Constructing the image of I.V. Stalin in biographical essays about V.I. Lenin (1924–1956)

Abstract

The author of this article considers the formation and development of the image of I.V. Stalin in biographical essays about V.I. Lenin and published in the period from 1924 to 1956. That is the time stages of this process and the tools used by the authors of the texts to construct the image of I.V. Stalin. The process of “Stalinization” and “de-Stalinization” of biographies can be divided into three stages. The late 1920s – early 1930s are characterized by a quantitative increase in the number of mentions of the leader in texts. The second half of the 1930s reflects a qualitative change in the image of I.V. Stalin, in which he turns from a simple comrade-in-arms of V.I. Lenin into a figure of global historical scale. The heir of V.I. Lenin begins to manifest himself as a separate historical figure who copies personal qualities from his teacher, performs tasks of a historical nature and creatively develops the ideas of Marxism-Leninism. The last biography of the period under consideration, published in 1955, in turn, testifies to the process of latent “de-Stalinization” of biographies of V.I. Lenin, in which I.V. Stalin, though having not yet become an object of criticism, he loses many of his personal qualities and once again acts as an ordinary comrade-in-arms of V.I. Lenin.