Stalin, Joseph
-- At five feet, five inches in
height, Joseph Stalin was the small, unassuming-looking dictator of the Soviet
Union. Yet he was the absolute ruler of some 180 million people, whose empire
spanned across Europe and Asia from Poland to the Pacific Ocean. After suffering
humiliating defeats by Hitler on
the Russian front in 1941
- 1942, Stalin's Red Army systematically vanquished the Nazis in Eastern Europe
as far west as Berlin. At the Potsdam Conference in July 1945, when an American
mentioned this achievement, Stalin replied matter-of-factly that Czar Alexander
had gotten to Paris. Inevitably, Stalin's allies were left to decipher his
postwar intentions. Soviet expansionism lurked behind them all and was the
political motive that prevented the Russians from engaging in meaningful peace
agreements. In Moscow in 1947, Secretary of State George
Marshall found Stalin to be "completely evasive" about
substantive issues, while maintaining a calm and gracious exterior. "Stalin's
greatness as a dissimulator was an integral part of his greatness as a
statesman," wrote Russian expert George Kennan. "An
unforewarned visitor would never have guessed what depths of calculation,
ambition, love of power, jealousy, cruelty, and sly vindictiveness lurked behind
this unpretentious facade." Text
and photo Courtesy of the National
Portrait Gallery
Rare
War Dated Typed Letter Signed provided by the Gallery
of Fame
In
June 1942, the Germans launched a new drive directed against Stalingrad (now
called Volgograd) and the Caucasus petroleum fields. In the midst of this
counteroffensive Stalin took the time to answer three pointed questions about
US-Soviet relations just before the turning point of World War II.
Less
than three months after this letter was written Stalingrad held out, and on Feb.
2, 1943 the surrender of 330,000 Axis troops there marked a turning point in the
war.
This exceptional
war dated Stalin letter comes with a certified translation by N. Palgunov, the
Chief Press Department, of the People’s Commissariat of Foreign Affairs.
