Similarities Between Napoleon & Stalin
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) and Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (1879-1953) have very different historical images. Napoleon was a fine artillery officer who became a brilliant general, then Emperor of France. Even today, an aura of grandeur and romance clings to him. No such thing can be said of Joseph Stalin, a coarse, crude, uneducated man of profound malevolence who hideously harmed Russia. Yet for all their genuine differences in image and personality, these men share important characteristics.
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Outsiders With Very Limited Prospects
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Gori, Georgia, is the birthplace of Stalin; this statue commemorates him. Napoleon was born and remained a Corsican even though he lived and was educated in France since childhood. His father was a lawyer and a nobleman. He was a member of what would become the modern middle class in a world still ruled by the feudal aristocracy.
Stalin was Georgian, not Russian. He was born into a poor family that has been described as dysfunctional: a euphemism for what was probably profound abuse. His formal education, such as it was, was limited to studying for the priesthood, studies he never completed.
Exploitated Messianic Ideals
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Both men exploited the messianic ideals of their times. Napoleon came to early manhood in a Europe filled with ideas about the rights of man. One of his most powerful weapons was his willingness to appoint and promote able men on their merit, not their birth. Stalin, knowing he had absolutely no future in Czarist Russia, allied himself with a Communist Party that promised bread for workers, land for peasants and then, during World War One, peace to soldiers.
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Callousness
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Napoleon's Grand Armee pauses before the gates of Moscow. Napoleon freed post-revolutionary France from the depredations of British, Austrian and Italian armies seeking to restore the Bourbon monarchy, and made himself emperor in 1804. Then, drunk on martial glory, he tried to make France master of all Europe. He met catastrophe in Russia, crossing the border with some 600,000 men in June 1812 -- and bringing out perhaps some 10,000 that November.
Stalin was vicious. He became General Secretary of the Soviet Union's ruling Communist party in 1922. As General Secretary, he secured his power by appointing key personnel and setting agendas. He then began to systematically eliminate all potential opposition to his rule: not just party intellectuals, genuine academics and scientists but also independent peasants, entire nationalities such as the Crimean Tartars, and military officers. Ukraine, Russia's traditional breadbasket, was reduced to famine and cannibalism. Stalin was responsible for about 10 million deaths, losses that still haunt Russia today.
The World Turned Against Them
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Napoleon was finally defeated at Waterloo in Holland in 1815, by an international coalition of British, Dutch, Belgian, German and Russian troops led by the First Duke of Wellington. Prussian troops finished Napoleon's army off at the end of a long day of desperate, savage combat. Napoleon surrendered to the British and went into comfortable exile on the island of Saint Helena.
Stalin was one of the great victors of World War Two but ordinary Soviets enjoyed few of the fruits of their triumph. Peace abroad allowed Stalin to intensify his repression and cruelty. In the spring of 1953, preparing another of his savage purges, he suffered a massive stroke. The head of his secret police withheld medical care until he died, and no one attempted to help him.
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