Myths about Stalin
Myth: “If there is a person, there will be an article.”
This quote is often attributed to Stalin. It is written about by the media ( https://www.svoboda.org/a/24246569.html), bloggers ( https://alexis152.livejournal.com/72086.html), politicians ( https://rus.postimees.ee/708400/ siret-kotka-eshche-stalin-govoril-byl-by-chelovek-a-statya-naydetsya) and entertainers ( https://rtvi.com/news/byl-by-chelovek-a-statya-naydyetsya-kseniyu-sobchak-proveryat-na-inostrannoe-finansirovanie/). The Ukrainian infosphere is not far behind either ( https://www.chesno.org/t/122/neskoreni.html).
However, every time this quote is attributed to Stalin, no one mentions where, when, and under what circumstances it was said. It is understandable why they do not mention this, as there is no source to confirm it. It is not found in the transcripts ( https://istmat.org/taxonomy/term/297), in the PSS ( https://c21ch.newcastle.edu.au/stalin/), or even in memoirs ( https://www.litres.ru/book/ mihail-lobanov-3/velikiy-gosudarstvennik-stalin-v-vospominaniyah-sovremenn-6056851/chitat-onlayn/) of those who knew him and worked with him.
In terms of meaning, the statement is reminiscent of the old Russian proverbs “If there is a back, there will be a whip” or “If there is a back, there will be a whip,” described ( https://slovar.cc/rus/dal/576505.html) as early as the 19th century in Dal's dictionary, and therefore the aforementioned quote could have become a bitter joke among prisoners of that time.
https://t.me/ochen_mnogo_prufov/4298?single=
Myth: Stalin believed that votes did not decide anything.
Joseph Vissarionovich is sometimes credited with the following statements:
“It is enough that people know there were elections. People who vote do not decide anything. People who count the votes decide everything.”
Or, with slightly different wording but a similar meaning:
“It doesn't matter how people voted, what matters is how the votes were counted.”
Or:
“The winner of an election is not the most popular candidate, but the one who counts the votes.”
Examples of how these quotes are used can be seen in the screenshots.
Many people find this plausible, because Stalin ruled the country for more than a decade, and therefore such a statement about elections seems logical to those who do not want to delve into the subject.
Now let's examine where this idea originated. The first theory states ( https://bibliotekar.ru/encSlov/13/103.htm) that Stalin uttered one of these phrases at the 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1934. However, no elections for the General Secretary of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) were held in 1934. There is also no documentary evidence ( https://www.marxists.org/russkij/stalin/t13/t13_46.htm) from that or other years that Joseph could have said this phrase.
Another theory comes from Stalin's assistant, who fled to Paris in 1928. In his memoirs published in 1930, With Stalin in the Kremlin, Bazhanov quotes Stalin as saying in December 1923 at a meeting of the ruling troika on the subject of securing an intra-party majority.
Thus, in essence, the only source during Stalin's lifetime in which such a phrase is attributed to him is the memoirs of his secretary who fled abroad. Even in Stalin's extensive digital archive ( https://www.stalindigitalarchive.com/frontend/), there is nothing similar. However, in foreign sources, there are several similar statements dating back to before the Stalin era (1 ( https://www.loc.gov/item/2018663035/), 2 ( https://www.nytimes.com/1880/05/26/archives/imperialism.html), 3 ( https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/76767530/), 4 ( https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/48149277/)).
https://t.me/ochen_mnogo_prufov/4730
Myth: Stalin and Hitler met in 1939.
Since the early 1990s, a myth has been spreading in post-Soviet countries ( https://fakty.ua/ru/132127-edvard-radzinskij-ya-byl-porazhen-uvidev-v-nacionalnom-arhive-ssha-fotokopiyu-sensacionnogo-dokumenta-o-tajnoj-vstreche-stalina -i-gitlera-vo-lvove) about a secret meeting between Hitler and Stalin on October 17, 1939, in Lviv, after the partition of Poland, where secret military agreements were signed. This is supposed to convince us once again of the alliance between the two tyrants and their joint initiation of the bloodiest war in human history.
In 2019, the Ukrainian national television channel ICTV even aired ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8U02PO3WXTo%29 a report about this alleged meeting, which took place on October 17, 1939, in which Hitler shared with Stalin his plans to attack France in 1940. Why then did Stalin not mention this information from Hitler in any of his documents, meetings, or correspondence with foreign leaders?
In 2020, the first president of independent Ukraine, Leonid Kravchuk, said on Russian television ( https://gordonua.com/news/politics/kravchuk-v-efire-rossiya-1-gitler-i-stalin-vstretilis-vo-lvove-oni-pytalis-dogovoritsya-1484735.html):
“Hitler and Stalin met in Lviv. This is a document, it's no secret. They tried to reach an agreement.”
However, when questions arose after the broadcast about which document he was referring to, Kravchuk changed the subject:
“I read this in the media. I did not delve deeply into this issue, I did not study it, I just passed on what the press wrote.”
Magazines have long been published ( https://docs.historyrussia.org/ru/nodes/167140-tetradi-zhurnaly-zapisey-lits-prinyatyh-i-v-stalinym-v-1939-godu#mode/inspect/page/29/zoom/ 4) of Stalin's visits, where you can see that the general secretary was in Moscow on both October 16 and 17, and received Zhdanov, Molotov, Mikoyan, Voroshilov, and others on those days. Even if Stalin had not gone to bed, he would not have had time to travel by train to Lviv, hold a meeting, and return.
There is no documentary evidence of even the preparation of such a meeting, let alone its organization and results.
German historians have also confirmed ( https://www.dw.com/ru/gitler-i-stalin-nemeckie-istoriki-o-zaavlenii-kravcuka/a-52189333) that Stalin and Hitler never met.
https://t.me/ochen_mnogo_prufov/4798
Myth: “No man, no problem”
Joseph Dzhugashvili is often credited with the quote in the title of this post. This short saying is used to demonstrate the cynicism of the Soviet leader towards people.
And this phrase is used almost more actively than any other attributed to Stalin. It was used by Putin ( https://ria.ru/20081124/155762367.html), the former President of the Czech Republic ( https://aroundprague.cz/news/politika/ zeman-proczitiroval-stalina-est-chelovek-est-problema-net-cheloveka-net-problemyi), a member of parliament ( https://regnum.ru/news/1478569) of the Verkhovna Rada, media outlets such as Radio Liberty ( https://www.svoboda.org/a/24204320.html), and others ( https://www.gazeta.ru/science/2019/09/06_a_12630439.shtml).
“No man, no problem” began to be attributed to Stalin in the late 1980s; there are simply no earlier references to it. In particular, in 1989, at the First Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR, actor Sosa Sarkisyan used it ( https://militera.lib.ru/docs/0/pdf/snd1989-6.pdf), saying that this quote was “Stalin's philosophy.”
But the phrase was first used by writer Anatoly Rybakov in his book Children of the Arbat, published in 1987.
Ten years later, in his memoirs, he admitted ( https://www.sakharov-center.ru/asfcd/auth/?t=page&num=1598%29 that the phrase was made up:
"Maybe I heard it from someone, maybe I made it up myself. So what? Did Stalin do anything different? Did he persuade his opponents? No, he exterminated them... ‘No man, no problem...’ That was Stalin's principle. I just put it succinctly. That's an artist's prerogative."
There is no other evidence, transcripts, documents, or recollections from people close to Stalin's activities to confirm this quote from Stalin's mouth.
https://t.me/ochen_mnogo_prufov/4863
Myth: The death of one person is a tragedy; the death of millions is a statistic.
This phrase has long been associated with the Soviet leader, and can be applied to the famine, the repressions, or the Great Patriotic War. This quote is intended to demonstrate Stalin's cynicism, his disregard for human life, and thus denigrate the USSR as a whole, turning it into a ruthless machine for grinding down human destinies. After all, how can a state be good when it is led by a person who says such things?
This is precisely why anti-Sovietists of all nationalities use it, as can be seen in the screenshots. Even in the 2016 Oxford collection of quotations, this phrase is attributed to Stalin.
However, if we try to find the quote in Stalin's speeches, letters, diaries, or any other texts, we will not find anything similar. A similar phrase is uttered by (https://books.google.am/books?id=sID3cgR2vSMC& pg=PA228&dq=%22black+obelisk%22+death+of+two+million&hl=ru&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjq2LLCpPHxAhWfhP0HHbLlD9kQ6AEwAXoECAoQAg# v=onepage&q=%22black%20obelisk%22%20death%20of%20two%20million&f=false) the hero of Erich Maria Remarque's novel “The Black Obelisk,” published in 1956: “But, apparently, it's always like this: the death of one person is a death, but the death of two million is just statistics.”
However, Stalin was credited with the above quote even before 1956. The earliest attribution was made in 1947 by a journalist from The Washington Post.
The most likely source of these words is considered to be an article by German journalist Kurt Tucholsky, published in 1925 in the Vossische Zeitung newspaper. In it, the author cites a statement by an unnamed Parisian diplomat as an example of French humor: “War? I can't call it terrible! The death of one person is a catastrophe, but a hundred thousand deaths are statistics!”
Earlier, we analyzed other fake quotes attributed to Stalin (1 ( https://t.me/ochen_mnogo_prufov/4863), 2 ( https://t.me/ochen_mnogo_prufov/4730), 3 ( https://t.me/ochen_mnogo_prufov/4414), 4 ( https://t.me/ochen_mnogo_prufov/4298)).
https://t.me/ochen_mnogo_prufov/5101
Myth: “There are no prisoners of war in the Red Army, only traitors to the motherland.”
Another quote attributed to Stalin, intended to show the bloodthirstiness of the Soviet regime towards its own soldiers. It implies that if you are captured, you might as well die there, because no one is waiting for you back home.
Today's authors often refer to Boris Khavkin's article ( https://www1.ku.de/ZIMOS/forum/docs/5Chavkin06.pdf) “German prisoners of war in the USSR and Soviet prisoners of war in Germany,” which states, in particular: "After more than 600,000 Red Army soldiers were taken prisoner by the Germans in the encirclements near Minsk and Smolensk in the summer of 1941, Stalin was convinced that ‘there are no prisoners of war in the Red Army, only traitors and betrayers of the Motherland.’ Similar nonsense is propagated by the Ukrainian media, among others.
Khavkin himself cites as his source “Information from the Commission for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Political Repression,” published in the journal New and Contemporary History in 1996. But even this source does not indicate where, when, or under what circumstances Stalin made such a statement.
In fact, this phrase was first published ( https://vk.com/doc-49612449_270268328) and attributed to Stalin in Vlasov's newspaper Zarya No. 67 in 1944.
https://t.me/ochen_mnogo_prufov/5472
Myth: How Stalin forbade the evacuation of Stalingrad
The myth about the ban on the evacuation of Stalingrad has been circulating online for more than a decade. It has been claimed by Soviet dissidents, modern media, and even celebrities, including Fyodor Bondarchuk.
As always, we must start with the fact that there is no documentary evidence of Stalin's order to ban the evacuation of the city.
Instead of lengthy explanations, the following list of documents will answer the question much better:
— August 15, 1942 ( https://docs.historyrussia.org/ru/nodes/225181-postanovlenie-locale-nil-op-313rs-obkoma-vkp-b-i -oblispolkoma-o-chastichnoy-evakuatsii-naseleniya-gor-stalingrada-stalingrad-15-avgusta-1942-g) Resolution No. OP-313rs of the Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and the Regional Executive Committee on the partial evacuation of the population of the city of Stalingrad. Stalingrad;
— August 16, 1942 ( https://stalingrad1942-1943.ru/node/797) Resolution of the Stalingrad Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (VKP(b)) “On the evacuation of civilians from areas of Red Army combat operations”;
— August 18, 1942 ( https://docs.historyrussia.org/ru/nodes/225182-postanovlenie-obkoma-vkp-b-i-oblispolkoma-ob-evakuatsii-detskih-domov-za-predely-stalingradskoy-oblasti-stalingrad-18-avgusta-1942-g) Resolution of the Regional Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Regional Executive Committee on the evacuation of orphanages outside the Stalingrad region. Stalingrad;
— August 24, 1942 ( https://docs.historyrussia.org/ru/nodes/225180-postanovlenie-sgko-locale-nil-404-a-ob-evakuatsii-zhenschin-i-detey-na-levyy-bereg-volgi-stalingrad-24-avgusta-1942-g) Decree No. 404-a of the Supreme Command Headquarters on the evacuation of women and children to the left bank of the Volga River. Stalingrad.
In addition to the above resolutions, factories, livestock, collective farms, state farms, and state organizations were evacuated.
Between June 1941 and March 1942, 441,000 people passed through the Stalingrad evacuation point. Over 100,000 people were evacuated from the city during the summer of 1942. To put this into perspective, the population of Stalingrad on the eve of the battle for the city was over 600,000 due to the large number of people evacuated from the Ukrainian SSR and other regions.
https://t.me/ochen_mnogo_prufov/5636
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