What was Stalin like as a person?

Question

What do we think Stalin was like as a person?

Was he tough on the outside, but on the inside was he all soft and squishy?

Tell me what you think of Stalin...
I think he was feared BIG TIME by the people of Russia.

Answer 1

Joseph Stalin was a lovable person, strong in likes and dislikes, he loved his country, he also wanted to contribute to the general well being and peace in the world! He was indeed a global person, as much as Nehru of India, Nasser of Egypt! Some successors like Nkita Krushchev, learned a lot from Stalin's life and style of administration and political skills and wisdom!

Answer 2

What Was Stalin Like

Answer 3

Didn't know him personally, that said, having read extensive bios of FDR and Churchill, among others I must state that it is 'easy' to demonize the 'bad evil guys of history.' Not that Stalin was a 'saint' or anything but he was just an ordinary man elevated by fate & his own considerable effort to rulenover a nation of millions. Stalin was not born evil. Stalin learned to be tough. Stalin could be the stern scowling General but he could also be the laughing proud Papa patting a child's head, or as demonstrated by a future Russian Ruler, blowing the belly button of a child.

Stalin hid his heart =- - - he felt he had too but it was FDR who who observed that Stalin was a skillfull politcian and that Stalin's brutal methods did bring stability to Russia.

The people of Russia did not 'fear' Stalin as much as they feared the State Police and the Party Apparatus that governed their status in the scheme of things. Simply by staying in Office Stalin earned the title of Father Russia and if the people did not exactly 'Love' Stalin, the average Soviet Citizen viewed him as a Stern Father - -- - strict, making tough decisions, doing what is right . In the European Tradition. Kids don't have to Love Daddy, respect & obediance is reward in itself.

Pax-------------------

PS // Many examples exist of Stalin simply relaxing, reciting poetry, singing folk songs, able to discuss a variety of topics. fond of jokes, in fact Americans learned to amuse Stalin with the hundred plus jokes based on the premise of someone dying and meeting Hitler and Mussolini and Stalin in H l l .... True, Stalin often anticipated the punchline and laughed harder than anyone else in the room . He actually charmed Churchill much to Churchchill's amusement. Stalin did sweep FDR off his feet, no easy feat for he too was an astute sly fox.

Pax ------------

Answer 4

Stalin was a horrible person and yes, everyone feared him. Even those who remained in favor and did a lot of his crimes, like Beria, never knew when he would turn on them.

I forget what happened to his first wife, but she died. His second wife committed suicide after years of neglect, abuse, and humiliation by him. His son by his first wife was taken prisoner by the Germans during WWII and they offered to exchange him for some German prisoner/s, but Stalin refused. I think he thought his son was stupid and weak for getting captured. The son died in captivity.

He was responsible for killing millions of his own people long before WWII, directly ordered deaths or by sending them to Siberia or some Gulag to be worked to death and starved. And the killing he did of anyone who he felt threatened him decimated the officer core of the Russian army right before WWII. He was also responsible for ordering the executions of 4.000 Polish officers in the Katyn massacre who were legally prisoners of war, and should have been treated as such.

Following the war, during a victory parade led by a successful general, either Zhukov or Chuikov, I always get them confused, he felt so threatened by the general's popularity that the general was sent to command a redundant force in the Ukraine, far, far, from Moscow.

In his public and his private lives he was a paranoid, despotic, psychopathic dictator to whom no one dared say no, and many, many people, Russians and others rejoiced when he died. By the way, people feared him so much that when he lay dying no doctor would prescribe other that very rudimentary treatment because they were afraid that if he died after any kind of treatment they would be blamed for killing him. This was the atmosphere he created and it is his legacy to the world.

Answer 5

I'm not quite sure I want to know. But, the way you phrased it (no offense, this might just be all the soda talking), it brings up a picture of trying to poke him to see if he's "all soft and squishy" on the inside.

Answer 6

I think he was tough on the inside too.
He took all the wheat the farmers produced and sold it on the world market, while the people of his own country starved to death.
He was like a super hard military person, but without honor or patriotism. He was probably personally just as mean, selfish, dictatorial, dishonest, manipulating, and controlling as he was professionally.

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Answer 7

No, no, no. Listen, Joe and I discussed this over vodka tumblers in a little joint off Red Square a long time ago. He said to me"Now Leonoid, ole pal,brother, I know what they say. I'm overbearing, I'm unsympathetic to the plight of the peasants, I'm xenophobic about the Gerrys; yeah, all that. But you, you, Leonoid, you remember how my mother cried out for somebody to please urinate on her and put out the fire from the Molotov cocktail one of my soldires cracked her skull open with? Yes. Did I not, as any sympathetic son would do, then empty my bladder completely for her sake? "
I shot Joe through the nostrils with my Kalishnikov then and took his place. We were twins---you know?So maybe you think maybe that makes Leonoid Stalin the evil twin?The people love me.

Answer 8

Stalin is a monster he killed his people so everyone else will fear him. He was such a snob.

Answer 9

A paranoid brute.

Answer 10

mad guy,georgian nation,ugly on face scine,after death of wife became more mad,murdered ~50.000.000 of russians,was judophob.....was like king of absolutly monarchy,he trust just for himself....