ON JUNE 22, 1941, imperialist Hitler Germany, in gross violation of the pact of non-aggression, treacherously and without warning attacked the Soviet Union. This turned the whole course of development of the Soviet country. The period of peaceful construction had come to an end, and a period of war began—a Patriotic War of liberation waged by the Soviet people against the German invaders.
To ensure the rapid mobilization of all the forces of the country and to repulse the enemy, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., the Central Committee of the C.P.S.U.(B.) and the Council of People’s Commissars of the U.S.S.R. decided on June 30, 1941, to set up a State Committee of Defence, in whose hands all power in the state was concentrated. Joseph Stalin was appointed Chairman of the Committee.
Thus the leader and teacher of the people of the U.S.S.R. took command of the armed forces of the country and led the struggle of the Soviet people against a malignant and treacherous enemy, German fascism.
Hitler Germany had many advantages when she launched her war of plunder and aggrandizement against the U.S.S.R. Her army was fully mobilized and had already had experience in warfare in Western Europe. One hundred and seventy German divisions, supported by thousands of tanks and aircraft, had been moved up to the frontiers of the U.S.S.R. and were suddenly hurled into the attack. In the early stages of the war the armed forces of the peace-loving Soviet Union were therefore at a disadvantage. Under the pressure of the enemy’s numerically superior forces and armament, and the shock of a surprise attack, the Soviet Army was forced to beat a fighting retreat deeper and deeper into the country.
In the first ten days of the war, Hitler’s troops succeeded in capturing Lithuania, a considerable part of Latvia, the Western part of Byelorussia and a part of the Western Ukraine. Grave danger overhung the Soviet Union.
On July 3, 1941, Stalin addressed the Soviet people and the men of the Red Army and Navy over the radio. It was a historic speech. He gave a profound analysis of the events, and defined the tasks of the armed forces and the people in defending the Socialist motherland.
Stalin told the stern truth about the military situation; he called upon the Soviet people to appreciate the full immensity of the danger menacing the country, and to cast off the mentality of the period of peaceful constructive work. He warned that complacency and heedlessness must be put aside, yet there must be no fear in the fight, and no room for whimperers, panicmongers or deserters.
He disclosed Hitler Germany’s aims in her war against the Soviet Union: “The enemy is cruel and implacable. He is out to seize our lands which have been watered by the sweat of our brow, to seize our grain and oil which, have been obtained by the labour of our hands. He is out to restore the rule of the landlords, to restore tsarism, to destroy the national culture and the national existence as states of the Russians, Ukrainians, Byelorussians, Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Uzbeks, Tatars, Moldavians, Georgians, Armenians, Azerbaijanians and the other free peoples of the Soviet Union, to Germanize them, to convert them into the slaves of German princes and barons. Thus, the issue is one of life and death for the Soviet state, of life and death for the peoples of the U.S.S.R., of whether the peoples of the Soviet Union shall be free or fall into slavery.”1
Stalin also defined the aims of the Soviet Union in the war against fascist Germany. He said that it was a great war of the entire Soviet people against the German fascist army. The aim of this people’s Patriotic War was not only to remove the danger hanging over the country, but also to aid all the European peoples who were groaning under the yoke of German fascism.
He prophesied that in this war of liberation the Soviet people would not be alone. “Our war for the freedom of our motherland will merge with the struggle of the peoples of Europe and America for their independence, for the democratic liberties. It will be a united front of the peoples who stand for freedom and against enslavement and threats of enslavement by Hitler’s fascist armies.”2
Events confirmed the truth of Stalin’s prophecy. On July 12, 1941, Great Britain concluded with the U.S.S.R. an Agreement for Joint Action in the War Against Germany. Later (June 1942), the U.S.A. signed with the U.S.S.R. an Agreement on the Principles Applicable to Mutual Aid in the Prosecution of the War Against Aggression. An Anglo-Soviet-American coalition was formed for the purpose of destroying the Italo-German coalition.
Stalin called upon the Soviet people to reorganize their work on a war footing and to subordinate everything to the needs of the front and the task of organizing the demolition of the enemy. The Red Array and Navy and all citizens of the Soviet Union, he said, must defend every inch of Soviet soil, must fight to the last drop of blood for every town and village. He spoke of the necessity of organizing all-round assistance to the Red Army, of strengthening its rear and supplying it with weapons, ammunition and food.
He gave orders that in case of Red Army units having to make a forced retreat, not a single locomotive or railway car, nor a single pound of grain or gallon of fuel should be left for the enemy. He called for the formation of guerilla units and to combine a guerilla war in the enemy’s rear with the operations of the Red Army.
And Stalin ended his address with the call:
“All forces of the people for routing the enemy! Forward to victory!”
All the nations and peoples of the Soviet Union rose up in response to the Party’s call to defend the motherland.
The entire national economy was rapidly and efficiently reconstructed, the work of all Party, government and public organizations were put on a war footing to meet the needs of the armed forces. Front and rear became a single and indivisible armed camp. The entire Soviet people united and rallied around the Bolshevik Party and the Government as never before.
Very soon, the entire industry of the country was converted for the production of defence material. Thousands of plants were evacuated from the areas threatened by the enemy into the heart of the country and continued to operate there. New war industries were hastily erected in the Eastern regions of the country. Replenishments poured into the Red Army. A volunteer home guard was formed in the cities and rural districts of the war areas. In the Soviet territories seized by the enemy gallant guerillas—the people’s avengers—began to operate from the first days of the war.
On July 19, 1941, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. appointed Joseph Stalin People’s Commissar of Defence. He did a gigantic task in strengthening the armed forces of the Soviet Union. Under his direction the Soviet Army adopted the tactics of active defence, with the object of wearing down the enemy’s strength and destroying as much as possible of his man power and materiel, and thus paving the way for an assumption of the offensive.
The Nazi command counted on a lightning victory over the U.S.S.R. and the swift seizure of Moscow and Leningrad, and hurled their reserves into the Soviet-German front, heedless of the huge losses in men and armament which the German army was sustaining. In October, at the cost of immense casualties, the Germans managed to break through to the Moscow region.
This was the most dangerous moment in the campaign of 1941. Mortal danger threatened Moscow. On October 19, 1941, an order was published by Stalin, as Chairman of the State Committee of Defence, proclaiming a state of siege in Moscow. Stalin worked out and brilliantly carried into effect a plan for the defence of the capital and for the ultimate defeat of the German armies at Moscow.
The enemy was already at the approaches to the city. Notwithstanding this, on November 6, 1941, the traditional meeting of the Moscow Soviet of Working People’s Deputies and representatives of the Moscow Party and public organizations was held in the city to celebrate the anniversary, the 24th, of the Great October Socialist Revolution. The meeting was addressed by Stalin.
He reviewed the four months of the war. The leader of the army and the people was austere and forthright. He warned that the grave danger overhanging the country had by no means abated, and in fact was greater than ever. Yet, with his keen insight into the march of events, he foresaw that the defeat of the German imperialists and their armies was inevitable.
The plan of the German fascist invaders to “finish off” the Soviet Union by a blitzkrieg in the course of one and a half or two months had definitely failed. The hopes of the Nazi strategists to create a universal coalition against the U.S.S.R. and to isolate it, their belief that the Soviet system was unstable, that the Soviet rear was unsound, and that the Red Army and Navy were weak, had proved unfounded. Stalin disclosed the reasons for the temporary reversals of the Red Army. One of them was the absence of a second front in Europe. Another was that the Red Army was inadequately supplied with tanks, and to some extent with aircraft, although its tanks and aircraft were superior in quality to those of the Germans.
The task, Stalin said, was to nullify the Germans’ numerical superiority in tanks and aircraft and thus radically improve the position of the army.
This directive of the leader had an immense influence on the ultimate issue of the war. With each month, Soviet industry increased the output of aircraft and tanks, and of anti-aircraft and anti-tank weapons, and in due course the enemy’s superiority in armament was nullified.
Stalin tore away the mask of “National-Socialism” and exposed the Hitlerites as a party of the most rapacious and predatory imperialists in the world, as enemies of the democratic liberties, as a party of mediaeval reactionaries and Black-Hundred pogrom-mongers, of assassins who had lost all human semblance and sunk to the level of wild beasts.
“And these men,” Stalin said, “destitute of conscience and honour, these men with the morals of beasts, have the insolence to call for the extermination of the great Russian nation, the nation of Plekhanov and Lenin, Belinsky and Chernyshevsky, Pushkin and Tolstoy, Glinka and Chaikovsky, Gorky and Chekhov, Sechenov and Pavlov, Repin and Surikov, Suvorov and Kutuzov! . . .”3
Stalin called upon the Soviet people to intensify their efforts in support of the army and navy, to work manfully in support of the front. The German fascist invaders must be exterminated, he said. “The German invaders want a war of extermination against the peoples of the U.S.S.R. Well, if the Germans want a war of extermination, they will, get it.”4
“Ours is a just cause—victory will be ours!” 5 These words of Stalin expressed the thoughts and aspirations of the Soviet people and their deep confidence that the enemy would be vanquished.
The following day, November 7, a Red Army Parade was held on the Red Square in Moscow. Stalin addressed the troops from Lenin’s Mausoleum. He spoke of the Red Army’s great liberating mission, and urged on the armed forces and the men and women of the guerilla detachments with the words: “Let the heroic images of our great forebears—Alexander Nevsky, Dmitri Donskoi, Kuzma Minin, Dmitri Pozharsky, Alexander Suvorov and Mikhail Kutuzov—inspire you in this war! May you be inspired by the victorious banner of the Great Lenin!”6
The men of the Red Army responded to the words of their commander with an access of staunchness and determination, and by redoubling the force of their blows at the enemy.
Stalin personally directed the defence of Moscow and the operations of the Red Army; he inspired men and commanders, and supervised the building of the defence works at the approaches to the Soviet capital.
In December, on Stalin’s orders, several Soviet armies which had been concentrated around Moscow suddenly struck at the enemy. After stern and heavy fighting, the Germans crumbled under the assault and began to retire in disorder. The Soviet troops drove the routed Germans before them and that winter advanced westward, in places over 400 kilometres. Hitler’s plan for the encirclement and capture of Moscow ended in a fiasco.
The rout of the Nazi armies at Moscow was the outstanding military event in the first year of the war and the first big defeat the Germans had sustained in World War II. It dispelled once and for all the Nazi legend that the German army was invincible.
The German rout at Moscow demonstrated the superiority of the offensive strategy worked out by Stalin over the German strategy.
In his Order of the Day No. 55, of February 23, 1942, Stalin stressed, as the major result of the first eight months of the war, the fact that the Germans had lost the military advantage they had possessed in consequence of their treacherous surprise attack on the U.S.S.R.
“The element of surprise and suddenness, as a reserve of the German fascist troops, is completely spent. This removes the inequality in fighting conditions created by the suddenness of the German fascist attack. Now the outcome of the war will be decided not by such a fortuitous element as surprise, but by permanently operating factors: stability of the rear, morale of the army, quantity and quality of divisions, equipment of the army and organizing ability of the commanding personnel of the army.”7
Stalin’s thesis regarding the significance of the permanently operating factors of war, as the decisive factors, was a constructive development of the Marxist-Leninist science of warfare, which stresses the direct and organic connection between the course and outcome of war and the degree and character of the economic and political development of the states concerned, their ideologies, and the training and maturity of their human forces.
This thesis is of paramount theoretical and practical importance. Proper consideration for and utilization of the permanently operating factors make it possible in military operations and matters of organization to focus chief attention on the basic problems on which the issue of war depends.
Stalin attaches great importance to the proper mastery of the art of war by commanders and men. In his Order of the Day of May 1, 1942, he pointed out that the Red Army now possessed all that was needed to defeat the enemy and drive him out of the Soviet Union. But “it lacks only one thing the ability to utilize to the full against the enemy the first-class materiel with which our country supplies it. Hence, it is the task of the Red Army, of its men, of its machine-gunners, its artillierymen, its mortarmen, its tankmen, its airmen and its cavalrymen to study the art of war, to study assiduously, to study the mechanism of their weapons to perfection, to become expert at their jobs and thus learn to strike the enemy with unerring aim. Only thus can the art of defeating the enemy be learnt.”8
And all through the subsequent course of the war Stalin insisted on the necessity of perfecting military training, of increasing knowledge and the ability to utilize the mechanisms of war, and of mastering the art of command, of beating the enemy in accordance with all the rules of the modern science of warfare. The Red Army took these instructions to heart and stubbornly and persistently studied the job of war, and learned to beat the enemy unerringly.
In the summer of 1942, taking advantage of the absence of a second front in Europe, the Germans transferred all their reserves, including the armies of their allies, to the Soviet front and massed huge forces in the south-western sector.
Stalin divined the designs of the German command. He saw that the idea was to create the impression that the seizure of the oil regions of Grozny and Baku was the major and not a subsidiary objective of the German summer offensive. He pointed out that the main objective was to envelop Moscow from the East, to cut it off from its rear, the areas of the Volga and Urals, then to strike at Moscow, and end the war in 1942.
The Soviet troops were ordered by their Supreme Commander-in-Chief Stalin to bar the enemy’s march northward, into Moscow’s rear. In the middle of July 1942 the Germans launched an offensive at Stalingrad, calculating to take the city on the run, to tear open the Soviet front, and then to continue their advance northward along the Volga, outflanking Moscow. Stalin gave instructions that Stalingrad should be held at all costs. On October 5, 1942, he sent an order to the commander of the Stalingrad front saying: “I demand that you take all measures for the defence of Stalingrad. Stalingrad must not be surrendered to the enemy.”9
The Battle of Stalingrad, the biggest engagement in history, began. The Red Army heroically defended the famous city on the Volga that bears Stalin’s name. The fighting traditions of the Tsaritsyn epic of 1918 were revived. At the height of the battle, the men, commanders and political instructors of the Stalingrad front sent a letter to Stalin. It was a solemn vow. “Before our battle standards and the whole Soviet country, we swear that we will not besmirch the glory of Russian arms and will fight to the last. Under your leadership, our fathers won the Battle of Tsaritsyn, and under your leadership we will now win the great Battle of Stalingrad.”10
It was while the enemy was hammering away trying to break into Stalingrad and the Caucasus that the Soviet Union celebrated the 25th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. On November 6, 1942, at the celebration meeting of the Moscow Soviet, Stalin again addressed the people.
Stalin reviewed in detail what had been done by the government and party bodies in the past year both in the sphere of peaceful construction, and the organization of a strong rear f or the armed forces, and in the sphere of conducting the defensive and offensive operations of the Red Army.
As regards organizational work in the rear, Stalin referred to the difficult and complicated task that had been accomplished during the war of transplanting defence and civilian industries to the Eastern regions of the country and reconstructing and radically improving the work of the industries supplying the armed forces. “It must be admitted,” Stalin said, “that never before has our country had such a strong and well-organized rear.”11
Stalin explained why the Germans had been able to score substantial tactical successes in the summer of 1942. It was because the absence of a second front in Europe had enabled them to create a big superiority of forces in the south-western sector.
Examining the question of a second front from the historical angle, Stalin cited the following significant figures: in World War I, Germany, which was then fighting on two fronts, brought against the Russian front 127 divisions, including the divisions of her allies. In this war, Germany, which was fighting only on one front, had hurled against the Soviet-German front 240 divisions, or nearly twice as many as in World War I.
It was only the heroism of the Soviet Army and the guerillas, only the devoted labour of the Soviet patriots in the rear and the correct leadership of Stalin as Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces and head of the Party and of the Soviet state, that had made it possible to cope with the gigantic difficulties involved in resisting the onslaught of Hitler’s hordes.
With a feeling of supreme pride in the Soviet country, the Soviet people and its army, Stalin said:
“I think that no other country and no other army could have withstood this onslaught of the savage gangs of German fascist brigands and their allies. Only our Soviet country and only our Red Army are capable of withstanding such an onslaught. And not only withstanding it, but also overpowering it.”12
The task Stalin set before the Red Army was to prevent the enemy from advancing further, and meanwhile to stubbornly and persistently prepare to strike back at him.
This speech of their leader and military commander was hailed with intense enthusiasm by the Red Army and the entire Soviet people. The millions of workers and collective farmers worked with might and main to increase the output of munitions and food for the armed forces. A country-wide movement began for the collection of funds for the Red Army, initiated by men and women on the collective farms of the Tambov region.
Unwavering confidence in victory was infused into the hearts of the Soviet people by the words of People’s Commissar of Defence Stalin in his Order of the Day of November 7, 1942: “The enemy has already felt the weight of the Red Army’s blows at Rostov, Moscow and Tikhvin. The day is not far distant when the enemy will again feel the weight of the Red Army’s blows. Our turn will come.”13
These words were soon to be brilliantly confirmed by the rout of the Germans at Stalingrad. The wise commander, with whose name on their lips the Soviet soldiers went into battle, foresaw the development of events and bent the course of the gigantic battle to his iron will.
On November 19, 1942, acting on Stalin’s orders, the Soviet troops at the approaches to Stalingrad passed to the offensive. They struck at the Germans’ flanks, and then in their rear. This strategy of flank attacks, developed by Stalin and carried out under his direction, ensured another resounding victory for the Red Army. Very soon, a German army 300,000 strong was surrounded in the Stalingrad area and partly annihilated and partly taken prisoner.
This was the most outstanding victory in all the great wars of history. The Battle of Stalingrad was a crowning achievement of the military art and a new demonstration of the perfection attained by the Soviet science of war. This historic victory was a striking triumph for Stalin’s strategy and tactics, a triumph for the brilliant plan and the wisdom of the great military leader, who had seen through the enemy’s designs and turned the weaknesses of his reckless strategy to good account.
The significance of Stalingrad was later summed up by Stalin in the words: “Stalingrad marked the beginning of the decline of the German fascist army. It is common knowledge that the Germans never recovered from the Stalingrad slaughter.”14 Having seized the initiative in the Stalingrad battle, the Soviet army continued to press its offensive. The wholesale expulsion of the enemy from the Land of the Soviets began.
In his Order of the Day of February 23, 1943, Stalin paid glowing tribute to the successes of the Soviet troops and the heroism of the Soviet people “Our people will forever remember the heroic defence of Sevastopol and Odessa, the stubborn battles near Moscow and in the foothills of the Caucasus, in the region of Rzhev and near Leningrad, and the greatest battle ever fought in history at the walls of Stalingrad. In these great battles our gallant men, commanders and political instructors covered the banners of the Red Army with unfading glory and laid a firm foundation for victory over the German fascist armies.”15
At the same time, the Supreme Commander-in-Chief warned the men and commanders of the Soviet army against the danger of the pride that comes from success. He bade them firmly to bear in mind the behest of the great Lenin: “The first thing is not to be carried away by victory, not to grow conceited; the second thing is to consolidate the victory; the third thing is to crush the opponent. . . .”16
The outcome of the offensive campaign of the winter of 1942-43 was that the Soviet troops not only nullified the tactical successes gained by the enemy in the summer of 1942, but a1so began to liberate the regions seized by the Germans at the beginning of the war.
The Soviet Government marked their high appreciation of the outstanding services of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the U.S.S.R. when, on March 6, 1943. the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. conferred on Stalin the title of Marshal of the Soviet Union.
Notwithstanding their defeats and immense losses, the Germans undertook a new offensive in the summer of 1943. Stalin saw through the enemy’s plan in good time: it was to strike a blow from two directions, from the Orel and Belgorod areas, to surround and annihilate the Soviet forces in the Kursk salient, and then to launch an offensive on Moscow.
On July 2, Stalin warned the commanders in the Orel-hursk sector that the Germans would probably attack some time between July 3 and 6. And when, on July 5, large forces of Nazi troops started an offensive on the Orel-Kursk and Belgorod sectors, they net with fierce resistance from the Soviet troops. The German Offensive proved too weak to overcome the Soviet defence, and collapsed.
The sequel to this celebrated battle of Kursk was that the Soviet troops, having worn down and decimated the Nazi’s crack divisions, broke through the enemy’s front and themselves passed to the offensive.
On July 24, Supreme Commander-in-Chief Marshal Stalin issued an order of the day announcing the definite liquidation of the German’s July offensive. It declared that the Germans’ summer offensive plan had completely collapsed, “thereby disposing of the legend that the Germans in summer are always successful in offensive operations and the Soviet troops are compelled to retreat.”17
The Soviet Army continued its precipitate advance. On August 5, 1943, Orel and Belgorod were retaken. Marshal Stalin paid tribute to this new outstanding victory in a special order of the day. A salute of guns in Moscow honoured the gallant troops who had liberated Orel and Belgorod. Since then salutes of guns in Moscow in celebration of victories became a regular wartime practice. The defeat of the Germans at Kursk affected the whole subsequent course of the war. “If the Battle of Stalingrad presaged the decline of the German fascist army,” Stalin said, “the Battle of Kursk brought it to the brink of disaster.”18
The battle of Kursk and the liquidation of the Germans’ Orel salient heralded a new powerful advance of the Soviet Army. By November 1943, two-thirds of the Soviet territories which had been seized by the enemy were liberated.
On November 6, 1943, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. conferred on Stalin the Order of Suvorov, 1st Class, for the successes achieved by his masterly leadership of the Red Army in the Patriotic War against the German invaders.
Valuable assistance was rendered to the Soviet armies in the 1943 offensive by the guerillas. Stalin’s appeal “to fan the flames of popular guerilla warfare in the enemy’s rear, destroy the enemy’s bases and exterminate the German fascist scoundrels,”19 had given the fillip to a powerful guerilla movement. Guerillas were very active in the Germans’ rear, destroying their communications and annihilating officers and men. Stalin directed the movement and regularly summoned conferences of guerilla commanders in Moscow.
Stalin painted a majestic picture of the victories scored by the Soviet people and its army in the speech he delivered on November 6, 1943, at the meeting of the Moscow Soviet in celebration of the 26th anniversary of the Great Socialist Revolution. The year 1943, he said, “marked the decisive turn in the course of the Patriotic War.”20
“The results and consequences of the Red Army’s victories are felt far beyond the Soviet-German front; they have changed the whole course of the World War and have acquired great international importance.”21
The victories of the Soviet troops strengthened the international prestige of the U.S.S.R. The year 1943 marked a turning point not only in the Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, but in the World War generally. The Red Army’s 1943 offensive was supported by the operations of the Allied forces in North Africa and in Italy and by the bombing of Germany’s war industrial centres by Allied air forces. Germany’s principal ally, fascist Italy, collapsed militarily and politically, and in September, 1943 unconditionally surrendered. This was a serious blow to the Hitler coalition.
The enemy’s efforts to sow dissension among the Great Powers that had united to smash Hitler Germany were foiled by the wisdom of Stalin’s foreign policy. At the Tehran Conference in November 1943, where Stalin met the President of the United States and the Prime Minister of Great Britain, a declaration was adopted affirming the determination of the three powers to work together in the war against Germany and to co-operate after the war.
The year 1943 also marked a turning point in the work of the Soviet rear. The smoothly functioning and rapidly expanding war industry created by the efforts of the people ensured the Soviet Army a quantitative and qualitative superiority in armament over the Germans. Guided by Stalin’s instructions, Soviet designers worked fruitfully perfecting weapons and creating new types of armament.
The Soviet Union was not only fighting; it was also building. The construction of new mills and factories, mines, blast furnaces and power stations continued uninterruptedly. New iron and steel mills were started in Chelyabinsk and in Uzbekistan, blast furnaces were erected at Tagil, Magnitogorsk and other places. A new aluminium plant began operation in Stalinsk, and power stations in Chelyabinsk, Stalinsk and many other cities.
Stalin encouraged the personnel in industry to greater efforts in speeding the construction and starting of new mills and factories. In December 1943 he congratulated the builders and engineers of the Magnitogorsk Iron and Steel Works on the unprecedented speed with which they erected a large blast furnace amid extremely difficult conditions. He also paid tribute to the personnel of the Yenakievo Iron and Steel Works. Congratulating them on their achievements, he said that they were a proof that “the difficult task of rehabilitating industry and eliminating the consequences of the barbaric depredations of the Germans could be accomplished in a very short space of time.”22
The work of economic rehabilitation in the regions liberated by the Soviet Army claimed a good deal of Stalin’s attention. On his initiative, the Council of People’s Commissars of the U.S.S.R. and the Central Committee of the Communist Party, in August 1943, adopted a decision on “Urgent Measures for the Economic Rehabilitation of the Areas Liberated from German Occupation.”
The Soviet people heroically supported the operations of their armed forces. Stalin described the devoted efforts of the Soviet people in the rear, the yeoman service rendered by the working class, the collective farmers and the intelligentsia in the war, as an unparalleled feat of valour in defence of the motherland.
The war still further cemented the mutual friendship of the nations of the Soviet Union. They all rose solidly in defence of their country.
Early in 1944, the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., on Stalin’s recommendation, adopted a decision to convert the People’s Commissariat of Defence and the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs from Union to Union-Republican Commissariats and to form People’s Commissariats of Defence and of Foreign Affairs of the Union Republics.
This was another step in the solution of the national problem in the U.S.S.R. along the lines of Lenin’s and Stalin’s policy of promoting and developing the statehood of all the nations of the Soviet Union.
The year 1944 was a year of decisive victories for the Soviet Army. Acting in accordance with Stalin’s brilliant strategical plan, it struck a series of ten powerful blows at the German armies. Stalin described these blows in detail in his speech on, the occasion of the 27th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution. As a result of these blows, all the regions of the Soviet Union which had been occupied by the German fascist invader had now been fully liberated and the enemy driven out of the borders of the Soviet country. The Soviet Army had carried the war into the territories of Germany and her associates.
On June 20, 1944, the Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Moscow City Soviet, on behalf of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., tendered the first Moscow Defence Medal to Marshal Stalin, Chairman of the State Committee of Defence and Supreme Commander-in-Chief, conferred on him in recognition of his, services in directing the heroic defence of Moscow and organizing the rout of the German forces outside the Soviet capital. The ceremony took place in the Kremlin.
On July 29, 1944. Stalin was awarded the Order of Victory. It was conferred on him by the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. for his outstanding services in organizing and directing the offensive operations of the Red Army that resulted in the resounding defeat of the Germans and radically changed the situation in favour of the Red Army.
The success of Stalin’s strategical plan in 1944 was crowned by military and political results of first-rate importance. Under the blows of the Soviet forces, Rumania, Finland and Bulgaria surrendered and turned their arms against their former ally, Hitler Germany. Hungary was on the verge of capitulation. Germany was thus practically isolated. The resulting military situation meant that the Soviet Union was in a position, with her own forces alone and without the assistance of her allies, to occupy the whole of Germany and to liberate France. It was this circumstance that prompted the British Prime Minister, Winston Churchill, who until then had resisted the opening of a second front in Europe, to undertake an invasion of Western Europe. In June 1944, the Allies successfully effected a large-scale landing in France.
Hitler Germany was now gripped in a vice between two fronts, as Stalin had foreseen she would be.
In his speech on November 6, 1944, on the occasion of the 27th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Stalin expressed his confidence that the Red Army, having accomplished its patriotic task of liberating the motherland, would fulfil its historical mission to the end, finish off the fascist beast in its own lair and hoist the flag of victory over Berlin.
On to Berlin!—was now Stalin’s watchword. And this call, and Stalin’s summing up of the path traversed by the country and the army, were hailed by the Soviet people at the front and in the rear with profound enthusiasm.
The Soviet troops now launched the decisive offensive against the lair of the fascist beast. Very soon the Soviet Army had liberated Warsaw, the capital of Poland, from the Germans and penetrated into East Prussia. The Soviet offensive developed along the whole front.
In February 1945, the leaders of the three Allied Powers—the U.S.S.R., the U.S.A. and Great Britain—met in conference in the Crimea. They arrived at important military and political decisions on measures to accomplish the finale defeat of Germany and on her post-war status, as well as on the major political and economic problems of liberated Europe. The timing, scope and co-ordination of new and more powerful blows at Germany by the Allied armies from the East, West, North and South were agreed and planned in detail. At this conference, too, it was decided that the U.S.S.R. would enter the war against Japan.
The 27th anniversary of the Red Army, February 23, 1945, was celebrated by the Soviet Union amid outstanding and historic victories. In January and February 1945, in a forty-day offensive the Soviet troops, by swift and skilful operations, had hurled the enemy far to the West, completely liberated Poland and a large part of Czechoslovakia and captured the major part of East Prussia and German Silesia. Under the Soviet assault, Hungary, Germany’s last ally in Europe, dropped out of the war. “Complete victory over the Germans is now already near,”23 declared Stalin in his Order of the Day of February 23, 1945, summing up the successes of the Red Army’s winter offensive.
He said that the Red Army had learned to crush and destroy the enemy according to all the rules of modern military science. “The generals and officers of the Red Army skilfully combine massed blows of powerful implements of war with skilful and swift manoeuvring.”24 Operating in accordance with Stalin’s strategical plan, the Red Army seized important German strongholds in the south, captured Vienna, the capital of Austria, demolished the German army group cut off in East Prussia, seized the Silesian industrial area, which was of vital importance to Germany, and reached the approaches to Berlin. This cleared the way for the final and decisive assault on Hitler Germany. Stalin’s call “to hoist the flag of victory over Berlin”25 inspired the Soviet people to fresh feats of valour in labour and in the fields of battle.
On April 21, 1945, the eve of the assault of Berlin, Stalin, on behalf of the Soviet Government, signed a Treaty of Friendship, Mutual Assistance and Post-War Collaboration between the U.S.S.R. and the Polish Republic. In his speech at this occasion, he said: “The freedom-loving nations, and primarily the Slavonic nations, have been impatiently looking forward to the conclusion of this Treaty, for they realize that this Treaty signifies the consolidation of the united front of the United Nations against the common enemy in Europe.”26
On May 2, 1945, the radio announced an Order of the Day of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief to the Red Army and Navy declaring that the Soviet troops had “completed the defeat of the Berlin group of German troops and today, May 2, seized full possession of the capital of Germany, Berlin, the centre of German imperialism and the seat of German aggression.”27 The Red Army had carried out Stalin’s order: the flag of victory had been hoisted over Berlin!
The fate of Hitler Germany was sealed. On May 8, 1945, in Berlin, representatives of the German High Command signed an act of unconditional surrender of the armed forces of Germany. May 9 was proclaimed Victory Day, a national holiday in commemoration of the triumphant termination of the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet people, which had ended in the utter defeat of Hitler Germany. On that historic day, Marshal Stalin broadcasted an address to the people. “Comrades! Fellow Countrymen and Countrywomen! The great day of victory over Germany has arrived. Fascist Germany, forced to her knees by the Red Army and the troops of our Allies, has admitted defeat and has announced her unconditional surrender. . . .
“We now have full grounds for saying that the historic day of the final defeat of Germany, the day of our people’s great victory over German imperialism, has arrived. . . .
“Congratulations on our victory, my dear fellow countrymen and countrywomen!”28
In celebrating their victory, the thoughts and sentiments of the Soviet people were with him who had led the country through all the trials and tribulations of the war and had saved it from destruction, with him whose genius had mapped the road to victory and whose will had led the country to its triumph—with the great Stalin.
One of Stalin’s major services to the country was in the course of the Patriotic War he selected, educated and promoted to commanding posts new military cadres, the men who bore the burden of the war against Germany and her allies: Bulganin, Vasilevsky, Konev, Govorov, Zhukov, Vatutin, Chernyakhovsky, Antonov, Sokolovsky, Meretskov, Rokossovsky, Malinovsky, Voronov, Tolbukhin, Yakovlev, Malinin, Galitsky, Trofimenko, Gorbatov, Shteinenko, Kurasov, Vershinin, Golovanov, Fedorenko, Rybalko, Bogdanov, Katukov, Lelyushenko and many others.
On May 24 the Soviet Government gave a reception in the Kremlin in honour of the commanders of the Red Army—commanders reared in the Stalin school.
Stalin spoke at the reception. He paid tribute to the Soviet people for its services in the war, and primarily to the Russian people, as the most outstanding of all the nations that constitute the Soviet Union. The Russian people, he said, had earned universal recognition in the war as the beading force among the peoples of the Soviet Union. Stalin proposed a toast to the Russian people, not only because it was the leading people, but also because it was gifted with a clear mind, staunch character, collectedness and reasonable patience. The boundless confidence of the Russian people in the Soviet Government, its faith in the correctness of the government’s policy and the unwavering support it gave the government and the Bolshevik Party, Stalin said, proved to be “the decisive factor which ensured our historic victory over the enemy of mankind, over fascism.”29
On June 24, 1945, by order of Supreme Commander-in-Chief Stalin, a Victory Parade was held in Moscow of troops of the Army on active service, the Navy and the Moscow Garrison. To the Red Square the Soviet Army brought the standards of the German fascist armies and divisions it had vanquished and demolished. They were cast at the feet of the victorious Soviet people, at the foot of the Lenin Mausoleum, on the rostrum of which stood the Great Commander—Stalin.
The Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R., on June 26, 1945, expressing the will of the entire Soviet people, awarded a second Order of Victory to Marshal Joseph Stalin for his outstanding services in organizing the armed forces of the Soviet Union and for his skilful leadership in the Great Patriotic War, which had ended with complete victory over Hitler Germany.
For having led the Red Army in the trying days of the defence of the country, and of its capital, Moscow, and for his energetic and resolute direction of the fight against Hitler Germany, Stalin was awarded the tithe of Hero of the Soviet Union, together with the Order of Lenin and the Gold Star Medal that go with the title.
On June 27, 1945, Marshal Stalin was invested with the supreme military title—Generalissimo of the Soviet Union.
On July 18, 1945, Generalissimo Stalin arrived in Berlin to attend the Tripartite Conference at Potsdam (July 17 to August 2), where the heads of the governments of the U.S.S.R., the U.S.A. and Great Britain adopted important decisions to consolidate the victory, including decisions on Germany, Austria and Poland.
Having triumphantly concluded the war against Hitler Germany, the Soviet Union turned its efforts to the formidable task of repairing the destruction caused by the German invaders, to rehabilitating its economy, to building new mills and factories.
But the Soviet Union could not consider itself secure as long as another hotbed of war still existed—in the shape of imperialist Japan, which had rejected the demand of the United States, Great Britain and China that she lay down her arms and surrender unconditionally. The Allies appealed to the Soviet Government to join the war against the Japanese aggressor. Loyal to its duties as an ally, the Soviet Government acceded to this request and declared war on Japan.
The Soviet people endorsed and supported the decision of their government as the only way in which the security of the country could be safeguarded in the East, as well as in the West, as the only way in which the end of the war could be speeded and universal peace re-established.
On the morning of August 9, 1945, Soviet land forces and the Soviet Pacific Fleet opened hostilities against the Japanese in the Far East.
After desperate but unsuccessful counterattacks, the Japanese Kwantung Army was forced to cease resistance, lay down its arms and surrender to the Soviet forces. The Soviet Army liberated from the Japanese Manchuria, South Sakhalin, Northern Korea, and the Kuril Islands.
The Soviet Union’s entry into the war against Japan and the rout of large masses of Japanese troops as the result of the Soviet Army’s impetuous offensive, compelled Japan to capitulate. On September 2, 1945, her political and military representatives signed an act of unconditional surrender in Tokyo.
On the day of the victory over Japan, Stalin addressed the Soviet people over the radio informing them of the glad tidings:
“Henceforth,” he said, “we can regard our country as being free from the menace of German invasion in the West and of Japanese invasion in the East. The long awaited peace for the peoples of all the world has come.”30
This was a victory for the Soviet social system and the Soviet political system, for the Soviet armed forces and the wise policy of the Bolshevik Party.
During the years of the Patriotic War the Soviet people learned to appreciate even more fully the greatness of their leader, teacher, military commander and friend, Joseph Stalin, his supreme devotion to the Soviet motherland, and his constant concern for the welfare and prosperity of the Socialist state.
It was Stalin that inspired the Soviet people to repulse the enemy, and it was he that led them to victory.
While directing the operations of the Soviet armed forces and the economic and organizational work in the rear, Stalin during the war continued his intense theoretical activities, developing and advancing the science of Marxism-Leninism. In his wartime speeches and orders of the day (collected in the book On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union), the Soviet science of war, the theory of the Soviet Socialist state, of its functions, and the sources of its strength received further development. He analysed and drew general conclusions from the activities of the Soviet state under the conditions of war and indicated the way to strengthen its economic and military might.
In his speech on the occasion of the 26th anniversary of the October Socialist Revolution, Stalin showed how great had been the significance, in the effort to vanquish the fascist invaders, of the Bolshevik Party, the Soviet system, the friendship that bound together the nations of the Soviet Union, and the patriotism of the Soviet people.
“In this Patriotic War the Party has been the inspirer and organizer of the nation-wide struggle against the fascist invaders. The organizational work conducted by our Party has united all the efforts of the Soviet people, directing them towards the common goal, and concentrating all our strength and ~resources in the task of defeating the enemy. In the course of the war the Party has still further strengthened its bonds of kinship with the people, it has become still more closely connected with the masses of the working people. This is one of the sources of the strength of our state.”31
Another source of strength of the Soviet Union was the Soviet Socialist system.
“The experience of the war has proved that the Soviet system is not only the best system for organizing the economic and cultural development of a country in the period of peaceful construction, but also the best system for mobilizing all the forces of the people to resist an enemy in wartime.”32
“The Socialist system which was engendered by the October Revolution imbued our people and our army with great and invincible strength.”33
The war was a stern test of all the material and moral forces of the Soviet state, a test of its stability and virility. The Soviet Socialist state emerged with credit from the test of war, stronger and more stable than ever, as Stalin had foreseen it would. Generalizing the experience of the war, Stalin drew new conclusions relative to the value and importance of the Soviet economic system. The war, he said, had proved that “the economic basis of the Soviet state is immeasurably more virile than the economies of the enemy countries.”34
Whereas the economies of the enemy countries had fallen into decline during the war, the Soviet Union was able not only to supply the front with sufficient quantities of arms and ammunition, but also to accumulate reserves. In the last three years of the war the Soviet tank industry annually produced an average of over 30,000 tanks, self-propelled guns and armoured cars; the aircraft industry nearly 40,000 aeroplanes; the artillery industry nearly 120,000 guns of all calibres, 450,000 fight and heavy machine guns, over 3,000,000 rifles and about 2,000,000 tommy guns, and the mortar industry 100,000 mortars. The quality of Soviet armaments was not only not inferior, but even superior to the German.
Reviewing the role played by the Soviet people in the fight against the German fascist invaders, Stalin drew the significant conclusion that they had rendered historic service to mankind. “By their self-sacrificing struggle the Soviet people saved the civilization of Europe from the fascist pogrom-mongers.”35
He paid glowing tribute to the Soviet people: they were a heroic people, capable of performing miracles and emerging victorious from the most gruelling tests, he said.
Another major source of strength of the Soviet Union, Stalin pointed out, was the mutual friendship of its peoples, which had withstood all the trials and hardships of the war against the fascist invaders and emerged more steeled and tempered than ever. The great and unbreakable friendship of the peoples of the Soviet Union is anchored in the firm foundation of Lenin’s and Stalin’s national policy, and is a model of the solution of the national problem without precedent in history.
The Nazi ideology of brutal nationalism and race hatred was vanquished by the Soviet ideology of the equality of all races and nations, the ideology of friendship among nations. The Soviet people not only scored a military and economic victory over Hitler Germany, but inflicted on her severe moral and political defeat.
Highly important are Stalin’s views on Soviet patriotism, as a source of the labour heroism of the Soviet people in the rear and of the martial heroism of the Soviet soldiers at the front. “The strength of Soviet patriotism lies in the fact that it is based not on racial or nationalistic prejudices, but on the profound devotion and loyalty of the people to their Soviet motherland, on the fraternal co-operation of the working people of all the nations inhabiting our country. Soviet patriotism is a harmonious blend of the national traditions of the peoples and the common vital interests of all the working people of the Soviet Union. . . . At the same time, the peoples of the U.S.S.R. respect the rights and independence of the peoples of foreign countries and have always shown their readiness to live in peace and friendship with neighbouring countries. . . . This should be regarded as the basis upon which the ties between our country and other freedom-loving peoples are expanding and growing stronger.”36
The advanced Soviet science of war received further development at Stalin’s hands. He elaborated the theory of the permanently operating factors that decide the issue of wars, of active defence and the laws of counter-offensive and offensive, of the interaction of all services and arms in modern warfare, of the robe of big tank masses and aircraft in modern war, and of the artillery as the most formidable of the armed services. At the various stages of the war Stalin’s genius found the correct solutions, that look into account all the circumstances of the situation.
His military skill was displayed both in defence and offence. At his orders, the Soviet forces combined active defence with preparations for counteroffensive operations, and offensive operations with effective defence. He skilfully elaborated and applied new tactics of manoeuvring—the tactics of piercing the enemy’s front in several sectors simultaneously, so as not to allow him to collect his reserves into a striking force, the tactics of piercing the enemy’s front on several sectors in succession, so as to compel him to lose time and effort in regrouping his forces, and the tactics of piercing the enemy’s flanks, outflanking him, surrounding and annihilating large enemy army groups. His genius enabled him to divine the enemy’s plans and defeat them. The engagements in which Stalin directed the Soviet armies are brilliant examples of operational skill.
All the operations carried out by the Soviet Army under the command of Generalissimo Stalin bear the stamp of unique creative thought and originality.
Stalin’s solutions of the problems of international relations and Soviet foreign policy both during and after the war are exemplary instances of the scientific approach. He outlined a concrete, practical program of action and policy for the organization and reconstruction of the political, economic and cultural life of the European nations after the victory over fascist Germany.
At the height of the war, in 1942, he formulated the major principles of the program of the anti-Hitler coalition: abolition of racial exclusiveness; equality of nations and inviolability of their territories; liberation of the enslaved nations and restoration of their sovereign rights; the right of every nation to manage its affairs in its own way; restoration of the democratic liberties.
In his speech on the occasion of the 27th anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, he staid: “To win the war against Germany means consummating a great historical cause. But winning the war does not yet mean ensuring the peoples a durable peace and reliable security in the future. The task is not only to win the war, but also to prevent the outbreak of fresh aggression and another war, if not for ever, then at least far a long time to come.”37
Speaking of the necessity of ensuring worldwide security and creating an international organization, Stalin warned that the measures taken in this direction by the United Nations “will be effective if the Great Powers who have borne the brunt of the burden of the war against Hitler Germany continue to act in a spirit of unanimity and concord. They will not be effective if this essential condition is violated.”38
A majestic picture of the historic victories won by the Soviet Union in the Patriotic War, and an imposing program for the further, development of the forces of Socialist society were sketched by Stalin in his election speech to his constituents in the Stalin Electoral District, Moscow, on February 9, 1946. He spoke of the new, fourth, five-year plan of economic development, the main objective of which was to recover and then to exceed the pre-war level of industrial and agricultural output.
He spoke of the plans for the future, for the further powerful progress of the economy of the Soviet Union and its science, and the creation of conditions which would guarantee it against all contingencies, increase its economic and military might and ensure the continued cultural progress and growing prosperity of its people.
In February 1946 a new Supreme Soviet of the U.S.S.R. was elected on the basis of the Stalin Constitution. The elections were an eloquent and convincing demonstration of the loyalty of the Soviet people to the Bolshevik Party, to the Soviet Government, and to their beloved leader, Stalin. The candidates of the Communist and non-Party bloc received 99.18 per cent of the vote to the Soviet of the Union, and 99.16 per cent of the vote to the Soviet of Nationalities.
Stalin’s life and career are inseparably bound up with the career of Lenin, his teacher and mentor, with the history of the heroic Bolshevik Party and the history of the great Soviet people.
His life and career are linked with the international working-class movement and the struggle for national emancipation of the colonial peoples from the imperialist yoke. The Communist International grew and developed under the guidance of the great leaders, Lenin and Stalin. Just as the history of the First International is inseparably associated with the names of Marx and Engels, so the history of the Third, Communist International is associated with the names of Lenin and Stalin. The Communist International played a big role in welding the vanguard of the politically advanced workers into genuine working-class parties. Having fulfilled its historical mission, it terminated its existence during the second World War. In May 1943, the Presidium of the Communist International decided to recommend the dissolution of the Comintern as a directing centre of the international working-class movement. The proposal was endorsed by the national sections of the Internationals.
Millions of workers from all countries look upon, Stalin as their teacher, from whose classic writings they learn how to cope with the class enemy and how to pave the way for the ultimate victory of the proletariat. Stalin’s influence is the influence of the great and glorious Bolshevik Party, which workers in the capitalist countries look to as a models to follow, a model of what a working-class party should he. It was under the leadership of this Party that capitalism was overthrown and the power of the Soviets, the power of the working people, established; and under its leadership that Socialism was built in the U.S.S.R.
The workers of all countries know that every word pronounced by Stalin is the word of the Soviet people, and that his every word is followed by action. The triumph of the Socialist Revolution, the building of Socialism in the U.S.S.R., and the victories of the Soviet people in their Patriotic War have convinced the labouring masses of the world of the deep and vital truth of the cause of Lenin and Stalin. And today the freedom-loving peoples look upon Stalin as a loyal and staunch champion of peace and security and of the democratic liberties.
Stalin is the brilliant leader and teacher of the Party, the great strategist of the Socialist Revolution, military commander, and guide of the Soviet state. An implacable attitude towards the enemies of Socialism, profound fidelity to principle, a combination of clear revolutionary perspective and clarity of purpose with extraordinary firmness and persistence in the pursuit of aims, wise and practical leadership, and intimate contact with the masses such are the characteristic features of Stalin’s style. After Lenin, no other leader in the world has been called upon to direct such vast masses of workers and peasants. He has a unique faculty for generalizing the constructive revolutionary experience of the masses, for seizing upon and developing their initiative, for learning from the masses as well as teaching them. and for leading them forward to victory.
Stalin’s whole career is an example of profound theoretical power combined with an unusual breadth and versatility of practical experience in the revolutionary struggle.
In conjunction with the tried and tested Leninists who are his immediate associates, and at the head of the great Bolshevik Party, Stalin guides the destinies of a multi-national Socialist state, a state of workers and peasants of which there is no precedent in history. His advice is taken as a guide to action in all fields of Socialist construction. His work is extraordinary for its variety; his energy truly amazing. The range of questions which engage his attention is immense, embracing complex problems of Marxist-Leninist theory and school textbooks; problems of Soviet foreign policy and the municipal affairs of Moscow, the proletarian capital; the development of the Great Northern Sea Route and the reclamation of the Colchian marshes; the advancement of Soviet literature and art and the editing of the model rules for collective farms; and, lastly, the solution of most intricate theoretical and practical problems in the science of warfare.
Everybody is familiar with the cogent and invincible force of Stalin’s logic, the crystal clarity of his mind, his iron will, his devotion to the party, his ardent faith in the people, and love for the people. Everybody is familiar with his modesty, his simplicity of manner, his consideration for people, and his merciless severity towards enemies of the people. Everybody is familiar with his intolerance of ostentation, of phrasemongers and windbags, of whiners and alarmists. Stalin is wise and deliberate in solving complex political questions where a thorough weighing of pros and cons is required. At the same time, he is a supreme master of bold revolutionary decisions and of swift adaptations to changed conditions.
Stalin is the worthy continuer of the cause of Lenin, or, as it is said in the Party: Stalin is the Lenin of today.
Replying to the congratulations of public bodies and individuals on his fiftieth birthday, in 1929, Stalin wrote: “I set down your congratulations and greetings as addressed to the great Party of the working class, which begot me and reared me in its image. . . . You need have no doubt, comrades, that I am prepared in the future, too, to devote to the cause of the working class, to the cause of the proletarian revolution and world Communism, all my strength, all my faculties, and, if need be, all my blood, to the very last drop.”39
In the eyes of the peoples of the U.S.S.R., Stalin is the incarnation of their heroism, their love of their country, their patriotism. “For Stalin I For our country!”—it was with this cry that the variant Soviet Army demolished its malignant and treacherous enemy, fascist Germany, and hoisted the flag of victory over Berlin.
“For Stalin! For our country!”—it was with this cry that the men of the Soviet Army and Navy demolished imperialist Japan and brought security to the frontiers of the Soviet Union in the Far East.
With the name of Stalin in their hearts, the working class of the Soviet Union performed unparalleled feats of labour in the Great Patriotic War, supplying the Red Army with first-class weapons and ammunition.
With the name of Stalin in their hearts, the collective farmers toiled devotedly in the fields to supply the Red Army and the cities with food, and industry with raw materials.
With the name of Stalin in their hearts, the Soviet intelligentsia worked with might and main in defence of their country, perfecting the weapons of the Red Army and the technique and organization of industry, and furthering Soviet science and culture.
With the name of Stalin in their hearts, the entire Soviet people are now successfully repairing the damage caused by the war and are striving for a new powerful advance of the Soviet national economy and Soviet culture.
Stalin’s name is a symbol of the courage and the renown of the Soviet people, and a call to heroic deeds for the welfare of their great country.
Stalin’s name is cherished by the boys and girls of the Socialist land, the Young Pioneers. Their dearest ambition is to be like Lenin and Stalin, to be political figures of the Lenin and Stalin type. At the call of the Party and Stalin, the youth of the Soviet Union have erected giant Socialist industrial plants, have reared cities in the taiga, have built splendid ships, are conquering the Arctic, are mastering new methods in industry and agriculture, are strengthening the defences of their country, and are working creatively in the sciences and the arts. At the call of the Party and Stalin, they displayed exemplary heroism and courage in the battlefields of the Patriotic War and exemplary devotion in the rear, working for the victory of the Red Army. Fostered by Lenin and Stalin, the Young Communist League is a true aid of the Bolshevik Party, a reliable successor to the older generation of fighters for Communism.
In all their many languages the peoples of the Soviet Union compose songs to Stalin, expressing their boundless devotion for their great leader, teacher, friend and military commander.
In the lore and art of the people, Stalin’s name is ever linked with Lenin’s. “We go with Stalin as with Lenin, we talk to Stalin as to Lenin; he knows all our inmost thoughts; all his life he has cared for us,” runs one of the many Russian folk tales of today.
The name of Stalin is a symbol of the moral and political unity of Soviet society.
With the name of Stalin, all progressive men and women, all the peace-loving democratic nations associate their hope for lasting peace and security.
“It is our good fortune that in the trying years of the war the Red Army and the Soviet people were led forward by the wise and tested leader of the Soviet Union—the great Stalin. With the naive of Generalissimo Stalin. the glorious victories of our, army will go down in the history of our country and in the history of the world. Under the guidance of Stalin, the great leader and organizer, we are now proceeding to peaceful constructive labours, striving to, bring the forces of Socialist society to full fruition and to justify the dearest hopes of our friends all over the world.”40
1. J. Stalin, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, p. 13, Moscow, 1946.
2. Ibid., p. 16.
3. J. Stalin, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, pp. 30-31, Moscow, 1946.
4. Ibid., p. 31.
5. Ibid., p. 37.
6. Ibid., p. 41.
7. J. Stalin, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, p. 45, Moscow, 1946.
8. Ibid., p. 59.
9. Pravda, No. 28, February 2, 1944.
10. Pravda, No. 310, November 6, 1942.
11. J. Stalin, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, p. 64, Moscow, 1946.
12. Ibid., p. 72.
13. J. Stalin, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, p. 83, Moscow, 1946.
14. Ibid., p. 116.
15. J. Stalin, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, p. 93, Moscow, 1946.
16. Stalin on Lenin, p. 44, Moscow, 1946.
17. Pravda, No. 185, July 25, 1943.
18. J. Stalin, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, p. 117, Moscow, 1946.
19. Ibid., p. 83.
20. Ibid., p. 113.
21. Ibid., p. 125.
22. Pravda, No. 321, December 31, 1943.
23. J. Stalin, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, p. 185, Moscow, 1946.
24. Ibid., p. 184.
25. Ibid., p. 173.
26. Ibid., p. 188.
27. Pravda, No. 106, May 3, 1945.
28. J. Stalin, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, pp. 196-198, Moscow, 1946.
29. J. Stalin, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, p. 201, Moscow, 1946.
30. J. Stalin, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, p. 210, Moscow, 1946.
31. J. Stalin, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, p. 123, Moscow, 1946.
32. Ibid.
33. Ibid., p. 163.
34. Ibid.
35. J. Stalin, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, p. 167, Moscow, 1946.
36. Ibid., p. 165.
37. J. Stalin, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, pp. 170-71, Moscow, 1946.
38. J. Stalin, On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, p. 173, Moscow, 1946.
39. Pravda, No. 302, December 22, 1929.
40. V. M. Molotov, The Speech on the 28th Anniversary of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Russ. ed., pp. 18-19, 1945.