Tales From Under the Iron Fist of STALIN!!!

Joseph Stalin, Premier of the USSR 1878-1953

STALIN was a monster, pure and simple. His name is synonymous with Communism: that complete and total failure of an 80 year + social experiment. (Not to be confused with Universal Healthcare). This ruthless Russian despot manipulated his way to the top through cunning political skills and even more tactful methods of assassination. As the Premiere of Soviet Russia, Joseph Stalin brutally murdered approximately 60 million of his own people, primarily out of sheer paranoia! The guy was mentally deranged, and a fraction of the world suffered under his sociopathic tyranny. He also had a mustache that would make Super Mario jealous.

In Soviet Russia, party has fun with you!

Joe Stalin was one ruthless mo-fo. This guy makes Adolph Hitler look like a ballerina with a foul temper (no offense to angry ballerinas everywhere). Point being, it is in my not-so-humble opinion that Stalin is much more deserving of the low-ranking title: THE EMBODIMENT OF PURE EVIL!! (right alongside Roman Emperor Nero, Vlad the Impaler, Ivan the Terrible, and of course The one and only Stay-Puft Marshmallow-Man). Of all the assholish dick-tators and international terrorists that have littered modern history with their propaganda (Saddam Hussein, Osama Bin Laden, Mussolini, Kim Kardashian, Fidel Castro, and Pol Pot to name several) the notion that Stalin was by far the worst of the lot just goes to show you how awesometacular his reign must have been for the people living in Soviet Russia. Hint: it wasn’t Disney Land.

Oddly enough both Hitler and Stalin had a lot in common! Both rose to power in their respective countries and murdering incalculable numbers of their own citizens, whilst leading propaganda campaigns that put Golden Age American Comic Books to shame; these dictators might’ve been best buds, if they hadn’t been on opposing teams; the Dick and Jane of global-scale homicide, if you will.

Hitler was the Fuhrer of Nazi Germany, a fascist state, while Stalin would become the all-powerful supreme ruler of the Russian Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), a communist empire. Stalin didn’t just single out a single religious minority, he outlawed any practice of religion, and punished perceived dissent without hesitation.

Stalin-lite

ORIGIN OF A SUPER VILLAIN

Joseph Stalin was born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili to a poor family. As with many aspiring dictators / part-time mass-murderors, Stalin had a rather dubious origin.  The only surviving child of his household (coincidence?), he grew up under the abusive lashings of his alcoholic father until his mother sent him away to the ironically named Gori Spiritual School (in 1888) to become a priest. It would seem that fate had other plans in store for Lil’ Stalin.

One day, while studying in theological seminary, Josef Dzhughashvili came across the passionate works of censored authors: Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, and Vladimir Lenin (not to be confused with John Lennon of The Beatles). Marxism was essentially a government structure which would obliterate capitalism and classism: Everyone gets a fair share of work, food, and stuff. “From each according to his ability, to each according to his need.” – Karl Marx (1875). That might sound good on paper, but some people are inherently greedy / lazy bastards. This system was actually attempted way back in 1621 when the Mayflower Pilgrims attempted to start over from scratch in the New World, and it failed miserably.

The Marxist philosophers sparked a spiritual fire inside young Joseph in a way other holy texts never did, setting him on the roadway to hell, paved with good intentions. In 1899 Joseph dropped seminary like a bad habit, and pursued a career in politics- unquestionably a worse habit. Within a couple of years, JD was passing out communist manifestos, organizing protests, and working with Lenin’s Bolshevik party to overthrow the status quo.

During this time he married Ketevan Svanidze who gave birth to his son Yakob, before her untimely demise from typhus. At her funeral, Young Stalin proclaimed: “This creature softened my heart of stone. She died and with her died my last warm feelings for humanity.” His comrades had the sense to take away his revolver, but not the foresight to schedule some much needed psychiatric help.

Joe’s activist years eventually led to his arrest and exile in Siberia. In 1917, Josef was serving out his sentence in a Siberian prison when the long-anticipated communist revolution occurred without him. In the midst of the (First) World War, Germany had a devious plan to remove their Russian enemy from the conflict by simply buying Lenin a one way ticket to Saint Petersburg, and it worked. Vladimir Lenin, the outspoken extremist was practically a biological weapon in the form of a guy who couldn’t shut up about how great socialism was. The Germans loaded him onto a train, enabling him to infiltrate Russia, and they let him do the rest for them…

Taking advantage of social unrest, Lenin and his supporters rallied behind the ideas of Karl Marx’s utopian society and within months overthrew the Russian monarchy. Czar Nicholas II, the last of the Romanovs stepped down from the throne in hopes of alleviating the violence. In response, he and his entire family (including his wife, brother, son, daughters, maids, and dog) were rounded up, lined up against a wall, and executed without mercy.

The Last of the cursed Romanov Dynasty

After taking control of the entire country, Lenin announced the way things were going to work from now on: “All citizens are here transformed into hired employees of the state, which is made up of the armed workers… All that is required is that they should work equally, should regularly do their share of the work, and should receive equal pay.” The irony was that things got even worse than before, while the unequal divide between those in power and the working class became more unbalanced than ever before.

Lenin, Stalin’s mentor, later explained the true purpose of the communist revolution, “The point of the uprising is the seizure of power; afterwards we will see what we can do with it.” Lenin didn’t give a shit about anyone but himself, and often referred to his followers as useful idiots. Communism under Lenin had mutated into something horrifically different from what Marx had originally intended. Marx envisioned a world of peaceful anarchy. Lenin adapted and twisted his meaning to suit his needs. He and his party were exempt from the system, because as it turned out communism wouldn’t work without people (The Bolsheviks) behind the scenes running the show.

Meanwhile, among the ranks of the Bolsheviks, a young man named Josef Stalin quietly made plans to turn the Communist Empire into a one man show…

Pay no attention to the man behind the Iron Curtain…

WHAT’S IN A NAME?

Returning from exile in Siberia, Joseph renamed himself ‘Stalin’, which in Russian means ‘Man of Steel’, in English it means ‘Full of Shit’. And like the building-leaping Superman of DC Comics, Stalin knew no bounds, he thought he was invincible. Seriously though, Stalin gave new meaning to the term Bass-Turd. An all around failure at the game of LIFE, there’s unfortunately very little positive I could say about the man if I wanted to.

Upon rejoining his comrades, he became a member of the Communist Party’s Central Committee. From there, Stalin quickly rose through the ranks, manipulating his way, and out-maneuvering his rivals with ease, eventually landing a sweet gig as general secretary of the communist party in 1922.

That year an aging Lenin wrote a letter to many of the prominent members of the party cautioning them against the ever-ambitious Stalin, warning that Stalin had “concentrated boundless power in his hands and I am not convinced that he will always manage to use this power with adequate care.” Also worth noting: Stalin often cited Ivan the Terrible as one of his role models, which right there should have sent off some red flags.

In 1924 Vladimir Lenin passed away, leaving the communist party scrambling for an heir. Unfortunately for them, none of them heeded Lenin’s suggestion to remove Stalin before it was too late. By 1928 Stalin had emerged as the supreme ruler of the USSR, and everyone in all of Russia was about to regret it.  Meanwhile, Joseph Stalin married Nadya Allilueva and had two more kids: Vasili and Svetlana. Stalin, like his own father, was often distant, but harsh when his family didn’t live up to his high standards. His abusive treatment eventually led to Nadya’s suicide in 1932.

Whatever happened to the Sons of Stalin? Glad you asked, anonymous internet user who thinks they may have took a wrong turn at Google! – As for Stalin’s first son, Yakov, (or “Yakov the Jackov” as he was affectionately known to his father), there was always a strained relationship. Stalin is remembered for treating his son with an air of dickishness and mistrust that is reminiscent of his patriarchy of the good ole USSR. This eventually culminated in Yakov’s attempted suicide. After learning of his son’s unsuccessful plot to off himself, Stalin responded only by dismissively saying that his son was such a failure that he couldn’t even shoot straight.

During WWII, Yakov enlisted in the Red Army in a futile attempt to make his father proud, who lovingly encouraged him to get out of his sight, stating simply, “Go and fight”. When Yakob was captured by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp. Stalin’s concern was expressed thusly: “There are no prisoners of war, only traitors to their homeland [and] malicious deserters!” He then had Yakov’s wife arrested, (his own daughter-in-law) separated from her daughter (his granddaughter), and sent to the Gulag.

When the Red Army captured German Field Marshal, Friedrich von Paulus, Stalin had a chance to negotiate and get his son back alive, instead he coldly stated, “I will not trade a Marshal for a Lieutenant.” Yakov died while attempting to escape a Nazi death camp, throwing himself at an electric fence while being riddled with bullets. Vasily Dzhugashvili on the other hand constantly used his father’s name for personal gain, eventually driving his career into the side of a mountain after his father’s passing, and eventually died of alcoholism. His daughter however eventually escaped to the US and lived a long happy life far from Mother Russia (aka the angry Russian dude pictured above).

Suffice it to say, Stalin manages to make Darth Vader look like a loving and supportive dad who never missed a single baseball game.

Throughout his entire reign as Premier of the USSR, Stalin maintained unlimited power through the utilization of totalitarian tactics and the manipulation of fear. He became extremely paranoid and his mistrust in the motives of others grew like a cancer within him as the tidal wave of communism spread like an alien invasion from a 50’s B Horror movie across the Eastern hemisphere.

STALIN: A Gentle Soul.

KNEEL BEFORE STALIN!!!

It was in the 1930’s when Stalin showed his true colors, a prosperous time affectionately known to the Russian people as THE GREAT TERROR! This was marked by a series of purges targeting potential enemies within their ranks, including, but not limited to: party rivals, religious leaders, those critical of his regime, suspicious ethnic minorities, ‘potentially dangerous individuals’, or anyone who looked at him the wrong way. He even questioned and eliminated many of his closest associates and advisors out of sheer brutal insanity. These extreme measures decimated the Red Army’s military leadership, and led to the imprisonment and executions of THOUSANDS of citizens.

This power tripping sociopath was just getting warmed up.

Stalin established his own private secret police that answered only to him: The NKVD. He met any show of independence or initiative with unforgiving force. Whether or not there was a legitimate threat to his power, Stalin erred on the side of caution. Anyone Stalin classified as ‘Anti-Soviet’ or ‘Enemies of the People’, the NKVD would take them out without question. It was completely reasonable to persecute and eliminate entire groups of people, under the guise that it was for the greater good. Show trials and torture were commonplace under the direction of Stalin,  Nikolai Yezhov, and  Lavrenty Pavlovich Beria.

MILLIONS were sent to slave labor camps under Stalin’s progressive program known as the Gulag system which forcibly collectivized agriculture and deported wealthy peasants. These rapid industrialisation initiatives boosted productivity and economic growth in an effort to compete with the United States, but did so at the cost of countless lives, many of whom died of starvation… Then World War II happened.

Allies at the Teheran Conference (1943) -From right to left: Churchill (UK), FDR (USA), and STALIN? (USSR) Wait, what’s he doing there?!

WWII – BATTLE OF THE ‘STACHES

Hitler and his Nazi thugs were spreading across Europe like mono at a co-ed high school party. The Soviet Union could care less… until of course Germany began infringing on Stalin’s blood-stained territory. The USSR joined with America and England as they squared off against ‘the Axis of Evil’ (Germany, Italy, and Japan), presumably under the motto of “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.” So when the Nazis began goose-stepping towards Stalingrad, Stalin answered with an immense force of drafted soldiers motivated by NKVD agents behind them with orders to shoot deserters who attempted a retreat. Stalin’s support would prove to be instrumental in the defeat of Germany, but at the cost of 27 million Soviet citizens.

HvS – Hitler vs Stalin: Whoever wins, we lose…

Thanks to Russian General Georgy Zhukov, and an unforgiving Russian winter, the Soviet Union utterly annihilated the Nazis at nearly every major battle between the two evil dictators. When General Zhukov refused an order from Stalin to arrest soldiers within the ranks of his army for alleged dissent, this war hero was exiled to the Ural Mountain district, and later died after being unjustly implicated in a plot against Premiere Krushchev in 1955. Hitler’s “Operation: Barbarossa” was one of the biggest FAILURES of the Fuhrer’s full-time career as an Irredeemable piece of petrified shit.

While Stalin was shaking hands with President Roosevelt, his operatives were stealing key secrets from America’s  code-name secret weapon – ‘The Manhattan Project’: an elaborate program that developed the world’s first atomic bombs which were eventually dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima at the close of WWII in 1945. Once Stalin’s forces leveled Berlin, they quickly began establishing an occupation, spreading communism further across Europe and instantly sparking a conflict with their previous capitalistic allies. Berlin was split into two (West and East) like a city run by Two-Face, which lasted until the Soviet Union (and the Berlin Wall) crumbled like a stale saltine cracker under a sledge hammer. Stalin began to show his true motives of expansion, and the Allied forces began to sweat.

Prior to World War II, most people outside of Russia didn’t realize just how bad things were under Stalin’s rule, but many of the stats we have now didn’t become available till after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 90’s. Perhaps one of the most atrocious things Stalin did in his lengthy career was using the concept of an unattainable Utopian Civilization to turn half the world into the 9th Circle of Hell for his own personal gain!

To further his agenda of complete control, the guy was so full of himself that he plastered his fugly mustachioed face all over the goddamn place! If you lived in Moscow, you could not avoid being bombarded by 60 foot tall red and black posters of Stalin’s mug staring you down. The gaze of Stalin’s mustache saw all – this unnerving feeling was only reinforced by the ever present fear of the NKVD: Stalin’s omniscient eyes and ears. Stalin was so paranoid that he gave everyone else a good reason to be paranoid of him.

Following WWII, China was seized by Civil War, and a Communist uprising headed by Mao Ze-Dong, a self-centered prick known for demanding people to live by his little Red Book, and place a portrait of himself in every house in China. Mao (with the semi-covert help of Stalin) established the Peoples Republic of China, which he reigned over as its President from 1949-1954 before changing his title to Chairman Mao. Mao Ze-Dong also happened to be a gigantic dildo manufactured in China. Mao met up with his best bud Stalin in Moscow where the douchey Premiere dictated how things were going to run.

HOLY RUSSIAN WEAPONS BATMAN!!!

When Stalin proudly boasted of Russia’s brand-new nuclear arsenal under development, American President Truman (and much of Western Civilization) shat his pants at the thought of such an unfathomable destructive force under the complete control of a totally unstable, and ever more sinister tyrant with a very clear agenda for world domination by any means.

The response of course was to build more and more weapons of mass destruction, on each side. These two Super-Powered arsenals quadrupled every year as the rest of the world watched in silent horror as the Doomsday Clock ticked ever closer to the midnight apocalypse. The Cold War was a long-standing staring contest between the USA and the USSR, both competing over the size of their missiles. Although neither country ever ended up directly attacking the other (thank god!!), this period was marked by a series of smaller conflicts between their allies.

THE DOOMSDAY CLOCK

… because Nuclear blasts won’t find you hiding under a desk…

The Soviet Union grew like a ravenous cancer, absorbing smaller defenseless countries under the Red Iron Curtain. America meanwhile attempted to counter by supplying many a third world country with weapons in an attempt to establish a border of capitalism and democracy to stop the flood of communism. Many of these attempts at doing so backfired horrifically. (Korea, Afghanistan, Vietnam, etc…)

Many around the world had figured out that by the time the 50’s rolled around, if a full-on world-wide nuclear-driven conflict was indeed on the horizon, the effects would be so devastating that it might mean the complete extinction of our species. Luckily for us (the human race as a whole), the only thing that seemed to keep Stalin from slamming his fist down on that ominous red button was his ever-increasing, debilitating paranoia.

Isolated with only his paranoid thoughts to keep him company, Stalin died of a stroke in 1953 at the age of 74, and even those closest to him let out a sigh of relief. Stalin’s secret police was reorganized as the KGB under Nikita Khrushchëv, whom replaced Stalin as the leader of the Soviet Union. Khrushchev wrote, “All of us around Stalin were temporary people. As long as he trusted us to a certain degree, we were allowed to go on living and working. But the moment he stopped trusting you, Stalin would start to scrutinize you until the cup of his distrust overflowed.”

Just how many people did Stalin brutally murder and/or assassinate during his political career? Estimates range from somewhere between 20 and 60 million. Hitler ranked right behind him with a silver medal at a whopping 11 million. Mao Ze-Dong later beat out both of them with a score of 78-100 million people!! (Which you could argue is also Stalin’s fault… just saying)

Stalin congratulating Mao on his new record for MASS GENOCIDE.

The Nuclear-fueled Cold War tensions that followed Stalin’s demise, from the Cuban Missile Crisis to CHERNOBYL were resounding echoes of Stalin’s relentless legacy of sociopathic terror!!!

Truly EVIL individuals should not be feared, instead they need to be made fun of, for that’s how they lose their power over us.

                                                                                                                                        Erik Slader

In Soviet-Russia, Superman watch you!

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Hope you enjoyed this edition of “Epik Fails!”, if you liked it let me know in the comments below! Also, be sure to ’Like’ EPiK FAILs on Facebook! (www.Facebook.com/EpikFails), and SHARE IT with your friends! (You can also subscribe to updates) If you have any questions, concerns, or suggestions say so below…

————————————————–Click for a Complete List of Essays on Historical Failure!!

—–Sources:

“Stalin: Russia’s Man of Steel” by: Albert Marrin

“Stalin’s Curse” by Robert Gellately

“A Failed Empire: The Soviet Union in the Cold War from Stalin to Gorbachev” by Vladislav Zubok

“Superman: Red Son” by Mark Millar.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/stalin_joseph.shtml

http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/biographies/stalin.html

http://www.novelguide.com/ReportEssay/history/european-history/comparing-hitler-and-stalin-their-rise-power

http://econfaculty.gmu.edu/bcaplan/museum/hisfram1.htm

http://www.eyewitnesstohistory.com/nicholas.htm

http://www.pbs.org/behindcloseddoors/in-depth/stalins-spies.html

http://www.historyinanhour.com/2011/12/04/the-sad-lives-and-demise-of-stalin%E2%80%99s-sons/