went through prison camps”. According to the results of the study, it was found that the maximum total number of prisoners in camps in the entire Soviet history was recorded as of January 1, 1950 — 2,760,095 people, while the average number of prisoners ranged from 1.5 to 2.5 million people. At the same time, we are talking about both political prisoners and those convicted of criminal offences.

For comparison, the number of prisoners in the United States reached 2.2 million in 2013.
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Iosif Stalin, A Leader and A Poet

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It is a little-known fact that Iosif Dzhugashvili, future Stalin, had a passion for writing poetry in his student years, between 1893 and 1896. In the painting above, a young seminarist Iosif Dzhugashvili is depicted with a volume of Lenin’s work “What Is To Be Done?”

Only six poems by Stalin, published in 1895-96, in his native Georgian, survived until present day. Here is one of the poems, translated, preserving rhyme and rhythm, by Putinger’s Cat, from a Russian translation, providing us with a glimpse of who Stalin was as a young man.

The Russian translation from Georgian, used as the basis of the English translation, is provided below the English version.

💢💢💢

From a home to a home, he went,
Knocking on other folks’ doors,
With him, his oaken string instrument
And his unpretentious old song.

And in his song, and in his song,
As pure as sunlight’s shining gleam,
A profound truth was resounding,
A transcendental daydream.

Hearts that had turned into rock
He managed to make beat again;
Numerous minds he awoke
That, in deep darkness, had napped.

But people who’d forgotten God,
Their hearts holding darkness within,
A poison cup, filled to the top,
Offered him for a drink.

They said to him, “You, the cursed,
Here, bottoms up, empty this!
To us, that song of yours is foreign,
And we don’t want that truth of yours!”

💢💢💢

Ходил он от дома к дому,
Стучась у чужих дверей,
Со старым дубовым пандури,
С нехитрою песней своей.

А в песне его, а в песне –
Как солнечный блеск чиста,
Звучала великая правда,
Возвышенная мечта.

Сердца, превращённые в камень,
Заставить биться сумел,
У многих будил он разум,
Дремавший в глубокой тьме.

Но люди, забывшие Бога,
Хранящие в сердце тьму,
Полную чашу отравы
Преподнесли ему.

Сказали ему: „Проклятый,
Пей, осуши до дна…
И песня твоя чужда нам,
И правда твоя не нужна!»

💢💢💢

Credits for finding this poem and inspiring this translation go to Beorn and the Shieldmaiden.

Poem source.

Soviet attitude towards German people during World War II. Historical documents.

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The question of the attitude of the Soviet leadership and the Red Army towards the German population at large, is one that is subject to constant manipulation by the NATO – the heirs to the Third Reich.

The manipulation and rewriting of history is best countered by the actual historic documents of the time. Let us start with a quote from January 1945, which we posted at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”. Note that we are still working on tracking down the actual

On January 19, 1945, the USSR People’s Commissar of Defence Iosif Stalin signed an order “On behaviour on the territory of Germany”, which stated:

“Officers and Red Army soldiers!

We are going into the enemy’s country. Everyone must maintain self-control, everyone must be brave…

The remaining population in the conquered areas, regardless of whether they are German, Czech, or Polish, must not be subjected to violence. The guilty will be punished according to the laws of wartime.

Sexual relations with the female sex are not allowed in the conquered territory. Those guilty of violence and rape will be shot.”

Stalin’s order was followed by orders from the commanders of the 1st and 2nd Belorussian and 1st Ukrainian Fronts, Marshals of the Soviet Union Georgy Zhukov (January 29), Konstantin Rokossovsky (January 21, order No. 006) and Ivan Konev (January 27), who prohibited “oppressing the German population, robbing apartments and burning houses.”

The commanders called on the Red Army soldiers to direct their feelings of hatred “to the extermination of the enemy on the battlefield.”

Source

This order was a continuation of the policy of not extending the wrath against the Nazis to the German nation at large. Let us now read the order issued by Iosif Stalin on February 23, 1942, published in the newspaper “Pravda”. The text in Russian can be found at the Electronic Library of Historic Documents, downloaded as a PDF file, or read below the translation.

Order of the People’s Commissar of Defence of the USSR No. 55 dated February 23, 1942

Comrades, Red Army soldiers and Red Navy seamen, commanders and political workers, partisans!

The peoples of our country celebrate the 24th anniversary of the Red Army in the harsh days of the Patriotic War against Nazi Germany, which brazenly and viciously encroached on the life and freedom of our Motherland. Along the vast front from the Arctic Ocean to the Black Sea, soldiers of the Red Army and Navy are waging fierce battles to expel the Nazi invaders from our country and defend the honour and independence of our Fatherland.

This is not the first time that the Red Army has had to defend our Homeland from enemy attacks. The Red Army was created 24 years ago to fight the troops of foreign interventionist invaders who sought to dismember our country and destroy its independence. The young detachments of the Red Army, who entered the war for the first time, completely defeated the German invaders near Pskov and Narva on February 23, 1918. That is why February 23, 1918, was declared the birthday of the Red Army. Since then, the Red Army has grown and strengthened in the fight against foreign interventionist invaders. It defended our Homeland in the battles with the German invaders in 1918, expelling them from the borders of Ukraine and Belarus. It defended our Homeland in the battles with the foreign troops of the Entente in 1919-1921, expelling them from the borders of our country.
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A 1935 conversation between I.Stalin and Lord Keeper of the Seal of Great Britain, A.Eden

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The documentary by Andrey Medvedev, “The Great Unknown War” mentions an episode taking place towards the end of the meeting between Iosif Stalin and Anthony Eden in Moscow on the 29th of March 1935, illustrating that the Soviet leadership were fully aware of who igniters of the coming war are, and the inevitability of a war in Europe, despite Soviet Union’s best efforts to prevent it.

The League of Nations.
The Geneva Lawyer: “Where do you see war? Which war? I have no war registered here.”

This 1932 caricature by the famous Soviet caricaturist Boris Yefimov illustrates the reservations regarding the potency of the League of Nations, that the reader will notice in the transcript of the entire meeting, which adds more eye-opening details of the British-German-Soviet relations. And ponder, how similar this is to the West turning a blind eye on Ukraine – with the OCSE “not noticing” the regular shelling of Donbass by Ukraine between 2014 and 2022. (This caricature is presented in our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”)

Additional reading: President Vladimir Putin on keeping the records of the pre-WWII time straight.


Stalin I.V. – Recording of a conversation with the Lord Keeper of the Seal of Great Britain A. Eden

March 29, 1935

The source: Stalin I.V. Works. – Vol. 18. – Tver: Information-publishing center “Soyuz”, 2006. pp. 86-91.

The visit took place in the Kremlin, in the office of comrade Molotov. Attended by: comrades Stalin, Molotov, Litvinov, Maysky, and from the British side – Eden, the British Ambassador, Chilston and the head of the League of Nations section in the British Foreign Office, Strang. The whole conversation lasted about an hour and a quarter.

After the first greetings, Eden began the conversation. He said something like this:

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Exhibition of Samples of Trophy Weapons (1943-1948). An article and a documentary.

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The article you are about to read is dedicated to the exhibition of the weaponry from Germany and their accomplices, trophied after their invasion of the USSR on the 22nd of June 1941.

On the 22nd of June 1943, exactly two years after the Nazi Germany invaded the USSR, the central park of Moscow, bearing the name of Maxim Gorky, opened its gates to an extensive exhibition over the trophied armaments of Nazi-Germany and its accomplices. The exhibition lasted until 1948.

The article consists of three parts: first comes the cinematographic essay, filmed in 1943 to give an overview of the exhibition, then a short note with the documents from Moscow City Archive, and finally, a portion of a historiographic work, dedicated to the exhibition.

Only one thought to add – the tradition that started during the Great Patriotic War of 1941-1945 has now seen a rebirth during the present-day Patriotic War, with the exhibition of the weaponry of the Nazi Germany’s successor being displayed on the Poklonnaya Mountain in Moscow from the 1st of May 2024.

We publish about the trophy exhibition, past and present, at our Telegram channel “Beorn And The Shieldmaiden”, for example in this and this post.

Let’s go!

Trophies of the Great Battles

A short cinematographic essay, filmed in colour, presented the visible testimony over the ongoing victories on the battlefield over the invading horde.

The essay is full of jabs and snide remarks, mixed with facts and figures – just the way we like to watch the parallel present-day events unfold now, 80 years later.


Backup at Rumble.

Visible evidence of our victories: The Moscow Main Archive tells about the exhibition of captured German weapons

23.04.2020

The Main Archive of the capital contains documents documenting the creation of an exhibition of samples of weapons and military equipment trophied by the Red Army in battles with Nazi troops and their allies. The exposition was opened on June 22, 1943 and operated until 1948.

The decision to create an exhibition pavilion “Trophies of War” on the territory of Gorky Park was made back in December 1941, when the successful counteroffensive of Soviet troops near Moscow provided residents of the capital with exhibits of the most diverse kind. In 1942, the exhibition pavilion began to operate. However, it was located deep inside the territory of the park, near the border with the Neskuchny Garden, and did not attract mass attention. A more impressive demonstration of our combat achievements was needed.
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The History of Creation of Israel – The Soviet Side of Story

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The political sensibilities of a historic period may lead to decisions that result in unforeseen and undesired consequences down the historical road. The approval of the creation of Israel by the Soviet leader Iosif Stalin is one such event. True, shortly after wards the USSR would break the diplomatic relations with Israel, once its real natur became apparent. The USSR would even have to perform a little-known military operation against Israel to “dissuade” it from using nuclear weapons on its neighbours.

How did the USSR and Stalin personally create Israel, and why did the Jews betray the Soviet Union after that

6th of February 2021

In 1948, US President Truman was the first to recognize the State of Israel. And the Israelis do not get tired of reminding us about this till this day. Schools, libraries and hospitals in Israel are named after the 33rd President of the United States. For this reason, many mistakenly believe that the United States created the state of Israel.

But few people know that the key role in the creation of Israel was actually played by the Soviet Union and personally by Iosif Stalin. But how and why did the Soviet leader create Israel?

In January 1946, with a difference of only 2 days, Stalin received two letters. One was on behalf of the Jewish National Liberation Committee. The other came on behalf of the Arab committee. The authors of the first epistle asked Iosif Vissarionovich to help in the creation of a Jewish state on the territory of Palestine. The authors of the second one – to not let this happen. A year and a half later the whole world would learn of the decision that Stalin had made.

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Myths about Stalin. Where do legs grow from? Reblog of a detailed research article

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Black myths have always been attached to the Russian leaders who looked after the interests of the country and did not fall under the spell of the outside influences. Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin is one such leader, whose memory was defamed and desecrated both by the internal political rivals, like Hrushov, and by the external enemies. I plan to publish several articles that take aim at debunking these black myths surrounding the historical figure of Stalin. As always, when looking at history, one must remain dispassionate and look at the events not through the prism of modern sensibilities, but as a contemporary to the events, with all the challenges that the leadership of the USSR faced at that time.

Today, on the 145th anniversary of Iosif Stalin’s birth, I want to start with a reblog of an excellent article by Olga of the Siberian Matrëshka Telegram channel, which I can warmly recommend.

Myths about Stalin. Where do legs grow from?

Olga🪆July 21, 2023

First of all, there was no Communism in the USSR. The USSR had a communist state ideology and a socialist system.

One of the most terrible and destructive myths about the Soviet Union is the lie about the “bloody regime” of Stalin, who allegedly destroyed tens of millions of innocent people. Few people know that this myth was created back in Nazi Germany, and only later it was used by the United States in the information war against Soviet civilization.

Despite a number of fundamental studies based on the factual material of the archives, which showed the inconsistency of Joseph Stalin’s accusations of mass repressions and terror, the false myth supported by slanderers like Solzhenitsyn, Radzinsky, Suvorov-Rezun continues to dominate the information field of Russia and the world community. The dirty work of denigrating Russian and Soviet history continues, within the framework of the global historical and informational confrontation between Russian civilization (Rus) and the West. Citizens of Russia (especially young people), not to mention Ukraine and other post-Soviet republics, continue to be stuffed with horror stories about death and murder in labour camps of the GULAG (Main Directorate of Camps and Places of Detention), stories about millions of people who died of starvation and were deliberately destroyed in the USSR, about the alleged premeditation of the Holodomor in Ukraine, about the inhuman cruelty of the Soviet punitive system, “the bloodiest in the world”. The repressions against the kulaks and the “fifth column” take on an absolutely fantastic character in these stories, and Stalin becomes a villain of a literally galactic scale. All this is superimposed on the image of the USSR-Russia in the world – as an “evil empire” and “Russian Mordor”, where there live “fierce” Muscovites, scoops-padded coats, ready at the first opportunity to drown in the blood of all dissidents in Russia itself, as well as to drive to their “concentration camp” and the surrounding peoples.

The myth of the “bloody Stalinist regime” was created back in Nazi Germany. After the Nazis came to power in Germany, they used information and psycho-technologies to properly indoctrinate the population. The Minister of Propaganda was Joseph Goebbels, who propagated dreams of a racially pure people living in Greater Germany, an empire with vast living space. This living space included the territory to the east of Germany, the Russian lands, including Little Russia-Ukraine. The conquest of living space meant a big war, a war with the USSR. Therefore, the Nazi Propaganda Ministry, headed by Goebbels, launched an information campaign around the alleged genocide organized by the Communists in Ukraine, the terrible famine (Holodomor) organized personally by Stalin. The purpose of the Nazi propaganda was to prepare the world community for the “liberation” of Ukraine by German troops from the “bloody Bolshevik yoke”. Later, the Ukrainian Nazis (Bandera) used the same lie about an artificial famine to sit on the neck of the people of Little Russia-Ukraine.

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Stalin’s Address to the Nation on the 3rd of July 1941 – The manuscript published for the first time. The complete text of the speech is included.

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In the historical work “2 Years”, the Danish underground resistance publication in the German occupied Denmark that we recently published in this blog, we took a special note on page 6 of how rumours were spreading in the West, grounded in the silence from Stalin, and how they abruptly vanished once the historical speech was held on the 3rd of July 1941. There we reproduced a fragment of the speech. Now, thanks to the translated RIA Novosti publication (a news agency which is, incidentally censored in the freedom-of-speech-loving West), we can take a closer look at how that speech came to be.

The manuscript of Stalin’s appeal in connection with the beginning of the Second World War was published for the first time

03.07.2023 © RIA Novosti

The Presidential Library has published the manuscript of Stalin’s address in connection with the outbreak of the War

Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. Archive photo

MOSCOW, July 3 – RIA Novosti. 82 years ago Joseph Stalin planned to begin the appeal to the Soviet people in connection with the Great Patriotic War strictly officially, confining himself to the word “comrades”, while the famous words “brothers and sisters”, “I am addressing you, my friends” did not sound according to the original handwritten text of the speech – this follows from its photocopy, published for the first time on the website of the Presidential Library.

According to historians, Stalin’s speech to the citizens of the USSR on the radio on the 3rd of July 1941 played an important role in the mobilization of the population in the initial period of the war. The text of the speech was prepared in an extremely short time span, and at a critical moment for the Soviet state: the situation at the front was catastrophic, on the 28th of June, Soviet troops left Minsk. On the 30th of June, at Stalin’s residence at the “Near Dacha” in Kuntsevo, a decision was made to create the State Defence Committee, which concentrated the full power in the country in its hands.

The text of the speech of the head of state with an appeal to the people in connection with the outbreak of war was compiled in the first days of July. The text, dictated by Stalin, was written down by his assistant Alexander Poskrebyshev using a simple pencil. Stalin also made edits and additions with just a pencil.

The radio broadcast was conducted directly from the Kremlin. At 6 a.m. on the 3rd of July 1941, the announcer of the All-Union Radio, Yuri Levitan, announced Stalin’s upcoming speech, after which he held the speech.

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Stalin’s Speech at the November 7th 1941 Parade on the Red Square

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This historic speech was given by Iosif Stalin at the darkest hour, when the enemy was at the gates of Moscow. The speech and the parade marked the turning point of the war. In many ways it is prophetic, but it also has references to the immediate past, which are important to understand.

Knowing this text will be important for the context of two translations that I intend to publish on and after the Victory day.

The complete text in Russian can be read here.


Comrade fighters of the Red Army and the Red Navy, commanders and political instructors, labourers, collective farmers, workers of intellectual work, brothers and sisters in the rear of our enemy, temporarily fallen under the yoke of the German brigands, our glorious partisans, destroying the rear of the German invaders!

On behalf of the Soviet government and our Bolshevik party I greet and congratulate you on the 24th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution.

Comrades! It is in difficult conditions that we have to celebrate the 24th anniversary of the October revolution today. The treacherous attack of the German brigands and the war imposed on us have created a threat to our country. We temporarily lost a number of regions, and the enemy found themselves at the gates of Leningrad and Moscow. The enemy counted on the fact that after the first blow our army would be scattered, our country would be brought to its knees. But the enemy cruelly miscalculated. Despite temporary setbacks, our Army and our Navy are heroically repelling the enemy’s attacks throughout the entire front, inflicting heavy damage on them, and our country – our entire country – has organized itself into a single military camp in order to carry out the defeat of the German invaders together with our Army and our Navy.
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