The aim of this exercise is very simple.
It is to challenge the well entrenched perception that
Stalin's rise to power was a mysterious event somehow
guided by the hand of fate. In the process, the aim is
to get students engaged in some other activities by default.
The first is the time honoured process of using a
range of primary and secondary source material. The
second is a slightly postmodern issue, namely the question
of where history comes from. The rationale of this activity
is that the alleged mystery of Stalin's rise to power
is based on later events. The argument goes something
like this:
- Stalin had a horrendous human rights record.
- He was apparently irrational and paranoid in his
later years. He also indulged in the particularly
sinister process of airbrushing his opponents out
of the pictorial records of history, having disposed
of them physically first.
- He was, therefore, (in the language of 1066 and
All That) 'a bad thing'. Lenin was therefore 'a good
thing'.
- Stalin was not in Lenin's league as an intellectual
and he was responsible for terrible atrocities. Therefore,
it became easy to accept the view that Stalin was
not very clever at all.
- Trotsky cut a much more romantic figure, and his
interpretation coloured the views of later historians.
Cold War conflict and Khrushchev's criticisms of Stalin
must have coloured this further.
The aim of the source material is to get students to
think this process through. Source 1 will confirm all
that is evil about Stalin. But is evil the same thing
as dull and stupid? Does anyone consider Hitler to be
stupid? This is the thought process which underpins
Stage 1 of the Activities section. It is meant to be
a general read through. Teachers could readily divide
the sources between a group of students and get them
to report back.
Stage 2 could be tackled simultaneously with Stage
1. The questions are not there to be slogged through.
They are there to stimulate discussion and help students
sort out their views for the activity in Stage 3.
Stage 3 suggests that they send an email. Clearly they
need not do this to get the benefit of the work. However,
the plan is that they mail their views to a central
message board where other History Online users can compare
their ideas with those of other students, and perhaps
engage in a discussion taking their ideas further.
