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Joseph Stalin

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"The skull is a mind weapon. It will open a new frontier of psychic warfare. It was Stalin's dream."
―Irina Spalko[src]

Joseph Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Сталин; Georgian: იოსებ სტალინი) was the former leader and dictator of the Soviet Union.

Biography[]

Leading the Soviet Union[]

Thanks to Vladimir Ilyich Lenin's Bolshevik mixed government and his other instituions set up in the aftermath of 1917's Russian Revolution, Joseph Stalin came to power in 1924 after Lenin's death,[4] having worked for Lenin[3] as one of his top assistants[6] prior to his death as General Secretary, a position he used to amass enormous power despite Lenin specifically condemning him when considering possible successors and asking for his removal from and replacement in politics, an advice that Lenin's inner circle rejected. This would prove to be a profoundly tragic mistake, as in the decades that followed, Stalin would go to have all other Communist leaders murdered along with millions of ordinary Soviet citizens in a campaign known as the Great Terror, creating a vast prison system known as the Gulag that kept millions more in slave labor for decades and violently forcing peasants onto collective farms, all in the name of Lenin and his revolution.[3] He also created what became the most notorious example of a police state in the form of the secret police known as the NKVD, which spied on people all around the country and encouraged children on turning in their parents.[6] During Lenin's funeral, Stalin ordered for Lenin's body to be embalmed and put on display in Moscow's Red Square, even though that was probably the last thing Lenin would have wanted.[3]

Lenin's death set off a power struggle between Stalin and Leon Trotsky, but Stalin emerged triumphant in 1926, prompting Trotsky to flee the country three years later as the 1930s started with Stalin firmly into power. One of his early acts as Soviet leader involved regaining the territories lost to Japan in the Russo-Japanese War.[7] By 1931, Stalin had grown to value the diamond mines at the north of Norilsk in Siberia, Russia.[8] Around 1932, Stalin arrested a group of individuals and specially interviewed them, telling them about his concerns of Turkey allying with Germany and Austria-Hungary again as they did in World War I, his spies having told him about about Germany's interest on retrieving Turkish artifacts in exchange of political concesions like airfields and U-boat bases, hency why he hired the individuals to retrieve the Scimitar of Suleiman I to prevent that, though he dispatched some hostile agents of his to keep their trail on them.[9] With his eyes set on Eastern Europe since the beginning of his rule in addition to the Fascist tendencies in Central Europe, Stalin had the Soviet Union sign a treaty with France in 1935 as a hedge against German militarism, secretly planning to move into the east while acting he was "protecting" those territories should a conflict break out. Meanwhile, Stalin used bloody purges as a means to eliminate any potential rivals within the Communist Party[7] and any military or civilian dissident groups within the Soviet Union throughout the year.[10]

By the early 1930s, disenchanted Russian peasants who opposed Stalin's regime and wished a return to the "old ways" went to claim that Stalin had become fearful of the legendary Baba Yaga, even though Stalin and his bureaucrats had no interest in the legend otherwise, dismissing it as peasant supersistion, a leftover from the age of the czars. While a group of angry Poles from Warsaw desired to obtain the Mortar and Pestle of Baba Yaga to bring down Stalin's rule and overthrow the Soviet Union, the Soviet secret police set themselves to catch them.[9] Purges to any threat to Stalin's power continued during the mid-1930s and by the end of the decade it became clear Stalin was firmly in charge of the government, which embodied the Communist ideology and was bound to confront the dictators of Europe, as Prime Minister Benito Mussolini of Italy and Chancellor Adolf Hitler of Germany had likewise amassed vast power of their own and lined up on two sides of ideological divide, the Fascists being on the right side with their beliefs in a strong state and private sector and the Communists being on the left side with their revolutionary and ideological beliefs, engaging in constant propaganda and political warfare through technology such as radio.[6] On the eve of World War II, Stalin had grown paranoid about Hitler, so the Soviet police turned a blind eye to Nazi misdeeds. This allowed Colonel Klaus Kerner to steal a copy of the Hermocrates from a Leningrad museum in 1939 and leave unhindered.[1] Eventually, on August 23 of that year, Stalin met with Hitler and the two signed a joint non-aggression pact, Stalin's Soviet Union securing itself as a powerful ally to Hitler's Germany. Since the war's beginning, due to German attempts to invade the Soviet Union, Stalin pressured his allies to open a second front in Western Europe so, in his mind, the pressure on the East would lessen. This would eventually lead the Allies to launch an invasion to Normandy, France in what became known as the D-Day in 1944.[7]

By the end of World War II, Stalin and the Soviet Union had become too powerful, taking control of Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria and Poland, making the United States of America and Western Europe afraid of Stalin and his Communist ideology.[5] Suddenly, the threat went from Hitler's Nazism to Stalin's Communism.[11] Now enemies with their former allies, America started fearing those associated with Stalin's Communist Party, such as Paul Robeson, prompting the FBI to start looking for anyone associated with the Soviets even guilty by association, initiating the Red Scare.[12] During the war, Stalin had been greatly disturbed by German action against Russia and the subsequent advent of the USA's nuclear capabilities, so he turned to the KGB to explore the hidden potential of the human mind.[13] At some point, the Soviets learned of the 1947 crash in Roswell, New Mexico and its ties to the South American legend of Akator from which a Crystal Skull was stolen by the Spanish conquistador Francisco de Orellana in the 16th century.[2] Stalin desired to use the crystal skull as a mind weapon, one all of America would fear for the terrible things they had done to Russia, to fight wars.[5]

Interested in psychic warfare, Stalin brought in Irina Spalko to search for the Crystal Skull with which the USSR could brainwash the American military army's minds to gain the advantage during the Cold War,[14] as harnessing the crystal skull's power could let them achieve Soviet domination over the world.[15] However, Stalin died before that could come to be and was succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev.[16]

Legacy[]

Spalko continued to pursue Stalin's dream in the years following his death and, in 1957, was known by American forces to be leading teams in a global hunt for artifacts believed to have psychic applications, which she intended to use to brainwash and convert all of the Earth into Communism.[16] Spalko eventually found the Crystal Skull with Antonin Dovchenko's Soviet Special Forces unit but it would be her undoing as the unearthly object took her life at the Temple of Akator.[2]

Nowadays, Stalin is remembered as one of the twentieth century's "great monsters" due to being responsible for about 20 million deaths of his own people and the untold numbers of lives he ruined. Historians even agree that the Russian Revolution's aftermath shouldn't have ended with the efficient yet brutal Stalinism given its noble origins, with the descendants of the revolutionaries finally bringing the Soviet Union down in 1991.[4]

Personality and traits[]

A superstitious leader[9] deemed by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin as a "very bad guy in politics"[3] whose iron rule made the Soviet Union a grim place of fear, economic depression and periodic lethal purges of the Communist Party with which he consolidated his power,[17] Joseph Stalin was a power hungry dictator who wished to be attain control of the world through respect and fear, conquering as many countries in the name of the Soviet Union and desiring to obtain the Crystal Skull of Akator as a mind weapon he could use to make the United States of America fear his nation.[5] Seeing what America and Germany had been capable of during World War II, Stalin grew disturbed to the point of making his own men study the human mind's potential even though some of those he was worried about were his own allies.[13] He was capable of feeling fear himself, though, as evidenced when his paranoia about the Nazis caused him to let Adolf Hitler's men do whatever they wanted at his country prior to their conflict[1] or how his superstition caused him to fear Baba Yaga despite her being a legend.[9] He had no respect for the dead considering how he displayed Lenin's corpse even though he knew the deceased wouldn't have wished for that[3] and also sought ways to diminish Russian writers for posing political challenges to him.[18] While he wasn't much of a public speaker, he relied too on modern technology and communications to perfect his police state like the telegraph or the telephone.[6]

Behind the scenes[]

"Like Hitler was a nut on the Ark of the Covenant and the Spear of Destiny, Stalin was a nut on the subject of psychic spying. So there was a historical precedent in involving the Communists in a search for a way into the consciousness of free nations and free individuals..."
―Steven Spielberg on how Stalin inspired the Crystal Skull of Akator story[src]

Joseph Stalin's obsession with psychic abilities was brought into the story of Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull in a similar way to how Adolf Hitler's interest on the Ark of the Covenant and the Spear of Longinus inspired the early Indiana Jones films. In turn, this provided the filmmakers a historical precedent to involve the Soviets in the search for the titular MacGuffin, comparing their inclusion in the film with the depiction of Communist villains in the 1960s James Bond movies.[19] Frank Darabont's script Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods, one of the many early screenplays considered for Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, had Peter Belasko mention that using the Crystal Skull of Destiny to open a new frontier of psychic warfare was Stalin's dream, assuring Yuri Makovsky that his country should pass into history as the extinct ancient Rome.[20]

Appearances[]

Sources[]

Notes and references[]

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis comic
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 3.3 3.4 3.5 V. I. Lenin - History Will Not Forgive Us
  4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 4.2 The Russian Revolution - All Power to the Soviets!
  5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull audio pack
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 New Gods for Old
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 7.2 The World of Indiana Jones
  8. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Tomb of the Gods
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Indiana Jones Artifacts
  10. ↑ The Adventures of Indiana Jones
  11. ↑ Ho Chi Minh - The Price of Freedom
  12. ↑ Paul Robeson - Scandalize My Name
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Indiana Jones: The Ultimate Guide
  14. ↑  Indiana Jones Movie Photo Cards (Card: Dr. Irina Spalko)
  15. ↑ Top Trumps Specials: Indiana Jones (Card: Irina Spalko)
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull junior novel
  17. ↑ Indiana Jones and the Lands of Adventure
  18. ↑ Unquiet Voices - Russian Writers and the State
  19. ↑ The Complete Making of Indiana Jones
  20. ↑ Indiana Jones and the City of the Gods

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