Course material

1. A Monster of World War II Millions of people died under [Stalin's]...
A Monster of World War II
Millions of people died under [Stalin's] regime. People were sent to camps where they were
forced to do hard labor under terrible conditions. Sometimes his soldiers gathered people
into large groups to be shot or gassed. In many cases, the victims of these executions had
committed no crimes; they were simply born into a racial group he considered a threat. [1]
If the paragraph above makes you think of Adolf Hitler, you're not wrong — but Hitler
wasn't the only leader in World War II whose monstrous actions fit that description. The
same words could apply to Joseph Stalin, the dictator of the Soviet Union. But Stalin, unlike
Hitler, fought on the side of the Allies — the side Americans tend to remember as the good
guys.
In world politics, groups of countries that work together toward a goal are called allies. [2]
World War II had two sides, comprised of two sets of countries that allied with each other.
Talking about these groups can get confusing because one of the groups named itself the
Allies. Whenever you read about World War II, the word allies written with a lowercase a
may refer to members of either side. But if it's written with a capital A, the word Allies
refers to the side that eventually won the war.
Great Britain and France were the first Allies (note the capital A) in World War II. In the first
few days of the war, their side expanded to include many countries that belonged to the
British Empire, including Australia, India, New Zealand, and South Africa. The United States
did not officially enter the war until 1941, but American sympathies rested with the Allies
— mostly democratic countries that shared the American ideal of freedom — from the
beginning.
The opposing set of allies (note the lowercase a) in World War II was called the Axis
powers. This group began with Germany and Italy, two countries with totalitarian leaders
who both wanted to conquer a great deal of land. Eventually, these countries joined forces
with Japan, which had similar expansionist goals in Asia.
At the beginning of World War II, nobody expected the Soviet Union to join the Allies. [3] In
fact, it seemed likely that the Soviet Union would side with Germany and the other Axis
powers. Hitler and Stalin were both powerful dictators who oppressed all opposition within
their ranks, and both wanted to expand their borders in order to increase their own
country's power. But they didn't trust or like each other, and they wanted some of the same
territory.

2. In 1939, just before the German invasion of Poland that historians now recognize as the
official beginning of World War II, Hitler and Stalin signed a nonagression pact. Publicly,
they agreed not to attack each other for the next 10 years. Secretly, they also arranged to
take over Poland and divide the country between themselves.
Now that he had assurance that the Soviet army would not attack Germany, Hitler was able
to commit more troops to his attacks on Poland and several other European countries. But
historians believe that Hitler never intended to keep the truce with Stalin for long. Just two
years after the nonaggression pact, in 1941, Hitler broke the terms of the agreement and
invaded the Soviet Union.
As soon as the Soviet Union was fighting Germany, Stalin became an automatic member of
the Allies. [4] The democratic leaders of these countries didn't really trust Stalin, but they
did send military aid and coordinate plans with him.
But this new ally was, by all accounts, a monster. Even before World War II, during the
famine of 1930 to 1933, Stalin took huge stores of grain from the Soviet-occupied countries
of Ukraine and Kazakhstan. This meant the peasants of these countries were left to starve —
and their deaths were part of Stalin's goal. He wanted to reduce the populations of these
areas so his communist government could incorporate more land into vast community-run
farms.
Later, during a period known as the Great Purge, Stalin imprisoned, exiled, or killed anyone
in his country that he saw as a threat to his own power. He targeted government leaders,
bureaucrats, and military leaders who disagreed with him or gained popularity of their own.
He also launched a huge campaign against people he accused of spying and terrorism, many
of whom were targeted only because they had Polish or other Eastern European ancestry
and thus, in Stalin's eyes, posed a risk of disloyalty to the Soviet government.
People targeted by the Great Purge were often tortured until they made false confessions.
Then they were placed on trial, convicted, and executed or sent to prison camps called
Gulags. These camps were notorious for housing prisoners like writers, professors, and
political leaders whom Stalin considered a threat, even though many of them had never
actually challenged him. In the Gulag system, prisoners were forced to do hard labor for
long hours without adequate food, shelter, and clothing. Many prisoners died.
After joining the Allied side in World War II, Stalin continued using ruthless tactics. His
army executed prisoners of war by the thousands. He ordered the destruction of food
supplies in areas the German army seemed likely to occupy, even though this meant his own
people would starve. His military leaders conscripted many soldiers by force; if they ran
away from a fight, they were killed and their families were arrested. [5]
Throughout this period, the United States provided Stalin with weaponry and support,
which raises an important question: How much of the blame for Stalin's actions during the
war did the other Allies share? After all, they were, in effect, putting guns in the hands of a
known murderer. [6]
Without the help of their allies, the Soviets probably wouldn't have been able to keep up the
fight against the German army. Hitler was also a mass murderer, and he had a truly
monstrous plan about what to do after he conquered the Soviet Union. He was going to
deprive millions of Soviet citizens of food, and he wanted to shoot, enslave, or deport

3. millions more.2 Moreover, if he had managed to occupy and subdue the Soviet Union, he
would have commanded vast resources to supply his army for a continued — and possibly
successful — campaign against his remaining democratic neighbors.
But that's not what happened. Stalin ultimately pushed Hitler's army back out of the Soviet
Union, and some of his brutal tactics probably contributed to his success. [7] His ruthless
destruction of food supplies left Hitler's soldiers without the resources they needed to
advance, particularly during the winter. His insistence on total control probably helped him
raise the troops necessary to repel the German army.
By 1944, as the war turned in the Allies' favor, the relationship between the Soviet Union
and the other Allied forces began to cool. Great Britain, France, and the United States
wanted to establish democracies in the countries that were no longer under Hitler's control,
whereas the Soviet Union favored communism. [8] At the end of the war, the Soviets raced
the Western democracies to establish spheres of influence across Europe. The world fell
into a new kind of conflict, a warlike state without direct fighting called the Cold War.
Ultimately, World War II contained so many horrors that, even from the vantage point of
history, it is difficult to discern who was a monster and who was simply doing what was
necessary. Hitler and Stalin are easy to condemn, but who else deserves the label
"monster"? Does that label also fit some of the people we consider heroes? [9] [10]
Question 1. Does this description remind you of any other political leader, past or present?
If so, who?
Question 2. Explain the difference between allies and Allies.
Question 3. Why didn't people expect the Soviet Union to join the Allies?
Question 4. What prompted Stalin to join the Allies?
Question 5. If Stalin was such a monster, on par with Hitler, why does Hitler receive so much
more attention in American history?
Question 6. Why might the Allies have allowed the Soviet Union to join them when they
knew full well about Stalin's tactics?
Question 7. How did Stalin's brutal tactics help him defeat Hitler's forces?
Question 8. Define communism.
Question 9. Name an American hero whose actions might be considered monstrous to
another group of people. What did he or she do?
Question 10. Have you ever done something morally gray in order to help another? Explain.
Question 11. Stalin used brutal force toward his own people, starving them in order to

4. decrease the population and gain their land. However, this tactic also contributed to his
victory over Hitler. In your opinion, is it ever justifiable for a leader to sacrifice some of his
or her people in order to save the others? Why or why not?
Question 12. Should the Allies feel partially responsible for Stalin's brutality against his
people? Why or why not?
Question 13. Following World War II, relations between the Soviet Union and the United
States soured, turning into the Cold War. Describe another time in history when the United
States allied itself with a morally questionable dictator. Did the relationship end well?