Did Joesph Stalin really do this?

Question

I was reading this in an article:

Even though the Russian people answered the call and laid down their lives for the Motherland, Stalin still found ways of terrorizing them.

During the most savage conflict of a merciless war, the Battle for Stalingrad, Stalin formed units of the NKVD who were ordered, on pain of death, to advance behind the Russian troops. Should any soldier try to retreat they were to be shot. It was forbidden for any Russian soldier to surrender and if they did their families would lose their state allowances. Tens of thousands of deserters lost their lives in this way.

By 1945 the Red Army pushed west destroying Hitler’s armies and arrived at the gates of Berlin in May. But Stalin’s repression followed them.

Stalin became alarmed by the thought that his troops would become contaminated by the ideas of the American and British troops in Germany. If a Russian soldier should even embrace one of his fellow victors he was arrested and sent to a labor camp for re-education.

By 1945 more than three million Russians had escaped to the West and by 1948 almost all had been forcibly repatriated. On arriving back to the USSR thousands were marched straight from the boats and trains into makeshift execution yards and shot.

Is it true?

Answer 1

Elements of it are true but largely it is misinformed propaganda.  

Yes in Stalingrad the order was "not one step backwards" and yes, some retreating troops were shot by the NKVD, but as the battle wore on, they number who were executed dropped off sharply.  And there is no evidence for the persecution of the families of such troops.

Russians were allowed to surrender, and, due to inept leadership, millions were captured by the n***s in the opening year of the war.  The reason many did not want to be taken prisoner is that Germany & the USSR didn't sign the Geneva Convention so if you were captured, the n***s had no obligation to look after you - millions starved or were worked to death.

Deserters were persecuted, as in any army - and thousands DID desert, often working for the Germans as Hiwis,

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hiwi_(volun...

Stalin's repression did not immediately follow the troops to Berlin (it did come, but not immediately, and not on the scale you suggest) and there is no evidence for troops who embraced Western Allies being arrested or persecuted in any way -I have photos of my father, stationed in Berlin in the 1950s, in uniform next to a couple of Soviet troops also in uniform - they are all smiling and enjoying a cigarette and a beer.

Three million Russians escaping to the West - nonsense - how - there were miles of ruined countryside, towns and cities between most Soviet citizens and and any Western city  And boats?  Trains would be used to repatriate people, not boats.

And finally Stalin's Terror, evil though it was, did not massacre people on the same scale as Hitler, the latest estimates for the number of dead is about 2.5 million, not the frankly ludicrous 60million that some claimed, or the 35 that Robert Conquest guessed at.

Read Stalin: A Biography by Robert Service, Beria. My Father by Sergio Beria and Russia's War by Richard Overy for a better understanding of the USSR, and how it fought WWII.

Answer 2

I wouldn't put it past Stalin. It's been said he killed more of his own people than the Germans did during WWII. He did let his own son languish in a concentration camp even though the Germans were willing to trade him for one of their generals. There are two conflicting views on what he said concerning this trade, one has him saying "A lieutenant is not worth a general" while another has him saying "I have no son." Personally, I think it's more the latter as he didn't view failure in others well and would have viewed his son's capture as a failure on his part. Retreat would have also been an unforgiveable failure.

Answer 3

Yes it is true.  I remember a interview on the history channel with a Russian soldier.  "Russia won world war II not because of Stalin, but in spite of him.  "  Russia killed almost as many of its own people as the German invasion.  Stalin  gutted his army by purging the officer corps, Started Pograms against Jews etc.  Many of the techniques you have described were used under Stalin's direct order.  

Answer 4

Yes, 100% true. The U.S. and UK know the Soviet soldiers that were repatriated would be executed, but we sent them back anyway.

Answer 5

Yes.  That was just starters.

Check out the Katyn massacre, where Stalin had the Polish officer core murdered so there would be no opposition to his takeover later.

Stalin was a thug.

Answer 6

He did those things, and lots and lots more. Read about the purges of the 1930s and the late 1940s. Shortly before WWII, Stalin purged some of his best senior military officers, which turned out to be a very bad idea when the war started.

There was the starving of the kulaks in 1933 (my parents visited that summer and saw it with their own eyes) and the Gulag. And Stalin's main hatchet man, Lavrenti Beria.

Answer 7

Yes, it is true.  It is recounted by sober and reliable historians.

Answer 8

Yes he did. But because Hitler killed much more people, this was overshadowed.

Answer 9

just last year we went over this in school and sadly yes, it is true.