Tito wrote to Stalin: Don't send anyone to kill me, we have captured five hundred people

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Stalin in his youth

　　Three letters kept by Stalin

　　In early March 1953, a wave of reform blew throughout the Soviet Union. After a long period of repression, Stalin's successor was finally able to change his policies after his death. Not a single person in the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee endorsed his generally conservative policy, and even conservatives in the CPSU, such as Molotov and Kaganovich, were in favour of implementing a certain degree of reform. The reforms that Stalin had been fighting for so long finally had the possibility of being implemented. However, there has been no discussion of reform in society. The Soviet Union did not allow the public to discuss these issues. The last thing Stalin's successor in the CPSU wanted to do was to give ordinary citizens of the Soviet Union, or grass-roots officials of the government, influence the Decisions of the Kremlin.

　　Molotov and Kaganovich were unable to stop malenkov, Beria, and Khrushchev's reform plans. Malenkov wanted to increase the allocation of collective farms to promote agricultural production in the Soviet Union, and he also favored increased investment in light industry. Khrushchev wanted to open up the countryside in the Soviet Union to end decades of food shortages in the Soviet Union. Malenkov and Beria were determined to promote peaceful coexistence between the Soviet Union and the United States: they feared that the Cold War would bring disaster to humanity. Beria wanted friendly relations with Yugoslavia, and he wanted to abolish Russia's privileges in the Soviet Union and reduce restrictions on the self-development of the cultures of the peoples. Malenkov, Beria, and Khrushchev all believed that public life should not be as violent and arbitrary as it had been during stalinism. They advocated the release of political prisoners in labor camps and the blockade of the official media to avoid propagating stereotypical practices. If the Soviet Union had changed Stalin's policy, there would have been no need to worship Stalin as a god.

　　The Presidium of the CPSU dealt with Stalin's tangible legacy with great care. When Lenin died in 1924, Stalin became the administrator of Lenin's writings, deciding which of Lenin's works should be published and which should not be published. He published On the Basis of Leninism. Stalin consulted Lenin's writings and thus sought legitimacy for what he had done. Stalin's successors were all familiar with this. On March 5, 1953, with the authorization of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, they confiscated the Collected Works of Stalin and anonymously sent them to the Marxist-Leninist Institutes of Public Libraries, leaving only a few hundred books. Many of Stalin's letters and telegrams were burned, and drafts of most of his articles and writings were missing. The last part of the "StalinIst Writings" is very incomplete.

　　There were also secrets on the table in Stalin's Villa Conzevo. Sandwiched under a drawer of newspaper were three pages. One of them was written by Tito:

　　Stalin:

　　Don't send someone to kill me. We have captured five hundred people, some with bombs, some with guns ... If you still send someone to kill me, then I will also send someone to Moscow, and I will certainly not send a second one.

　　This is what Tito wrote to Stalin. No one has dared to speak to Stalin in this way. Perhaps that is why Stalin kept this note. He still retains Bukharin's last letter to him: "Koba, why do you want me to die?" "Is Stalin excited every time he rereads this letter? (He is said to have always had an opinion of Bukharin.) The third was a letter written by Lenin on March 5, 1922, asking Stalin to apologize to Krupskaya for his rude words and deeds. It was the last letter he had received from Lenin, and the content of the letter was very hurtful to self-esteem. If he hadn't been able to let go of these few things in his heart, he wouldn't have kept these letters.

　　The leaders of the CPSU kept the three letters secret. But after Stalin's death they changed soviet public discourse, and Pravda praised Stalin less. Some published articles began to criticize the "cult of personality." Although these articles quote extensively from Stalin's writings, this is not to say that Stalin's cult of personality is the most grandiose in history. While the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee was discussing the new policy, Beria regained his position as Minister of the Interior, as Beria had collected recordings of Stalin's conversations with the police. The recording shows that Stalin intended to carry out the terror to the end. Beria asked the members of the Central Committee to read the recordings.

　　The reformers faced a dilemma: if they renounced Stalin's legacy, the legitimacy of their rule would be greatly diminished, but if they did not implement the reforms immediately, social discontent would accumulate and they would be in trouble. There are even greater difficulties. Some people worship Stalin, but there are also millions who hate Stalin's repression. After Stalin's death, his ghost remained. Reformers must be determined and take effective measures. Panic is bound to disturb the order of the entire Soviet Union. The majority of the presidium believed that the reforms were carried out without specifically criticizing Stalin. At the meeting of the Central Committee of the CPSU, they merely mentioned the capriciousness of Stalin in his later years. Beria was arrested for fabricating agents of British intelligence agencies, and after Beria's arrest, the Presidium of the CPSU Central Committee met in July 1953. In fact, the leadership feared that Beria would have the top leadership and that he would implement reforms that looked quite radical. They believed that it was Beria, not Stalin, who was responsible for past crimes and abuses of power, and that beria was executed in December 1953.

　　Stalin's family also suffered major changes. His daughter Svetlana soon changed her surname. As a student, everyone knew that her name was Svetlana Stalina, and after Stalin's death, she changed her name to Svetlana Aliluyeva. Having bowed to her father's successor, she eventually survived. Vasily Stalin did not change accordingly, often indulging in wine and notoriety. Stalin had effectively disassociated himself, and after his father's death, he was investigated and arrested for his foolishness and misuse of public funds. His years of privilege were over.

Stalin's body was carried out of the Red Square Mausoleum

　　After the fall of Beria, the CPSU took control of the Ministry of internal affairs. Restrictions on the right of peoples to cultural self-determination are still relatively high. Malenkov and Khrushchev continued to push for reforms, and they were also fighting for supremacy. The purchase price of grain in collective farms has risen. In order to increase food production, the wasteland of Kazakhstan has been developed. Relations between the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia eased to a certain extent, tensions with the United States eased somewhat, and the Korean War ended. Since it was necessary to explicitly support every activity of the Presidium of the CPSU, the management of speeches at the Central Committee was less strict. Although the Soviet Union remained a one-party dictatorship, the atmosphere of terror generally faded. The rivalry between Malenkov and Khrushchev continues. Beria had worried about his radical reform ideas and his personal recklessness in the past. Malenkov lacked self-confidence, and Khrushchev became famous for his suppression of Beria, and he became the supreme leader of the Soviet Union in two years.

　　At Khrushchev's behest, a committee began investigating data from the Stalinist Great Purge. Although Khrushchev was looking for materials that would be unfavorable to Malenkov, it would take time. Several members of the Presidium of the CPSU opposed the implementation of further reforms. In order to ensure his smooth succession, Khrushchev raised the question of Stalin at the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU in 1956. Some people said that it was dangerous to disrupt the Soviet order, he retorted: "If we do not tell the truth at the Central Plenum, we may have to tell the truth at some point in the future." At that time we were not giving speeches, but being surveyed by the people! At the end of the Twentieth Congress of the CPSU, Khrushchev accused Stalin of being a freak who had killed thousands of people and undermined the Tradition of Leninism in terms of political leadership and concrete policies. The indictment does not provide a comprehensive and comprehensive evaluation of Stalin. Khrushchev's report focused on Stalin's activities since Kinov's murder in 1934. He did not directly criticize the basic political and economic structure established in the Soviet Union since the late 1920s, nor did he mention the horrors that Stalin had carried out during the Civil War and the implementation of the First Five-Year Plan. In order to win the support of the party and government officials of the time, he had to give the impression that your predecessors were victims of the Great Purge of 1937-1938.

　　There was no objection throughout the room. Khrushchev achieved his goal: it is difficult for his domestic rivals to accuse him of the legitimacy of leadership unless the man wants to go back to Stalin's great days of terror. However, there is also the problem that Stalin established communist regimes in Eastern Europe. By blaming Stalin, Khrushchev re-established a path of progress along the line of Leninism and the October Revolution. This did not work in the countries of Eastern Europe, where Stalin helped them establish communist regimes. Khrushchev's report was a political bombshell for Eastern Europe. Organized strike protests took place in Poland. In October 1956, there was also unrest in Hungary.

　　In June 1957, opponents of the reforms began to attack, demanding that Khrushchev resign as First Secretary of the CPSU. But the Central Committee of the CPSU supported him, and after several years of fierce struggle, he launched an even more violent attack on Stalin at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU in October 1961. The elder Bolshevik Dora Razujina took to the podium to speak. Because of years of repression she herself endured, she said Leninto dreamed of telling her that there could only be one of him in the mausoleums of Red Square. The audience applauded thunderously. One silent night, the affair began to be implemented, and Stalin's body, treated with embalming, was carried out of the mausoleum and buried under the walls of the Kremlin. There was only a pillar and a bust on his graveyard. Historians began to look for material on stalin's frequent quarrels with Lenin and their rude manners. Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd. The worship of Lenin is also constantly raising the worship of Khrushchev. In 1959, a new course on party history was published. Those party members who admired Stalin either remained silent or were expelled from the party. Only a handful of Communists abroad disagreed with this. The chief among them is the Chinese Communist Party. Mao was dissatisfied with Stalin in his life, but he saw Khrushchev's reforms as a break with Stalin and Mao's communism. This led to a rift in the relationship between the two sides, and finally China and the Soviet Union moved towards division.

　　Khrushchev stepped down in 1964. The Politburo of the CPSU (the Presidium was re-transformed into the Politburo) overthrew many of Khrushchev's policies at home and abroad, and the Politburo also masked the controversies of different opinions. But this is a revision of Khrushchev's policy, not a return to true Stalinism. The new General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, Brezhnev, never considered a reign of terror or personal despotism. "Stabilize cadres" became a slogan. But in fact, the Politburo of the CPSU intended to reassess Stalin's legacy on Stalin's birthday in 1969. Pravda's editorial prepared a compliment, which could only be published at the last minute due to the intervention of the Italian and French Communist Parties. (But it was also too late, and the Mongolian Communist Party had already issued it, because the time zone in Ulaanbaatar was earlier.) ）

　　But the motivation to reapply Stalin remained. Before Gorbachev came to power in July 1984, the Politburo considered the issue. The older members of the Politburo still had feelings for Stalin and were dissatisfied with Khrushchev.

　　The idea of restoring Stalin's reputation was gone, because after Gorbachev became general secretary of the party in 1985, he no longer mentioned it in the Politburo. Soon Stalin was again the object of criticism. Under Gorbachev's principle of openness, much of Stalin's abuse of power was exposed. Stalin's system of executive orders has been criticized. Movies, novels, poems, and historical writings all blame Stalin. Through the writings of intellectuals, Gorbachev made it clear to the public that a comprehensive assessment of Stalin's legacy was important for the rebirth of Soviet society. But the process was a bit out of control, as some of Stalin's critics believed that Lenin was also responsible for the abuse of power. They traced the origins of executive ordering back to the founding of the Soviet Union. But in the public discussion, there were also praises for Stalin, and some people affirmed Stalin's contribution to the industrialization of the Soviet Union in the 1930s and the victory of the anti-fascist war.

　　But it's not over yet. Gorbachev accused Stalin of being the biggest criminal in history. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the establishment of the Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin was still criticizing Stalin, unlike Gorbachev, who criticized both Stalin and Lenin. The critique continued until 2000, when Putin was elected president of Russia. Putin's grandfather worked as a cook for Lenin and Stalin. President Putin does not want to hear stories of abuses of power in the 1930s and 1940s, but instead wants to be able to glorify the achievements of the Soviet Union in those years. Putin did not approve of denigrating history, and he symbolically restored the National Anthem of the Soviet Union, of course, by changing the lyrics. He often mentions his experience working at the KGB, whose predecessor was the Stalinist security department. Restoring Stalin's reputation is obviously not Putin's aim; he is trying to show that the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union, and the Russian Federation are in the same vein. For the first time since the late 1980s, Stalin ceased to be the object of criticism. Putin believes that Stalin is a historical figure, and his merits and demerits can be left to scholars to comment on. This was an insult to Stalin, who was buried underground. As long as he was criticized after his death, he remained a living figure in Moscow politics. After Putin came to power, Stalin became an officially overlooked figure.

　　But society has not forgotten him. Despite the revelations of his dictatorship, stalin and the era of his rule are nostalgic. A 2000 poll confirmed this. When asked which period of the twentieth century was most memorable, the majority of respondents thought it was the Brezhnev period, 30 percent thought it was the Khrushchev period, 28 percent thought it was the revolutionary period, 18 percent thought it was the reign of Nicholas II, and 26 percent thought it was Stalin' reign, which is not the lowest figure. As many as 48 percent disapproved of Stalin's rule, but the fact that a quarter did not oppose Stalin's rule disappointed those who advocated social change. Transferred from "Wenhui Reading Weekly", source: People's Daily News