Born Ioseb Jughashvili on December 18, 1878, in the Georgian village of Gori…he adopted the pseudonym Joseph Stalin as did many Bolshevik revolutionaries such as Lenin (Ulyanov) and Trotsky (Bronstein). He first rose to prominence by brutally robbing banks to help fund the revolution. These were euphemistically called “expropriations.”

Be it understood that Stalin was not an ethnic Russian, but rather a Georgian, as was his chief henchman, Lavrentiy Beria. As Stalin was feared by many even in the Communist party, as was Beria. Nikita Khrushchev wrote in Khrushchev Remembers that, when Stalin died in 1953, Khrushchev called a meeting of the top dogs in the Politburo -- including Beria. When the meeting convened, two armed generals stepped out from behind a curtain and arrested Beria. That was the last he was ever seen.

Stalin’s penchant for brutality may be best expressed in his famous quote: “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic.” He also created the office of General Secretary of the Communist Party, which became his position. He was particularly jealous of other up-and-comers who were rising through the party’s ranks. A rule of thumb was that the closer you rose up to Stalin’s level, the more dangerous your life became.

The tension between Russia and Ukraine traces back to Stalin’s expropriation of the Ukrainian grain harvest of 1932. The Soviet army was massed on the border to keep the Ukrainians from recapturing their lives and well over a million starved to death. Some also resorted to cannibalism. The Film Board of Canada produced a documentary on this subject titled Harvest of Despair which was originally turned down by PBS on specious grounds of fakery (some sounds had been added to archival footage). In truth it was considered excessively anti-communist.

The Soviet Union continued as a tyrannical empire for another 36 years after Stalin’s death until it collapsed under its own weight. Today’s Russia is obviously still a dictatorship, but the Cold War seems to have ended. Meanwhile, we are becoming aware that there is now an American Stalin, but it’s not a person, it is instead a culture. It is still ruthless and violently jealous of threats to its power.

The term “Deep State” was hardly, if ever, uttered before President Trump began his first term. Now it is mentioned constantly. Stalin lives in the Deep State and its visible exposure to the rest of us is a serious threat to its continued influence. The overt persecution of Donald Trump via “lawfare” is what has caused this revelation. Stalin, however, had more tools at his disposal and was more willing to use them.

Outgoing Attorney General Merrick Garland may be considered the equivalent for the Deep State of Stalin’s Beria. Some credit should go to Mitch McConnell for keeping him off the Supreme Court.

Thanks to the freedom-loving bourgeois nature of American civilization, there are assumed limits on how far such politically motivated persecutions can go. It is, however, not a good idea to just expect a good outcome from challenges to entrenched government functionaries who wish to yield authority over the rest of us. Such is the political dynamic of today.

Donald Trump is our stalking horse. He draws incoming fire on purpose so as to reveal the Stalinist nature of the Deep State. And it’s working. Now, we just have to follow through and stifle the efforts of the nameless, faceless micromanagers who want to control our lives for imaginary reasons.

Image: AT via Magic Studio