Stalin's character and abilities

Question 1

Where was Stalin born?

Answer 1

Georgia

Question 2

What did Stalin’s father do for a living? What does this tell us about Stalin’s background?

Answer 2

Father was a cobbler

Stalin was from humble origins, not from a bourgeois/middle-class background

Question 3

Where did Stalin go to school? Was he successful?

Answer 3

Went to an Orthodox seminary (Church academy).

No - he was expelled for his revolutionary ideas

Question 4

What had Stalin joined by 1912?

Answer 4

The Bolshevik Central Committee

Question 5

What evidence shows that Stalin was a dedicated Bolshevik from the very start?

Answer 5

Raised funds for the Bolsheviks through bank hold-ups and train robberies

Founded the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda

Arrested 8 times by 1917

Question 6

What influence did Stalin have on Bolshevik ideas in Petrograd in March 1917?

Answer 6

Believed the Bolsheviks should follow accommodationism with the Provisional Government (with Kamenev)

Question 7

What position in Sovnarkom did Stalin take up during the Civil War?

Answer 7

Commissar for Nationalities

Question 8

In which region did Stalin organise Bolshevik efforts during the Civil War?

Answer 8

The Caucasus region

Question 9

What position did Stalin take up in the Party in 1922? Why was this an important role

Answer 9

General Secretary

Allowed him to build up personal files on all members of the Party; gave him the power to use his patronage to put his own supporters in top positions

Question 10

What two incidents reduced Lenin’s faith in Stalin?

Answer 10

• Stalin had a casual attitude in discussions with Georgian representatives at the end of the Civil War
• Stalin subjected Lenin’s wife, Krupskaya, to ‘a storm of the coarsest abuse’ when she challenged him over the Georgian question

Question 11

What did Lenin write about Stalin in his Testament?

Answer 11

• Stalin had too much power as General Secretary
• Stalin was too rude to be General Secretary
• The other Bolsheviks should remove Stalin from his position as General Secretary and replace him with someone ‘more patient, more loyal, more polite and more attentive’

Question 12

What two other positions in the Party did Stalin hold from 1919? Why were they important position for him?

Answer 12

Liaison officer between the Politburo and Orgburo - could monitor both Party policy and Party personnel

Head of the Workers’ and Peasants’ Inspectorate - oversaw the work of all government departments

Question 13

Explain why Stalin benefitted from the Lenin Enrolment

Answer 13

500,000 new Party members who were mostly poorly educated - loyal to Stalin, who had invited them into the party and given them social privileges. Therefore they voted for what Stalin wanted at local and central level (including at the party congresses)

Question 14

Explain why Stalin benefitted from the Ban on Factions

Answer 14

Because Stalin could ‘control the votes’ at Party Congresses, he would always have a majority for whatever he wanted. He could therefore use the Ban on Factions (introduced 1921 by Lenin to deal with opposition to NEP) to present minority views as factions - and expel them from the party