ft the Party behind in a blaze of fear and terror. Eventually he hovered above it. Unlike Lenin who was completely against his deification before or after his death, Stalin in life actively encouraged his “Cult of Personality”, that would later be so denounced by Khrushchev. In the main, the use of violence and terror is a major similarity in Lenin and Stalin’s political practice with the only difference being that Lenin used it mainly against external opponents while Stalin used it against everyone and on an infinitely greater scale. “One death is a tragedy,” he would say. “A million just statistics.” The best example of Stalin’s violent excess can be seen in his economic practice. The main events of Stalin’s economic practice were the 5 year plans, collectivization and industrialization. In November 1929, Stalin published an article called The Great Turn. His main argument was that for the USSR to move into the modern age she had to industrialize and the agrarian problem had to be solved once and for all. His solution was to collectivize all agriculture and to destroy the “kulaks” as a class. Over the next six years the Russian and Soviet peoples endured a holocaust comparable to that suffered by the Jews in World War 2, one that would cost over 5 million lives. The language Stalin used was as evil as any denunciation of the Jews by Hitler:“To take the offensive against the kulaks means to deal the kulak class such a blow that it will no longer rise to its feet…Of course the kulak can’t be admitted to a collective farm. He can’t because he’s an accursed enemy…” ...
