discussion

'Birt, Raymond. 1993. Personality and Foreign Policy: The Case of Stalin. Political

Psychology, 14 (4): 607-26'

 'This article attempts to utilize psychopathological personality variables by examining

Stalin’s paranoia and linking it to a crucial period in world history: the Nazi invasion

of the Soviet Union in June 1941. In " Personality and Foreign Policy: The Case of

Stalin," Birt contends that Stalin’s paranoia was an explanatory factor behind the

poor USSR response to the German invasion of June 1941.

'

 'In essence, Stalin was the classic paranoid who, while rising to the top of the Soviet

hierarchy, used the state’s security apparatus to construct a terror machine that

represented an extension of his own personality. His paranoia " helped him rise to the

top of a highly centralized political structure and, once there, turn the bureaucratic

institutions of the Soviet Union into extensions of his inner personality disorders" (Birt,

1993, p. 611).

'

 'In Stalin’s case, his paranoia emanated from his childhood as a result of his father’s

violent behavior. As an adult, he became the aggressor. The paranoid sees any " future

stimulus…[as] reminiscent of the earlier attacks, [and then]…projects these threats back

outward and takes on the role of the aggressor himself, counterattacking the source of

the present anxiety" (Birt, 1993, p. 612).

'

 'Stalin was also known for his inflated sense of self, which bordered on the absurd.

According to Birt, this grandiose sense of self was " compensation for feelings of

inferiority from early attacks on self-worth by the father; easily triggered

aggression based on a projection mechanism that focuses the threat to the individual

back to the perceived source" (Birt, 1993, p. 613). Birt summarizes the roots of Stalin’s

brutality:'

'

'

'The main point is that young Joseph introjected the aggressive father figure when

he and his mother were being kicked and beaten by his drunken father, Vissarion

Djugashvili…. The paranoid had created a system perfectly suited to his

personality needs. Once in the triumvirate of [Bolshevik] leaders adopted

after Lenin’s death, Stalin moved to solidify his rule an eliminate those who

had hurt his sense of greatness. (Birt, 1993, p. 616)'

'

'

 'In the aftermath of the Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939, Stalin was convinced that Hitler was

his friend, not an enemy to be purged. This point helps to provide a partial understanding

of the Soviet Union’s ill preparedness for the Nazi invasion. In fact, Stalin was at this

moment securely in the role of aggressor/superior. Rancour-Laferierre even goes so far as

to claim that Stalin was identifying with the aggressive Hitler and that he admired

him" (Birt, 1993, p. 618).

'

 'In the end, the Soviet misguided belief in Hitler’s beneficence was linked to Stalin’s

personality. Stalin " used the Soviet bureaucracy as an ego defense, thus making the

state at a crucial juncture little more than an extension of one man’s personality"

(Birt, 1993, p. 623). In sum, Stalin’s own personal pathologies came to life in the Soviet

government becoming an instrument of terror and suffering.'

'

'