Life Under Stalin

“Death solves all problems – no man, no problem.” – Joseph Stalin

It was everything. Stalin stole everything from their lives. Their homes, their education, their culture, their rights, even their beliefs. I’ve seen the victims surrender to him and I want the world to know about all he’s taking from them. I’ve seen the victims cry for help and I wish to let the world know about who he’s taking those from. I’ve seen the victims lose their last piece of hope and I hope to tell everyone about how terrible the damages are. Looking at the millions he had wronged, I am just a speck. But this speck has the ability to reveal him and ask for millions of help. I am a writer, I am a child from that time, and I am one of them.

What the Soviet government would like people to believe is that life under them is perfect. They say that the way of living they provide is the most ideal one where they provide good quality healthcare, housing, education and work; where they pay attention to the people’s rights, and to their religion and beliefs. The government believes that their plans are the best for the country. They say that their free healthcare and hospitals is the top of the line with a lot of good doctors and nurses, they say that they provide clean modernized housing where homeless people are being transferred to, they say that they provide good education for everyone because it is important to them that everyone is being taught well, they say that their agrarian workers are taken cared of because they get a share of the land they’re working on. And most of all, they make the people believe that these things are true. II

What I learned from my experiences is the truth. The truth is the opposite of whatever the Soviet Government is trying to make the people believe. Russian hospitals were unsanitary and unsafe for the patients and the government provided one doctor for every 5,000 square kilometers in certain regions. There was a serious housing shortage that some houses were only made up of crap metal and thatch. The government did not really care if the people got good education, what they really did was they trained the students to submit to their authoritarian system. As for the agricultural workers, quotas were set up for them and those who were not able to meet these quotas were severely punished. Practically every human right was violated, most especially our freedom to have our own religion. Stalin eradicated religion “not a single house of prayer will be needed any longer in the Soviet Union.” The communist party spread lies about priests. The government has seized all church property; forty bishops had been shot and 10,000 churches had been closed.

It is obvious that life under Stalin was horrifying. I, myself experienced how dreadful it was. Seeing dead bodies everywhere was as common as it was appalling. Despite the propagandas against him, he was not crushed. The harder we fought against them, the harder they were to defeat. I was a child then, now I am mature enough to put all my pains into words. Time has passed but I can still hear the cries of the millions who suffered from the famine. I write this to let everyone know what really happened. I write this to tell everyone what the story is behind our wounds. I write this to ask for help as those wounds heal. I write this to ask for guidance as we solve the problems Stalin caused by trying to solve other problems his way.