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178-564: They studios were constructed in 1941 during the Occupation of Paris but the German authorities prevented production from taking place, confiscating it for other purposes. It was only with the Liberation in 1944 that they came fully into use. In 1948 they underwent expansion with further sound stages built on adjacent land. In the post-war era they were one of the leading French studios, and hosted

356-682: A "danger from the right", including from within the Communist Party. The first major show trial in the USSR was the Shakhty Trial of 1928, in which middle-class "industrial specialists" were convicted of sabotage. From 1929 to 1930, show trials were held to intimidate opposition; these included the Industrial Party Trial , Menshevik Trial , and Metro-Vickers Trial . Aware that the ethnic Russian majority may have concerns about being ruled by

534-405: A Georgian, he promoted ethnic Russians throughout the state bureaucracy and made Russian compulsory in schools, albeit in tandem with local languages. Nationalist sentiment was suppressed. Conservative social policies were promoted to boost population growth; this included a focus on strong family units, re-criminalisation of homosexuality , restrictions on abortion and divorce, and abolition of

712-685: A Georgian, would help secure support from the empire's minority ethnicities. In February 1912, Stalin again escaped to Saint Petersburg, where he was tasked with converting the Bolshevik weekly newspaper, Zvezda ("Star") into a daily, Pravda ("Truth"). The new newspaper was launched in April 1912 and Stalin's role as editor was kept secret. In May 1912, he was again arrested and sentenced to three years of exile in Siberia. In July, he arrived in Narym , where he shared

890-753: A German naval officer, Alfons Moser, in the back, as he was boarding the metro at the Barbés-Rochecouart station . The Germans had routinely taken hostages among the French civilian population to deter attacks. They responded to the Barbés-Rochechouart metro attack by executing three hostages in Paris, and another twenty the following month. Hitler was furious at the leniency of the German commander, and demanded that in case of future assassinations, there must be one hundred hostages executed for every German killed. After

1068-452: A Resistance network that smuggled Jews from France to Argentina. He collected a large advance from his clients and then instructed them to come to his house, bringing their gold, silver and other valuables with them. After they arrived, he brought them to his consulting room, and, convincing them vaccination was required in order to enter Argentina, gave them a lethal intravenous injection, then watched their slow death in an adjacent room through

1246-573: A bi-monthly magazine and guide for visiting German soldiers Der Deutsche Wegleiter für Paris (The German Guide to Paris), was first published by the Paris Kommandantur . Certain hotels and movie theaters were reserved exclusively for German soldiers. A German-language newspaper, the Pariser Zeitung (1941–1944), was also published for the soldiers. The German officers enjoyed the Ritz , Maxim's ,

1424-569: A brawl. A German soldier was punched. Bonsergent's friends escaped, but he was arrested and refused to give the names of his friends to the Germans. He was held in jail for nineteen days, taken to court, charged with "an act of violence against a member of the German Army", and sentenced to death. Bonsergent was executed by firing squad on 23 December, the first civilian in France executed for resistance against

1602-530: A campaign of " de-Stalinisation ". Widely considered one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Stalin was the subject of a pervasive personality cult within the international Marxist–Leninist movement, which revered him as a champion of socialism and the working class. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Stalin has retained a degree of popularity in post-Soviet states as an economic moderniser and victorious wartime leader who cemented

1780-508: A daughter, Svetlana , in February 1926. In the wake of Lenin's death, a power struggle emerged to become his successor: alongside Stalin was Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Nikolai Bukharin , Alexei Rykov , and Mikhail Tomsky . Stalin saw Trotsky—whom he personally despised —as the main obstacle to his dominance, and during Lenin's illness had formed an unofficial triumvirate ( troika ) with Kamanev and Zinoviev against him. Although Zinoviev

1958-472: A faction calling for abolition of trade unions; Lenin opposed this, and Stalin helped rally opposition to Trotsky's position. At the 11th Party Congress in March and April 1922, Lenin nominated Stalin as the party's General Secretary , which was intended as a purely organisational role. Although concerns were expressed that adopting the new position would overstretch his workload and grant him too much power, Stalin

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2136-660: A famine in 1932–1933 which killed millions, including in the Holodomor in Ukraine. Between 1936 and 1938, Stalin eradicated his political opponents and those deemed " enemies of the working class " in the Great Purge , after which he had absolute control of the party and government. Under his regime, an estimated 18 million people passed through the Gulag system of forced labour camps , and more than six million were deported to remote regions of

2314-524: A firing squad. As a consequence of the demonstration, the Sorbonne University was closed, students were required to regularly report to the police, and the Latin Quarter was closely watched. Another incident took place on 10 November; a 28-year-old French engineer named Jacques Bonsergent and his friends, coming home from a wedding, ran into a group of German soldiers in the blackout and got into

2492-463: A floral Cross of Lorraine , the symbol of de Gaulle's Free France. They were chased away by the police. At nightfall, the event became more provocative; some three thousand students gathered, chanting "Vive La France" and "Vive l'Angleterre", and invading Le Tyrol , a bar popular with the Jeune Front , a fascist youth group, and scuffling with police. At 6:00 pm, German soldiers arrived, surrounded

2670-462: A good pork chop, hidden under cabbage and served without the necessary tickets, along with a liter of Beaujolais and a real coffee; sometimes it was on the first floor at rue Dauphine, where you could listen to the BBC while sitting next to Picasso." The restrictions and shortage of goods led to the existence of a thriving black market . Producers and distributors of food and other scarce products set aside

2848-473: A group dinner in the Kremlin in which Stalin flirted with other women, Nadezhda shot herself in the heart. Publicly, the cause of death was given as appendicitis ; Stalin also concealed the real cause of death from his children. Stalin's friends noted that he underwent a significant change following her suicide, becoming emotionally harder. Within the Soviet Union, civic disgruntlement against Stalin's government

3026-521: A group of socialist supporters, and co-organised a secret workers' meeting where he convinced many to strike on May Day 1900. The empire's secret police, the Okhrana , became aware of Stalin's activities and attempted to arrest him in March 1901, but he went into hiding during which he lived off donations from friends. He helped plan a demonstration in Tiflis on May Day 1901 at which 3,000 marchers clashed with

3204-541: A hero of the First World War , as deputy prime minister. Neither Weygand nor Pétain felt the Germans could be defeated, and they began looking for a way out of the war. On 8 June, the sound of distant artillery fire could be heard in the capital. Trains filled with refugees departed Gare d'Austerlitz with no announced destination. On June 10th, the French government fled Paris, first to Tours and then to Bordeaux . Thousands of Parisians followed their example, filling

3382-703: A major famine which peaked in the winter of 1932–1933, with 5–7 million deaths. The worst affected areas were Ukraine (where the famine was called the Holodomor ), Southern Russia , Kazakhstan and the North Caucasus . In the case of Ukraine, historians debate whether the famine was intentional, with the purpose of eliminating a potential independence movement; no documents show Stalin explicitly ordered starvation. Poor weather led to bad harvests in 1931 and 1932, compounded by years of declining productivity. Rapid industrialisation policies, neglect of crop rotation , and failure to build reserve grain stocks exacerbated

3560-698: A medical examiner ruled Stalin unfit for service due to his crippled arm. Stalin was required to serve four more months of his exile and successfully requested to serve it in Achinsk . Stalin was in the city when the February Revolution took place; the Tsar abdicated and the Empire became a de facto republic. In a celebratory mood, Stalin travelled by train to Petrograd (as Saint Petersburg had been renamed) in March. He assumed control of Pravda alongside Lev Kamenev , and

3738-702: A new organization, the Reichsleiter Rosenberg Taskforce ( Einsatzstab Reichsleiter Rosenberg ) was created to catalog and store the art. It was moved to the Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume , a building in the Tuileries Gardens used by the Louvre for temporary exhibits. More than four hundred crates of art works were brought to the Jeu de Paume by Luftwaffe personnel, unpacked and cataloged. Hermann Göring ,

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3916-479: A number of Hollywood 's runaway productions The studios were particularly effective for Eastmancolor , due to the high electrical output which maximised the lighting. This article about a film studio is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Occupation of Paris The city of Paris started mobilizing for war in September 1939, when Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union attacked Poland , but

4094-514: A period of tension known as the Cold War . Stalin presided over post-war reconstruction and the first Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949. During these years, the country experienced another famine and a state-sponsored antisemitic campaign culminating in the " doctors' plot ". In 1953, Stalin died after suffering a stroke, and was succeeded as leader by Georgy Malenkov and later by Nikita Khrushchev , who in 1956 denounced Stalin's rule and initiated

4272-472: A portion of their goods for the black market, and used middle-men to sell them to customers. The bars of the Champs-Élysées, and other parts of Paris, became common meeting places between the middle-men and clients. Parisians bought cigarettes, meat, coffee, wine and other products which frequently neither the middle-man nor the customer had ever seen. Due to the shortage of fuel, the number of automobiles on

4450-514: A room with fellow Bolshevik Yakov Sverdlov . After two months, they escaped to Saint Petersburg, where Stalin continued work on Pravda . After the October 1912 Duma elections , Stalin wrote articles calling for reconciliation between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks; Lenin criticised him and he relented. In January 1913, Stalin travelled to Vienna , where he researched the "national question" of how

4628-611: A spyhole in the door. Afterwards, he cut up their bodies, put the pieces in the well, and dissolved them with quicklime. His activities attracted the attention of the Gestapo, which arrested him in 1943, thus allowing him to claim later that he had been a real member of the Resistance. His crimes were discovered after the Liberation in 1944, and he was charged with the murders of twenty-seven persons, tried in 1946, and sentenced to death. He went to

4806-535: A systematic scholarly approach to the understanding of Marx and Marxism, which he perceived to be needed. For the Parisians, the Occupation was a series of frustrations, shortages and humiliations. A curfew was in effect from nine in the evening until five in the morning; at night, the city went dark. Rationing of food, tobacco, coal and clothing was initiated in September 1940. Every year the supplies grew more scarce and

4984-455: A tank on the roof, or coal gas or methane, extracted from the Paris sewers. The metro ran, but service was frequently interrupted and the cars were overcrowded. Three thousand five hundred buses had run on the Paris streets in 1939, but only five hundred were still running in the autumn of 1940. Bicycle-taxis became popular, and their drivers charged a high tariff. Bicycles became the means of transport for many Parisians, and their price soared;

5162-507: A tour to Berlin, in exchange for the liberation of her husband, Porfirio Rubirosa , a Dominican diplomat suspected of espionage. The actress Arletty , the star of Les Enfants du Paradis and Hôtel du Nord , had a relationship with Hans Jürgen Soehring, a Luftwaffe officer, and gave the famous riposte to a member of the FFI interrogating her after the Liberation: "My heart is French, but my a--

5340-456: A used bicycle cost a month's salary. Transportation problems did not end with the liberation of Paris; the shortage of gasoline and lack of transport continued until well after the war. One of the greatest art thefts in history took place in Paris during the Occupation, as the Nazis looted the art of Jewish collectors on a grand scale. Great masterpieces in the Louvre had already been evacuated to

5518-441: A very difficult existence due to shortages of personnel, film and food, but it produced several genuine masterpieces, among which: Marcel Carné 's Les Enfants du Paradis ("Children of Paradise") which was filmed during the Occupation but not released until 1945. From the very beginning of the Occupation, Jews in Paris were treated with particular harshness. On October 18th, 1940, the German occupation authorities decreed, in what

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5696-500: A villa in Royan , north of Bordeaux. He returned to Paris and resumed working in his studio on rue des Grands Augustins . He frequently received visitors at his studio, including Germans, some admiring and some suspicious. He had postcards made of his famous anti-fascist work, Guernica , to hand out as souvenirs to visitors, and had serious discussions of art and politics with visiting Germans, including writer Ernst Jünger . While his work

5874-469: Is international." ' Jewish actors were not allowed to perform. Some places in Paris were frequented by homosexual actors and artists; notably the swimming pool in the Bois de Boulogne . The actor Jean Marais was officially harassed for his homosexuality, and the actor Robert-Hugues Lambert was arrested and deported, most likely because of his relationship with a German officer whom he did not want to name. He

6052-576: Is known as the Ordonnance d'Aryanisation , that Jews would have a special status and be barred from liberal professions, such as commerce, industry, thus affecting lawyers, doctors, professors, shop owners, and also be barred from certain restaurants and public places, and that their property was seized. On May 23rd, 1942, the head of the Anti-Jewish section of the Gestapo , Adolf Eichmann , gave secret orders for

6230-573: The Comédie Française were used to move the larger paintings, including Gericault 's Raft of the Medusa . The art works were carried in slow convoys of trucks, convoys, with headlights off to observe the blackout, to the châteaux of the Loire Valley and other designated locations. The architectural landmarks of the city were protected by sandbags. The French Army waited in the fortifications of

6408-553: The Foundations of Leninism , later published in book form. At the 13th Party Congress in May 1924, Lenin's Testament was read only to the leaders of the provincial delegations. Embarrassed by its contents, Stalin offered his resignation as General Secretary; this act of humility saved him, and he was retained in the post. As General Secretary, Stalin had a free hand in making appointments to his own staff, and implanted loyalists throughout

6586-676: The Zhenotdel women's department. Stalin desired a " cultural revolution ", entailing both the creation of a culture for the "masses" and the wider dissemination of previously elite culture. He oversaw a proliferation of schools, newspapers, and libraries, as well as advancement of literacy and numeracy . Socialist realism was promoted throughout the arts, while Stalin wooed prominent writers, namely Maxim Gorky , Mikhail Sholokhov , and Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy . He expressed patronage for scientists whose research fit within his preconceived interpretation of Marxism; for instance, he endorsed

6764-461: The 16th arrondissement of Paris . They were known as the Carlingue (or French Gestapo) and were active between 1941 and 1944. The group was founded by Pierre Bonny , a corrupt ex-policeman. It was subsequently led by Henri Lafont and Pierre Loutrel , two professional criminals who had been active in the French underworld before the war. By the time that the Germans arrived in Paris, two-thirds of

6942-840: The 1906 election to the State Duma ; Stalin viewed parliamentary process as a waste of time. In April 1906, he attended the RSDLP's Fourth Congress in Stockholm , where the party—then led by a Menshevik majority—agreed that it would not raise funds using armed robbery. Lenin and Stalin disagreed with this, and privately discussed continuing the robberies for the Bolshevik cause. Stalin married Kato Svanidze in July 1906, and in March 1907 she gave birth to their son Yakov . Stalin, who by now had established himself as "Georgia's leading Bolshevik", in June 1907 organised

7120-544: The Abkhazian , Ossetian , and Adjarian minorities. In March 1921, Nadezhda gave birth to another of Stalin's sons, Vasily . After the civil war, workers' strikes and peasant uprisings broke out across Russia in opposition to Sovnarkom's food requisitioning project; in response, Lenin introduced market-oriented reforms in the New Economic Policy (NEP). There was also turmoil within the Communist Party, as Trotsky led

7298-736: The Allies of World War II . Despite huge losses, the Soviet Red Army repelled the German invasion and captured Berlin in 1945, ending the war in Europe . The Soviet Union, which had annexed the Baltic states and territories from Finland and Romania amid the war, established Soviet-aligned states in Central and Eastern Europe. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as global superpowers , and entered

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7476-483: The Auschwitz extermination camp . The roundup was considered a failure by the Germans, since they had prepared trains for 32,000 persons. Arrests continued in 1943 and 1944. By the time of the Liberation, it was estimated that 43,000 Jews from the Paris region, or about half the total population of the community, had been sent to the concentration camps, and that 34,000 were murdered there. Many Parisians collaborated with

7654-600: The Coupole and other exclusive restaurants, as the exchange rate was fixed to favor the German occupiers. Many houses of prostitution existed in Paris and they began to cater to German clients. The headquarters of the Sicherheitsdienst , the counter-intelligence branch of the SS was at 84 Avenue Foch . French auxiliaries, who worked for the Gestapo , Sicherheitsdienst and Geheime Feldpolizei were based at 93, rue Lauriston in

7832-649: The French Communist Party , others to General Charles de Gaulle in London. They wrote slogans on walls, organized an underground press, and sometimes attacked German officers. Reprisals by the Germans were swift and harsh. Following the Allied invasion of Normandy on June 6 1944, the French Resistance in Paris launched an uprising on 19 August, seizing the police headquarters and other government buildings. The city

8010-621: The French underworld , operated from 93, rue Lauriston . Many of its member were captured at the end of the war and executed. The Nazi security agencies also established Special Brigades under the Prefecture of Police in Paris, these units operated in accordance with the RHSA and the SS capturing resistance fighters and Allied agents, as well as rounding up Jews for deportation . Prisoners were routinely tortured by

8188-486: The Jeu de Paume , and filling the whole ground floor. The staff at the Jeu de Paume cataloged 218 major collections. Between April 1941 and July 1944, 4,174 cases of art works filling 138 boxcars, were shipped from Paris to Germany. Much of the art, but not all, was recovered after the war. While some painters left Paris, many remained and continued working. Georges Braque returned to Paris in autumn 1940 and quietly continued working. Pablo Picasso spent most of 1939 in

8366-569: The Maginot Line , while in Paris ration cards for gasoline were issued, restrictions were put on the sale of meat and, in February 1940, ration cards for food were issued; however, cafés and theatres remained open. The French defense plan was purely passive, waiting for the Germans to attack. After eight months of relative calm (known as the Phoney War , La drôle de guerre ) on the Western Front ,

8544-483: The Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact on August 23rd 1939, had to reverse direction. The editors of the Communist Party newspaper, L'Humanité , which had been closed down by the French government, asked the Germans for permission to resume publishing, and it was granted. The Party also asked that workers resume work in the armaments factories, which were now producing for the Germans. Many individual communists opposed

8722-420: The North Caucasus , Southern Russia, and Central Asia, reaching their apex in March 1930; these were suppressed by the army. Stalin responded with an article insisting that collectivisation was voluntary and blaming violence on local officials. Although he and Stalin had been close for many years, Bukharin expressed concerns and regarded them as a return to Lenin's old " war communism " policy. By mid-1928, he

8900-412: The Opera House and viewed the Eiffel Tower from the terrace of the Palace of Chaillot , paid homage at Napoleon's tomb, and visited the artist's quarter of Montmartre . During the Occupation, the French Government moved to Vichy, and the flag of Nazi Germany flew over all the French government buildings. Signs in German were placed on the main boulevards, and the clocks of all France were reset to

9078-490: The Order of the Red Banner for his service. The Bolsheviks won the main phase of the civil war by the end of 1919. By that time, Sovnarkom had turned its attention to spreading proletarian revolution abroad, forming the Communist International in March 1919; Stalin attended its inaugural ceremony. Although Stalin did not share Lenin's belief that Europe's proletariat were on the verge of revolution, he acknowledged that Soviet Russia remained vulnerable. In February 1920, he

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9256-485: The Schorfheide Forest in Germany. Another Rothschild-owned painting, The Astronomer by Vermeer , was reserved for Hitler himself. Fifteen railroad boxcars full of artworks were sent to Germany with Göring's personal train. Göring visited the Jeu de Paume twelve more times in 1941, and five times in 1942, adding to his collection. Confiscations continued at banks, warehouses and private residences, with paintings, furniture, statues, clocks and jewelry accumulating at

9434-437: The Stakhanovite movement were introduced. Stalin argued that socialism was being established in the USSR while capitalism was crumbling during the Great Depression . His rhetoric reflected his utopian vision of the " new Soviet person " rising to unparallelled heights of human development. In 1928, Stalin declared that class war between the proletariat and their enemies would intensify as socialism developed. He warned of

9612-413: The Tiflis Theological Seminary before joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party . He raised funds for Vladimir Lenin 's Bolshevik faction through robberies, kidnappings and protection rackets , and edited the party's newspaper, Pravda . Repeatedly arrested, he underwent internal exiles to Siberia . After the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution of 1917, Stalin joined

9790-444: The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier beneath the Arc de Triomphe . The event was also announced on the 10th on the BBC. The day began quietly, as some 20,000 students laid wreaths and bouquets at the tomb and at the statue of Georges Clemenceau , on Place Clemenceau , by the Champs Élysées . This part of the day was tolerated by the French and German authorities. At midday, the demonstration became more provocative; some students carried

9968-482: The first five-year plan was launched by Stalin with a main focus on boosting Soviet heavy industry; it was finished a year ahead of schedule, in 1932. The country underwent a massive economic transformation: new mines were opened, new cities like Magnitogorsk constructed, and work on the White Sea–Baltic Canal began. Millions of peasants moved to the cities, and large debts were accrued purchasing foreign-made machinery. Many major construction projects, including

10146-685: The robbery of a bank stagecoach in Tiflis to fund the Bolsheviks'. His operatives ambushed the convoy in Erivansky Square with guns and home-made bombs; around 40 people were killed. Stalin settled in Baku with his wife and son, where Mensheviks confronted him about the robbery and voted to expel him from the RSDLP, but he ignored them. Stalin secured Bolshevik domination of Baku's RSDLP branch and edited two Bolshevik newspapers. In November 1907, his wife died of typhus , and he left his son with her family in Tiflis. In Baku he reassembled his gang, which attacked Black Hundreds and raised money through racketeering, counterfeiting, robberies and kidnapping

10324-464: The yellow Star of David badge , and were barred from certain professions and public places. On July 16–17 1942, 13,152 Jews, including 4,115 children, were rounded up by the French police , on orders of the Germans, and were sent to the Auschwitz concentration camp . The first demonstration against the occupation, by Paris students, took place on November 11 1940. As the war continued, anti-German clandestine groups and networks were created, some loyal to

10502-494: The "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (USSR), whose formation was ratified in December 1922. Their differences also became personal; Lenin was angered when Stalin was rude to his wife Krupskaya during a telephone conversation. In the final years of his life, Krupskaya provided leading figures with Lenin's Testament , which criticised Stalin's rude manners and excessive power and suggested that he be removed as general secretary. Some historians have questioned whether Lenin wrote

10680-426: The Bolsheviks should deal with the Empire's national and ethnic minorities. His article " Marxism and the National Question " was first published in the March, April, and May 1913 issues of the Bolshevik journal Prosveshcheniye under the pseudonym "K. Stalin". The alias, which he had used since 1912, is derived from the Russian for steel ( stal ), and has been translated as "Man of Steel". In February 1913, Stalin

10858-406: The Bolsheviks, overseeing the party's Sixth Congress . Lenin began calling for the Bolsheviks to seize power by toppling the Provisional Government, a plan which was supported by Stalin and fellow senior Bolshevik Leon Trotsky , but opposed by Kamenev, Zinoviev, and other members. On 24 October, police raided the Bolshevik newspaper offices, smashing machinery and presses; Stalin salvaged some of

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11036-559: The Communist International, Stalin's government exerted a strong influence over Marxist parties elsewhere; he left the running of the organisation to Bukharin before his ousting. At its 6th Congress in July 1928, Stalin informed delegates that the main threat to socialism came from non-Marxist socialists and social democrats , whom he called " social fascists "; Stalin recognised that in many countries, these groups were Marxist–Leninists' main rivals for working-class support. This focus on opposing rival leftists concerned Bukharin, who regarded

11214-417: The Council of Ministers from 1941 until his death. Initially governing as part of a collective leadership , Stalin consolidated power to become a dictator by the 1930s. He codified his Leninist interpretation of Marxism as Marxism–Leninism , while the totalitarian political system he established became known as Stalinism . Born into a poor Georgian family in Gori , Russian Empire , Stalin attended

11392-522: The French police. Unmarried persons and couples without children were taken to Drancy , some 20 kilometers north of Paris, while 8,160 men, women and children comprising families went to the Vélodrome d'Hiver ("Vel' d'Hiv'") stadium, on rue Nelaton in the 15th arrondissement , where they were crowded together in the heat of summer, with hardly any food, water and no hygienic facilities for five days before being sent to Drancy , Compiègne , Pithiviers and Beaune-la-Rolande internment camps, preludes to

11570-451: The German military at Fort Mont Valérien. Acts of resistance in Paris became more dangerous. In the spring of 1942, five students of the Lycée Buffon decided to protest the arrest of one of their teachers. About one hundred students took part, chanting the teacher's name and throwing leaflets. The demonstrators escaped, but the police tracked down and arrested the five student leaders, who were tried and executed on February 8, 1943. As

11748-413: The German time. The German military high command moved into the Majestic Hotel on Avenue Kléber ; the Abwehr (German military intelligence), took over the Hôtel Lutetia ; the Luftwaffe (German Air Force) occupied the Ritz ; the Kriegsmarine (German Navy), the Hôtel de la Marine on the Place de la Concorde ; the Carlingue , the French auxiliary organization of the Gestapo , occupied

11926-399: The Germans and many of them made their way to Germany ( Sigmaringen ) when Paris fell to the Allies. Those who did not leave were the target of the purge ( épuration ) that followed. The most notorious criminal of the period was Doctor Marcel Petiot . Petiot purchased a house at 21 rue Le Sueur in the 16th arrondissement , and under the name of Docteur Eugène , pretended to be the head of

12104-432: The Germans struck France on May 10th 1940, bypassing the Maginot Line and slipping through the Ardennes . By May 15th, German panzer divisions were only 35 kilometers from Laon , in the rear of the French and British armies, racing toward the English Channel . On May 28th, the British realized the battle was lost and began withdrawing their soldiers from the beaches of Dunkerque . Paris was soon flooded with refugees from

12282-489: The Germans. Very few heard the broadcast at the time, but it was widely printed and circulated afterwards. On 23 June, the German occupation authorities ordered all French persons to turn in any weapons and short-wave receivers they possessed, or face severe measures. Within Paris, opposition was isolated and slow to build. On 2 August, de Gaulle was condemned to death for treason, in absentia , by Marshal Pétain's new government. The first illegal demonstration in Paris against

12460-452: The Government of Marshal Pétain and with the Germans, assisting them with city administration, the police, and other government functions. French government officials were given the choice of collaborating or losing their jobs. On September 2, 1941, all Paris magistrates were asked to take an oath of allegiance to Marshal Petain. Only one, Paul Didier , refused. Unlike the territory of Vichy France , governed by Marshal Pétain and his ministers,

12638-452: The Left Socialist-Revolutionaries withdrew from the coalition government. The Bolsheviks were renamed the Russian Communist Party . In May 1918, during the intensifying Russian Civil War , Sovnarkom sent Stalin to Tsaritsyn to take charge of food procurement in Southern Russia. Eager to prove himself as a commander, he took control of regional military operations and befriended Kliment Voroshilov and Semyon Budyonny , who later formed

12816-708: The Menshevik-governed Georgia , and in April 1921, Stalin ordered the Red Army into Turkestan to reassert Soviet control. As People's Commissar for Nationalities, Stalin believed that each ethnic group had the right to an " autonomous republic " within the Russian state in which it could oversee various regional affairs. In taking this view, some Marxists accused him of bending too much to bourgeois nationalism , while others accused him of remaining too Russo-centric. In his diverse native Caucasus, however, Stalin opposed

12994-528: The Nazis, but the ambivalent official attitude of the Party lasted until Operation Barbarossa , the German attack on the Soviet Union on June 22nd 1941. The Ukrainian-Jewish Marxist historian , Maximilien Rubel , was living semi-secretly in Paris, and was astonished by the level of ignorance shown by Marxist members of the resistance that he met, and in consequence he introduced the term " Marxologie " to refer to

13172-795: The Normandy invasion approached, the Communists and their allies controlled the largest and best-armed resistance groups in Paris: the Francs-Tireurs et Partisans (FTP). In February 1944, the FTP became part of a larger umbrella organization, the Forces françaises de l'intérieur (FFI). Following the Normandy invasion on June 6 (D-Day), the FFI prepared to launch an uprising to liberate

13350-482: The Occupation took place on November 11th 1940, the anniversary of the end of the First World War , a day that usually featured patriotic ceremonies of remembrance. Anticipating trouble, the German authorities banned any commemoration and made it a regular school and work day. Nonetheless, the students of Paris lycées (high schools) circulated handbills and leaflets calling for students to boycott classes and meet at

13528-520: The Occupation. In 1946, the metro station Jacques Bonsergent was named after him. The first significant Resistance organization in Paris was formed in September 1940 by a group of scholars connected with the Musée de l'Homme , the ethnology museum located at the Palais de Chaillot . On December 15th, using the museum mimeograph machine, they published Résistance , a four-page newspaper which gave its name to

13706-471: The Paris streets dropped from 350,000 before the war to just under 4,500. One customer, sitting on the terrace of a café on the Place de la Bourse , counted the number of cars which passed between noon and twelve-thirty: only three came by. Older means of transportation, such as the horse-drawn fiacre came back into service. Trucks and automobiles that did circulate often used gazogene, a poor-quality fuel carried in

13884-502: The Parisians toward the occupiers varied greatly. Some saw the Germans as an easy source of money; others, as the Prefect of the Seine, Roger Langeron (arrested on June 23rd 1940), commented, "looked at them as if they were invisible or transparent." The attitude of members of the French Communist Party was more complicated; the Party had long denounced Nazism and Fascism, but after the signing of

14062-482: The Parisians, particularly those in the wealthier neighborhoods, had fled to the countryside and the south of France, in what is known as the exode de 1940 , the massive exodus of millions of people from the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, the north and east of France, fleeing after the German victory of the battle of Sedan (May 12th– May 15th 1940). Once the Occupation had begun, they started to return. By July 7th,

14240-569: The Politburo approved the "liquidation" of the kulak class, which was exiled to other parts of the country or concentration camps. By July 1930, over 320,000 households had been affected. According to Dmitri Volkogonov , de-kulakisation was "the first mass terror applied by Stalin in his own country." In 1929, the Politburo announced the mass collectivisation of agriculture , establishing both kolkhoz collective farms and sovkhoz state farms. Although officially voluntary, many peasants joined

14418-690: The Provisional Government's assembled delegates surrendered and were arrested. Stalin, who had been tasked with briefing the Bolshevik delegates of the Second Congress of Soviets about the situation, had not played a publicly visible role. Trotsky and other later opponents used this as evidence his role had been insignificant, although historians reject this, citing his role as a member of the Central Committee and as an editor of Pravda . On 26 October 1917, Lenin declared himself chairman of

14596-755: The RSDLP had become divided between Vladimir Lenin's " Bolshevik " faction and Julius Martov 's " Mensheviks ". Stalin, who detested many Mensheviks in Georgia, aligned himself with the Bolsheviks. In January 1905, government troops massacred protesters in Saint Petersburg spreading across the Empire in the Revolution of 1905 . Stalin was in Baku in February when ethnic violence broke out between Armenians and Azeris, and he formed Bolshevik "battle squads" which he used to keep

14774-573: The Red Army, were eager to be rid of the NEP and its market-oriented approach. They had concerns about those who profited from the policy: affluent peasants known as " kulaks " and small business owners, or " NEPmen ". At this point, Stalin turned against the NEP, which put him on a course to the "left" even of Trotsky or Zinoviev. In early 1928, Stalin travelled to Novosibirsk , where he alleged that kulaks were hoarding grain and ordered them be arrested and their grain confiscated, with Stalin bringing much of

14952-580: The Saviour , destroyed in 1931 to make way for the Palace of the Soviets . Religion retained an influence over the population; in the 1937 census , 57% of respondents were willing to admit to being religious. Throughout the 1920s, Stalin placed a priority on foreign policy. He personally met with a range of Western visitors, including George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells , both of whom were impressed with him. Through

15130-615: The Soviet Union , which together resulted in millions of deaths. Stalin promoted Marxism–Leninism abroad through the Communist International and supported European anti-fascist movements, including in the Spanish Civil War . In 1939, his government signed the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Nazi Germany , enabling the Soviet invasion of Poland . Germany broke the pact by invading the Soviet Union in 1941, leading Stalin to join

15308-722: The Soviet Union as a major world power. Conversely, his regime has been widely condemned for overseeing mass repressions , ethnic cleansing , and famines which caused the deaths of millions . Stalin was born on 18 December [ O.S. 6 December] 1878 in Gori , Georgia , then part of the Tiflis Governorate of the Russian Empire . An ethnic Georgian , his birth name was Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili ( Russified as Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili). His parents were Besarion Jughashvili and Ekaterine Geladze ; Stalin

15486-514: The Special Brigades. The Germans supported the creation by Vichy France, on February 28th 1943, of a fascist paramilitary organization, the Front révolutionnaire national , whose active police branch was called Milice . Its particular function was to help the Germans in their battle against the Resistance, which they qualified as being a "terrorist" organization. It established its headquarters in

15664-595: The Western Front at Petrograd. When the Red Third Regiment defected, he ordered the public execution of captured defectors. In September he returned to the Southern Front. During the war, Stalin proved his worth to the Central Committee by displaying decisiveness and determination. However, he also disregarded orders and repeatedly threatened to resign when affronted. In November 1919, the government awarded him

15842-519: The White Sea–Baltic Canal and the Moscow Metro , were constructed largely through forced labour. The last elements of workers' control over industry were removed, with factory managers receiving privileges; Stalin defended wage disparity by pointing to Marx's argument that it was necessary during the lower stages of socialism. To promote intensification of labour, medals and awards as well as

16020-809: The actor Fernandel , the film director and playwright Sacha Guitry , and the singers Édith Piaf , Tino Rossi , Charles Trenet and Yves Montand . The jazz musician Django Reinhardt played with the Quintette du Hot Club de France for German and French fans. In 1941, Maurice Chevalier performed a new revue in the Casino de Paris : Bonjour Paris . The songs Ça sent si bon la France and La Chanson du maçon became hits. The Nazis asked Chevalier to perform in Berlin and sing for Radio Paris . He refused but did perform for French prisoners of war in Germany, and succeeded in obtaining

16198-534: The adoption of a new constitution with expansive democratic features; it was designed as propaganda, as all power rested in his hands. He declared that "socialism, the first phase of communism, has been achieved". In 1938, the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) was released; commonly known as the "Short Course", it became the central text of Stalinism. Authorised Stalin biographies were also published, though Stalin preferred to be viewed as

16376-470: The argument and accepted Lenin's decision. On his front, Stalin became determined to conquer Lvov ; in focusing on this goal, he disobeyed orders to transfer his troops to assist Mikhail Tukhachevsky 's forces at the Battle of Warsaw in early August, which ended in a major defeat for the Red Army. Stalin then returned to Moscow, where Tukhachevsky blamed him for the loss. Humiliated, he demanded demission from

16554-692: The authorities. Stalin was elected to the Tiflis Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) –a Marxist party founded in 1898– in November 1901. That month, he travelled to Batumi . His militant rhetoric proved divisive among the city's Marxists, some of whom suspected that he was an agent provocateur . Stalin began working at the Rothschild refinery storehouse, where he co-organised two workers' strikes. After

16732-504: The battle zone. On June 3rd, the Germans bombed Paris and its suburbs for the first time, targeting in particular the Citroën automobile factory. 254 persons were killed, including 195 civilians. French Prime Minister Paul Reynaud dismissed his supreme military commander, Maurice Gamelin , and replaced him with the 73-year-old Maxime Weygand . He also named the 84-year-old Philippe Pétain ,

16910-457: The building at 93 rue Lauriston ; and the German commandant of Paris and his staff moved into the Hôtel Meurice on the rue de Rivoli . Paris became the primary destination for the rest and recreation of German soldiers. Under the slogan "Jeder einmal in Paris" ("everyone once in Paris"), each German soldier was promised one visit to Paris. One month after the beginning of the Occupation,

17088-570: The children of wealthy figures for ransom. In March 1908, Stalin was arrested and imprisoned in Baku. He led the imprisoned Bolsheviks, organised discussion groups, and ordered the killing of suspected informants. He was sentenced to two years of exile in Solvychegodsk in northern Russia, arriving there in February 1909. In June, Stalin escaped to Saint Petersburg, but was arrested again in March 1910 and sent back to Solvychegodsk. In June 1911, Stalin

17266-630: The châteaux of the Loire Valley and the unoccupied zone , and were safe. The German Army was respectful of the Hague Conventions of 1899 and 1907 and refused to transfer the works in French museums out of the country, but the Nazi leaders were not so scrupulous. On 30 June 1940, Hitler ordered that all art works in France, public and private, should be "safeguarded". Many of the French wealthy Jewish families had sent their art works out of France before leaving

17444-560: The city before the Allied Armies and General de Gaulle arrived. Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili ; 18 December [ O.S. 6 December] 1878 – 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 to 1952 and as Chairman of

17622-569: The city government estimated the population had risen again to 1.5 million; it climbed to two million by October 22nd, and 2.5 million by January 1st 1941. At the beginning of 1943, it fell again, because of air raids by the Allies, the arrest and deportation of Jews and foreigners, and the forced departure to factories in Germany of many young Frenchmen, as part of the Service du travail obligatoire (STO), "Obligatory Work Service". The attitude of

17800-574: The city to the countryside. That night, street lights were turned off as a measure against German air raids. On 1 September, news reached Paris that Germany had invaded Poland , and France as expected promptly declared war on Germany. On August 27th, in anticipation of air raids, workmen had begun taking down the stained glass windows of the Sainte-Chapelle . The same day, curators at the Louvre , summoned back from summer vacation, and aided by packers from

17978-550: The city's warring ethnic factions apart. His armed squads attacked local police and troops, raided arsenals, and raised funds via protection rackets . In November 1905, the Georgian Bolsheviks elected Stalin as one of their delegates to a Bolshevik conference in Tampere, Finland , where he met Lenin. Although Stalin held Lenin in deep respect, he vocally disagreed with his view that the Bolsheviks should field candidates for

18156-446: The collectives out of fear they would face the fate of the kulaks. By 1932, about 62% of households involved in agriculture were part of collectives, and by 1936 this had risen to 90%. Many collectivised peasants resented the loss of their private farmland, and productivity slumped. Famine broke out in many areas, with the Politburo frequently being forced to dispatch emergency food relief. Armed peasant uprisings broke out in Ukraine,

18334-629: The committee drafting a constitution for the newly-formed Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic . He supported Lenin's formation of the Cheka security service and the Red Terror , arguing that state violence was an effective tool for capitalist powers. Unlike some Bolsheviks, Stalin never expressed concern about the Cheka's rapid expansion and the Red Terror. Having left his role as Pravda editor, Stalin

18512-437: The core of his military support base. Stalin sent large numbers of Red Army troops to battle the region's White armies , resulting in heavy losses and drawing Lenin's concern. In Tsaritsyn, Stalin commanded the local Cheka branch to execute suspected counter-revolutionaries, often without trial, and purged the military and food collection agencies of middle-class specialists, whom were also executed. His use of state violence

18690-449: The country, but others had left their art collections behind. A new law decreed that those who had left France just before the war were no longer French citizens, and their property could be seized. The Gestapo began visiting bank vaults and empty residences, and collecting the works of art. The pieces left behind in the fifteen largest Jewish-owned art galleries in Paris were also collected, and transported in French police vans. In September,

18868-494: The country. They were not experienced conspirators, and they were discovered and arrested in January 1941. Vildé and the six other leaders were sentenced to death and executed by firing squad at Fort Mont Valérien , in the western suburbs of the city, on February 22, 1942. Most of the resistance by ordinary Parisians was symbolic: encouraged by the BBC, students scribbled the letter V for Victory on walls, blackboards, tables, and on

19046-643: The creation on 16 June 1940 of the Ministère de l'agriculture et du ravitaillement (Ministry of Agriculture and Supply), which began to impose a system of rationing as early as August 2nd 1940, as per Décret du 30 juillet 1940 : bread, fat, flour products, rice, sugar; then, on 23 October 1940: butter, cheese, meat, coffee, charcuterie , eggs, oil; in July 1941: and as the war went on: chocolate, fish, dried vegetables, (like peas and beans), potatoes, fresh vegetables, wine, tobacco... Products could be bought only upon presentation of coupons attributed to specific items and on

19224-416: The crisis. Stalin blamed hostile elements and saboteurs among the peasants. The government provided limited food aid to famine-stricken areas, prioritising urban workers; for Stalin, Soviet industrialisation was more valuable than peasant lives. Grain exports declined heavily. Stalin did not acknowledge his policies' role in the famine, which was concealed from foreign observers. In 1936, Stalin oversaw

19402-565: The deportation of French Jews to the concentration camp of Auschwitz . On May 29th, 1942, all Jews in the Occupied Zone over the age of six were required to wear the yellow Star of David badge . In July, Jews were banned from all main streets, movie theaters, libraries, parks, gardens, restaurants, cafés and other public places, and were required to ride on the last car of metro trains. On 16–17 July 1942, on Germans' orders, 13,152 Jews (4,115 children, 5.919 women and 3,118 men) were rounded up by

19580-612: The disposition of the German occupiers. By the end of the afternoon, the Germans had hung a swastika flag at the Arc de Triomphe and organized military parades with a marching band on the Champs Élysées and Avenue Foch , primarily for the benefit of the German army photographers and newsreel cameramen. On the evening of June 16th, Prime Minister Reynaud resigned. On the morning of June 17th, General de Gaulle left Bordeaux by plane for London. At midday, Parisians gathered around radios heard Pétain,

19758-535: The document of surrender placed Paris in the occupied zone, directly under German authority, the Militärbefehlshabers in Frankreich (MBF). It stated: "The government of France will immediately invite all the French authorities and administrative services in the occupied territories to conform with the regulations of the German military authorities, and to collaborate with those in a correct manner." The prefect of

19936-422: The document, suggesting that it was written by Krupskaya; Stalin never publicly voiced concerns about its authenticity. Most historians consider it an accurate reflection of Lenin's views. Upon Lenin's death in January 1924, Stalin took charge of the funeral and was a pallbearer. To bolster his image as a devoted Leninist amid his growing personality cult , Stalin gave nine lectures at Sverdlov University on

20114-624: The equipment. In the early hours of 25 October, Stalin joined Lenin in a Central Committee meeting in Petrograd's Smolny Institute , from where the Bolshevik coup—the October Revolution —was directed. Bolshevik militia seized Petrograd's power station, main post office, state bank, telephone exchange, and several bridges. A Bolshevik-controlled ship, the Aurora , opened fire on the Winter Palace ;

20292-399: The first time. In the spring of 1939, war with Germany already seemed inevitable. In Paris, the first defense exercise took place on February 2nd 1939 and city workers began digging twenty kilometers of trenches in city squares and parks to be used for bomb shelters. On 10th of March, the city began to distribute gas masks to civilians, and on March 19th, signs were posted guiding Parisians to

20470-554: The former Communist Party building at 44 rue Le Peletier and at 61 rue de Monceau . The Lycée Louis-Le-Grand was occupied as barracks, and an officer candidate school was established in the Auteuil synagogue. The Front révolutionnaire national held a large rally on April 11th 1943 at the Vél d'Hiv . At the time of the Liberation of Paris in August 1944, most of its members chose to fight alongside

20648-417: The governing Politburo , and following Lenin's death in 1924 , won the struggle to lead the country . Under Stalin, the doctrine of socialism in one country became central to the party's ideology . His five-year plans , launched in 1928, led to agricultural collectivisation and rapid industrialisation , establishing a centralised command economy . Resulting disruptions to food production contributed to

20826-476: The grain back to Moscow with him in February. At his command, grain procurement squads surfaced across West Siberia and the Urals, with violence breaking out between the squads and the peasantry. Stalin announced that kulaks and the "middle peasants" must be coerced into releasing their harvest. Bukharin and other Central Committee members were angered that they had not been consulted about the measure. In January 1930,

21004-460: The growth of fascism and the far right across Europe as a greater threat. In 1929, Stalin's son Yakov unsuccessfully attempted suicide, shooting himself in the chest and narrowly missing his heart; his failure earned the contempt of Stalin, who is reported to have brushed off the attempt by saying "He can't even shoot straight." His relationship with Nadezhda was strained amid their arguments and her mental health problems. In November 1932, after

21182-411: The guillotine on May 25, 1946. The gold, silver and other valuables were not found when he was arrested. In search of the treasure, the house was carefully demolished in 1966, but no trace of it was ever found. On June 18th 1940, Parisians listening to the BBC heard an obscure French brigadier General, Charles de Gaulle, in London, make an appeal ( Appel du 18 juin ) to continue the resistance against

21360-455: The head of the Luftwaffe , visited the Jeu de Paume on November 3 and returned on the 5th, spending the entire day there, picking out works for his private collection. He selected twenty-seven paintings, including works by Rembrandt and Van Dyck owned by Edouard de Rothschild , as well as stained glass windows and furniture intended for Carinhall , the luxurious hunting lodge he had built in

21538-549: The idea of separate autonomous republics, arguing that these would oppress ethnic minorities within their territories; instead, he called for a Transcaucasian Socialist Federative Soviet Republic . The Georgian Communist Party opposed the idea, resulting in the Georgian affair . In mid-1921, Stalin returned to the South Caucasus , calling on Georgian communists to reject the chauvinistic nationalism which he argued had marginalised

21716-494: The idea: "To make Paris into a city of ruins will not affect the issue." On June 12th, the French government, in Tours, declared Paris to be an open city, that there would be no resistance. At 5:30 in the morning of June 14th, the first German advance guard entered the city at Porte de La Villette and took the rue de Flandres toward the center. They were followed by several German columns, which, following an established plan, moved to

21894-560: The liberation of ten prisoners in exchange. The writer Colette , who was 67 when the war began, worked quietly on her mémoires in her apartment at 9 rue du Beaujolais , next to the gardens of the Palais-Royal. Her husband, Maurice Goudeket, a Jew, was arrested by the Gestapo in December 1941, and although he was released after a few months through the intervention of the French wife of the German ambassador Otto Abetz , Colette lived through

22072-561: The long journey by bicycle to the countryside, hoping to come back, with vegetables, fruit, eggs and other farm products. The rationing system also applied to clothing: leather was reserved exclusively for German army boots, and vanished completely from the market. Leather shoes were replaced by shoes made of rubber or canvas ( raffia ) with wooden soles. A variety of ersatz or substitute products appeared, which were not exactly what they were called: ersatz wine, coffee (made with chicory), tobacco and soap. Finding coal for heat in winter

22250-401: The military, which was granted on 1 September. At the 9th Party Congress in late September, Trotsky accused Stalin of "strategic mistakes" and claimed that he had sabotaged the campaign; Lenin joined in the criticism. Stalin felt disgraced and his antipathy toward Trotsky increased. The Soviet government sought to bring neighbouring states under its domination; in February 1921 it invaded

22428-474: The movement that followed. The group was led by the Russian-born (French naturalized) anthropologist Boris Vildé . The first issue of the newspaper, proclaimed: "We are independent, simply French, chosen for the action we wish to carry out. We have only one ambition, one passion, one desire: to recreate France, pure and free." They collected information and established a network to help escaped French POWs to flee

22606-452: The nature of the Soviet state; Lenin called for establishment of a new federation named the "Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia", while Stalin believed that this would encourage independence sentiment among non-Russians. Lenin accused Stalin of "Great Russian chauvinism", while Stalin accused Lenin of "national liberalism". A compromise was reached in which the federation would be named

22784-547: The nearby La Samaritaine and Bazar de l'Hôtel de Ville department stores, began cataloging and packing the major works of art, which were put into crates and labeled only with numbers to disguise their contents. The Winged Victory of Samothrace statue was carefully wheeled down the long stairway on a wooden ramp to be put on a truck for its departure to the Château de Valençay in the Indre department. Trucks used to move scenery for

22962-421: The nearest shelters. On August 23rd, Parisians were surprised to read that the German foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop , and Russian minister Vyacheslav Molotov had signed the Hitler-Stalin Pact of non-aggression. L'Humanité , the daily newspaper of the French Communist Party (PCF), welcomed the pact, writing: "At the moment when the Soviet Union makes a new and appreciable contribution to safeguard

23140-524: The new government, the Council of People's Commissars (Sovnarkom). Stalin supported Lenin's decision not to form a coalition with the Socialist Revolutionary Party . He became part of an informal leadership group alongside Lenin, Trotsky, and Sverdlov, and his importance within the Bolshevik ranks grew. Stalin's office was near Lenin's in the Smolny Institute, and he and Trotsky had direct access to Lenin without an appointment. Stalin co-signed Lenin's decrees shutting down hostile newspapers, and co-chaired

23318-464: The new head of the French government, announce: "It is with a heavy heart that I tell you today that we must cease hostilities. The fighting must stop." Though no armistice had yet been signed, the French army stopped fighting. Nazi leader Adolf Hitler arrived on June 24th for a rapid tour by car, his only visit to Paris. He was guided by the German sculptor Arno Breker and by his chief architect, Albert Speer , both of whom had lived in Paris. He saw

23496-411: The next killing of a German, forty-eight hostages were immediately shot by firing squad. From London, General de Gaulle condemned the Communist policy of random assassinations, saying the cost in innocent civilian lives was too high, and it had no impact on the war, but the random shooting of Germans continued. In retaliation, an estimated 1,400 hostages from the Paris region were taken and 981 executed by

23674-404: The nickname "Koba" from its bandit protagonist. After reading Das Kapital , Stalin focused on Karl Marx 's philosophy of Marxism , which was on the rise as a variety of socialism opposed to the Tsarist authorities . He began attending secret workers' meetings, and left the seminary in April 1899. During October 1899, he worked as a meteorologist at the Tiflis observatory. He attracted

23852-599: The paintings that they left without taking anything. He also persuaded them that the paintings in the adjoining vault, owned by Braque, were actually his own. Other "degenerate" artists, including Kandinsky and Henri Matisse , who sent drawings up to Paris from his residence in Nice, were officially condemned but continued to sell their works in the back rooms of Paris galleries. A few actors, such as Jean Gabin and film director Jean Renoir chose, for political or personal reasons, to leave Paris, but many others remained, avoided politics and focused on their art. These included

24030-487: The party. Favouring new members from proletarian backgrounds to " Old Bolsheviks ", who tended to be middle-class university graduates, he ensured that he had loyalists dispersed across the regions. Stalin had much contact with young party functionaries, and the desire for promotion led many to seek his favour. Stalin also developed close relations with key figures in the secret police: Felix Dzerzhinsky , Genrikh Yagoda , and Vyacheslav Menzhinsky . His wife gave birth to

24208-428: The patriotic demonstrations on November 11. But after Operation Barbarossa , the German attack on the Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, they became among the most active and best-organized forces against the Germans. They remained hostile to de Gaulle, whom they denounced as a reactionary British puppet. On 21st of August 1941, a 21-year-old veteran communist named Pierre Georges , who used the clandestine name "Fabien", shot

24386-454: The peace, constantly threatened by the fascist instigators of war, the French Communist Party addresses its warmest greetings to the country of socialism, to its party and to its great leader Stalin ". In Paris, the copies of the newspaper and of the other Communist newspaper, Ce Soir , were seized by the police and their publication suspended. On August 31st, anticipating bombardment, the French government began to evacuate 30,000 children out of

24564-606: The people, elected by representatives of the workers, soldiers and peasants and held accountable to their representatives. Stalin helped organise the July Days uprising, an armed display of strength by supporters of the Bolsheviks. After the demonstration was suppressed, the Provisional Government initiated a crackdown on the party, raiding Pravda . Stalin smuggled Lenin out of the paper's office and took charge of his safety, moving him between Petrograd safe houses before smuggling him to nearby Razliv . In Lenin's absence, Stalin continued editing Pravda and served as acting leader of

24742-435: The police and prefect of the Seine, reported to him, and only secondarily to the government of the French State in Vichy. The Reich Security Main Office , which oversaw the SS , SD and the Gestapo , worked closely with the French Police and its auxiliaries. It established the Carlingue (or French Gestapo) which was used to conduct counter-insurgency operations against the Resistance . Its cadre, which were mostly from

24920-425: The police of Paris, under German control, received every day hundreds of anonymous denunciations by Parisians against other Parisians. Finding food soon became the first preoccupation of the Parisians. The authorities of the German occupation transformed French industry and agriculture into a machine for serving Germany. Shipments to Germany had first priority; what was left went to Paris and the rest of France. All of

25098-463: The prices higher. The French press and radio broadcast only German propaganda. The beginning of the STO, the program that required large number of young Frenchmen to work in factories for the German war industry, in exchange for the return of older and sick French prisoners of war in Germany, greatly increased the resentment of the French population against the Germans. Most Parisians, however, only expressed their anger and frustrations in private, while

25276-434: The principal intersections. German military vehicles with loudspeakers circulated, instructing Parisians not to leave their buildings. At eight in the morning, delegations of German officers arrived at Les Invalides , headquarters of the military governor of Paris, Henri Dentz , and at the Prefecture of Police, where the Prefect, Roger Langeron, was waiting. The Germans politely invited the French officials to put themselves at

25454-430: The process of world revolution . In 1927, there was some argument in the party over Soviet policy regarding China. Stalin had called for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by Mao Zedong , to ally itself with Chiang Kai-shek 's Kuomintang (KMT) nationalists, viewing a CCP-KMT alliance as the best bulwark against Japanese imperial expansionism. Instead, the KMT repressed the CCP and a civil war broke out between

25632-426: The research of agrobiologist Trofim Lysenko despite the fact that it was rejected by the majority of Lysenko's scientific peers as pseudo-scientific . The government's anti-religious campaign was re-intensified, with increased funding given to the League of Militant Atheists . Priests , imams , and Buddhist monks faced persecution. Religious buildings were demolished, most notably Moscow's Cathedral of Christ

25810-401: The rest of the war years with the anxiety of a possible second arrest. In 1944, she published one of her most famous works, Gigi . The philosopher and novelist Jean-Paul Sartre continued to write and publish; Simone de Beauvoir produced a broadcast on the history of the music hall for Radio Paris; and Marguerite Duras worked at a publishing house. The actress Danielle Darrieux made

25988-467: The restaurants found ways to serve their regular clients. The historian René Héron de Villefosse  [ fr ] , who lived in Paris throughout the war, described his experience: "The great restaurants were only allowed to serve, under the fierce eye of a frequent control, noodles with water, turnips and beets, in exchange for certain number of tickets, but the hunt for a good meal continued for many food-lovers. For five hundred francs one could conquer

26166-462: The roads out of the city with automobiles, tourist buses, trucks, wagons, carts, bicycles, and on foot. The slow-moving river of refugees took ten hours to cover thirty kilometers. Within a few days, the wealthier arrondissements of the city were nearly deserted, and the population of the working-class 14th arrondissement dropped from 178,000 to 49,000. The British General Staff urged the French to defend Paris street-by-street, but Pétain dismissed

26344-424: The side of cars. The Germans tried to co-opt the 'V' campaign, placing huge Vs. symbolizing their own victories, on the Eiffel Tower and the National Assembly, but with little effect. From the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact in August 1939, until June 1941, the Communists played no active part in the Resistance. The Vichy government and Germans allowed their newspapers to publish, and they made no mention of

26522-411: The single superior aspect that he should be more tolerant, more polite and more attentive towards comrades, less capricious, etc. In May 1922, a massive stroke left Lenin partially paralysed. Residing at his Gorki dacha , his main connection to Sovnarkom was through Stalin. Despite their comradeship, Lenin disliked what he referred to as Stalin's "Asiatic" manner and told his sister Maria that Stalin

26700-537: The specific week in which they could be used. Parisians (and all the population of France) were divided into seven categories depending upon their age, and allotted a certain amount of each product each month. A new bureaucracy, employing more than nine thousand city employees, with offices at all schools and the city hall of each arrondissement , was put into place to administer the program. The system resulted in long lines and frustrated hopes, since promised products often never appeared. Thousands of Parisians regularly made

26878-475: The strike leaders were arrested, he co-organised a mass demonstration which led to the storming of the prison. Stalin was arrested in April 1902 and sentenced to three years exile in Siberia , arriving in Novaya Uda in November 1903. After one failed attempt, Stalin escaped from his exile in January 1904 and travelled to Tiflis, where he co-edited the Marxist newspaper Proletariatis Brdzola ("Proletarian Struggle") with Filipp Makharadze . During his exile,

27056-450: The students, and closed the entrance of the metro stations. They charged the students with fixed bayonets, firing shots in the air. The Vichy government announced 123 arrests and one student wounded. The students arrested were taken to the prisons of La Santé , Cherche-Midi and Fresnes , where they were beaten, slapped, stripped, and made to stand all night in the pouring rain. Some students were threatened by soldiers pretending to be

27234-431: The threats posed by the First World War , in March 1918 the government relocated from Petrograd to the Moscow Kremlin . Stalin supported Lenin's desire to sign an armistice with the Central Powers; Stalin thought this necessary because he—unlike Lenin—was unconvinced that Europe was on the verge of proletarian revolution . The Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed in March 1918, ceding vast territories and angering many;

27412-402: The trucks manufactured at the Citroen factory went directly to Germany. (Later many of these trucks were cleverly sabotaged by the French workers, who recalibrated the dip sticks so that the trucks would run out of oil without warning). Most shipments of meat, wheat, milk produce and other agricultural products also went to Germany. What remained for the Parisians was strictly rationed, following

27590-625: The two moved into open opposition to Stalin and Bukharin and launched an unsuccessful attack on their faction at the 14th Party Congress in December. Stalin accused Kamenev and Zinoviev of reintroducing factionalism, and thus instability. In mid-1926, Kamenev and Zinoviev joined with Trotsky to form the United Opposition against Stalin; in October the two agreed to stop factional activity under threat of expulsion, and later publicly recanted their views. The factionalist arguments continued, with Stalin threatening to resign in October and December 1926, and again in December 1927. In October 1927, Trotsky

27768-482: The two sides. We have fallen behind the advanced countries by fifty to a hundred years. We must close that gap in ten years. Either we do this or we'll be crushed. This is what our obligations before the workers and peasants of the USSR dictate to us. The Soviet Union lagged far behind the industrial and agricultural development of the Western powers. Stalin's government feared attack from capitalist countries, and many communists, including in Komsomol , OGPU , and

27946-451: The war continued, the Resistance was divided largely between the groups, followers of General de Gaulle in London, and those organized by the Communists. Thanks to pressure from the British, who supplied the weapons, and the diplomacy of one Resistance leader, Jean Moulin , who created the National Council of the Resistance ( Conseil National de la Résistance (CNR)), the different factions began to coordinate their actions. In early 1944, as

28124-404: The war seemed far away until May 10th 1940, when the Germans attacked France and quickly defeated the French army. The French government departed Paris on June 10th, and the Germans occupied the city on June 14th. During the occupation, the French government moved to Vichy , and Paris was governed by the German military and by French officials approved by the Germans. For Parisians, the occupation

28302-461: Was liberated by French and American troops on August 25th; the next day, General de Gaulle led a triumphant parade down the Champs-Élysées on August 26th, and organized a new government. In the following months, ten thousand Parisians who had collaborated with the Germans were arrested and tried, eight thousand convicted, and 116 executed. On April 29th and May 13th 1945, the first post-war municipal elections were held, in which French women voted for

28480-442: Was "not intelligent". The two men argued on the issue of foreign trade; Lenin believed that the Soviet state should have a monopoly on foreign trade, but Stalin supported Grigori Sokolnikov 's view that doing so was impractical. Another disagreement came over the Georgian affair, with Lenin backing the Georgian Central Committee's desire for a Georgian Soviet Republic over Stalin's idea of a Transcaucasian one. They also disagreed on

28658-500: Was a series of frustrations, shortages and humiliations. A curfew was in effect from nine in the evening until five in the morning; at night, the city went dark. Rationing of food, tobacco, coal and clothing was imposed from September 1940. Every year the supplies grew more scarce and the prices higher. A million Parisians left the city for the provinces, where there was more food and fewer Germans. The French press and radio contained only German propaganda. Jews in Paris were forced to wear

28836-445: Was again arrested in Saint Petersburg and sentenced to four years of exile in Turukhansk in Siberia, where he arrived in August. Still concerned over a potential escape, the authorities moved him to Kureika in March 1914. While Stalin was in exile, Russia entered the First World War , and in October 1916 he and other exiled Bolsheviks were conscripted into the Russian Army . They arrived in Krasnoyarsk in February 1917, where

29014-609: Was another preoccupation. The Germans had transferred the authority over the coal mines of northern France from Paris to their military headquarters in Brussels. The priority for the coal that did arrive in Paris was for use in factories. Even with ration cards, adequate coal for heating was almost impossible to find. Supplies for normal heating needs were not restored until 1949. Paris restaurants were open but had to deal with strict regulations and shortages. Meat could only be served on certain days, and certain products, such as cream, coffee and fresh produce were extremely rare. Nonetheless,

29192-415: Was appointed as a Bolshevik delegate to the executive committee of the Petrograd Soviet , an influential workers' council. The existing government of landlords and capitalists must be replaced by a new government, a government of workers and peasants. The existing pseudo-government which was not elected by the people and which is not accountable to the people must be replaced by a government recognised by

29370-431: Was appointed the People's Commissar for Nationalities. He appointed Nadezhda Alliluyeva as his secretary, and marryed her in early 1919. In November 1917, he signed the Decree on Nationality , granting ethnic minorities the right to secession and self-determination. He travelled to Helsingfors to meet with the Finnish Social Democrats , and granted Finland's request for independence from Russia in December. Due to

29548-468: Was appointed to head the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate (Rabkrin); that same month he was also transferred to the Caucasian Front. The Polish–Soviet War broke out in early 1920, with the Poles invading Ukraine, and in May, Stalin was moved to the Southwest Front. Lenin believed that the Polish proletariat would rise up to support an invasion, but Stalin argued that nationalism would lead them to support their government's war effort. Stalin lost

29726-422: Was appointed to the post. Stalin is too crude, and this defect which is entirely acceptable in our milieu and in relationships among us as communists, becomes unacceptable in the position of General Secretary. I therefore propose to comrades that they should devise a means of removing him from this job and should appoint to this job someone else who is distinguished from comrade Stalin in all other respects only by

29904-405: Was at a greater scale than most Bolshevik leaders approved of, for instance, he ordered several villages torched to ensure compliance with his food procurement program. In December 1918, Stalin was sent to Perm to lead an inquiry into how Alexander Kolchak 's White forces had been able to decimate Red troops there. He returned to Moscow between January and March 1919, before being assigned to

30082-548: Was concerned about Stalin's growing power, he rallied behind him at the 13th Congress as a counterweight to Trotsky, who now led a faction known as the Left Opposition . Trotsky's supporters believed that the NEP conceded too much to capitalism, and they called Stalin a "rightist" for his support of the policy. Stalin built up a retinue of his supporters within the Central Committee as the Left Opposition were marginalised. In late 1924, Stalin moved against Kamenev and Zinoviev, removing their supporters from key positions. In 1925,

30260-476: Was given permission to move to Vologda where he stayed for two months. He then escaped to Saint Petersburg, where he was arrested again in September 1911 and sentenced to a further three years of exile in Vologda. In January 1912, the first Bolshevik Central Committee was elected at the Prague Conference . Lenin and Grigory Zinoviev decided to co-opt Stalin to the committee, which Stalin (still in exile in Vologda) agreed to. Lenin believed that Stalin, as

30438-444: Was murdered at the Flossenbürg concentration camp on 7 March 1945. The Germans made a continual effort to seduce the Parisians through culture: in 1941, they organized a festival of German music by the Berlin Philharmonic at the Paris Opera, a play from the Schiller Theater in Berlin at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées , and an exhibit by the German sculptor Arno Breker . The French film industry, based in suburbs of Paris, had

30616-400: Was officially condemned as "degenerate" , his paintings continued to be sold at the Hôtel Drouot auction house and at the Galerie Louise Leiris , formerly Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler 's. German treasurer officials opened Picasso's bank vault, where he stored his private art collection, searching for Jewish-owned art they could seize. Picasso so confused them with his descriptions of ownership of

30794-447: Was reflected in naming of locations after him; in June 1924 the Ukrainian city of Yuzovka became Stalino, and in April 1925, Tsaritsyn was renamed Stalingrad. In 1926, Stalin published On Questions of Leninism, in which he argued for the concept of " socialism in one country ", which was presented as an orthodox Leninist perspective despite clashing with established Bolshevik views that socialism could only be achieved globally through

30972-446: Was removed from the Central Committee; he was later exiled to Kazakhstan in 1928 and deported from the country in 1929. Stalin was now the supreme leader of the party and state. He entrusted the position of head of government to Vyacheslav Molotov ; other important supporters on the Politburo were Voroshilov, Lazar Kaganovich , and Sergo Ordzhonikidze , with Stalin ensuring his allies ran state institutions. His growing influence

31150-477: Was seriously injured when he was struck by a phaeton , causing a lifelong disability in his left arm. In 1894, Stalin enrolled as a trainee Russian Orthodox priest at the Tiflis Theological Seminary , enabled by a scholarship. He initially achieved high grades, but lost interest in his studies. Stalin became influenced by Nikolay Chernyshevsky 's pro-revolutionary novel What Is To Be Done? , and Alexander Kazbegi 's The Patricide , with Stalin adopting

31328-470: Was their third child and the only one to survive past infancy. After Besarion's shoemaking workshop went into decline, the family fell into poverty, and he became an alcoholic who beat his wife and son. Ekaterine and her son left the home by 1883, moving through nine different rented rooms. In 1888, Stalin enrolled at the Gori Church School where he excelled. He faced health problems: an 1884 smallpox infection left him with facial scars, and at age 12 he

31506-433: Was unable to rally sufficient support in the party to oppose the reforms; in November 1929, Stalin removed him from the Politburo. Officially, the Soviet Union had replaced the "irrationality" and "wastefulness" of a market economy with a planned economy organised along a long-term and scientific framework; in reality, Soviet economics were based on ad hoc commandments issued often to make short-term targets. In 1928,

31684-591: Was widespread. Social unrest in urban areas led Stalin to ease some economic policies in 1932. In May 1932, he introduced kolkhoz markets where peasants could trade surplus produce. However, penal sanctions became harsher; a decree in August 1932 made the theft of a handful of grain a capital offence. The second five-year plan reduced production quotas from the first, focusing more on improving living conditions through housing and consumer goods. Emphasis on armament production increased after Adolf Hitler became German chancellor in 1933. The Soviet Union experienced

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