Stalin: Similarities Between Saddam And Stalin

Ethan Listenberger
Y103
Extra Credit
04/29/2002

Saddam vs. Stalin Since the beginning of the world, there has been an ongoing cycle of tyrannical leaders that have ruled their lands with an evil hand. Since the beginning of the twentieth century we have seen perhaps the deadliest dictators of them all. Stalin's regime in the 1930's and 1940's in the Soviet Union and Saddam's regime in the present day Iraq share an exceptionally strong similarity. In order to understand the similarities between Stalin and Saddam, we must go back to the childhoods of the two men. Stalin grew up in poverty with only his Mother to raise him. Saddam Hussein grew up in Al Awja which was a small village near Tikrit. Just like Stalin, Saddam was born into poverty. His family could not afford to eat, so he stole the food in order to feed his family.
An important similarity between Stalin and Saddam was how they both started out politically under the wing of dictator -like leaders.
For many years Stalin was the right hand man of Lenin. He was the Father of Stalin's strong communist regime. Towards the end of his career, Lenin became very untrusting of Stalin's ambitions to be the next leader of the Soviet Union. In an almost identical situation, Saddam Hussein worked directly under the leader of Iraq in the 1950's, named Gen. Ahmed Hassan Bakr. At the end of Gen. Bakr's rule, he became very suspicious of Saddam and attempted get rid of him. By this time it was too late and Saddam had taken control of the
country.

The main reason for the similarities between Stalin and Saddam is due to the fact that Saddam Hussein is one of the largest supporters of the Stalin regime. It has been said that Saddam idolizes Stalin. Saddam has widely studied everything about Stalin and Stalinism. He has entire library devoted purely to Stalin. During the 1960's Saddam Hussein was exiled to Egypt. It was there that he became infatuated with Stalin. Once Saddam came into power he began the so called "Stalinization of Iraq". By looking at the structure of Saddam's regime we see the most evident resemblance to Stalin's reign. Stalin based much of power through the development of the secret police rather than the armed forces. In identical fashion, Saddam created a strong secret police department. They were trained in Eastern Europe, with same the tactics and ideologies that Stalin's secret police was based on. Most of these men were uneducated thugs that were set up to punish any type of dissent among the people. Both Stalin and Saddam earned great power by instilling fear in the hearts of their men. Both hated their armies. Fear was the most important factor in obtaining loyalty of the buearacracy and their soldiers. Perhaps the most obvious similarity between the two dictators was their relentless suppression of minorities. In closing, Stalin and Saddam share more than just a ridiculous mustache. They are connected many ways in their philosophies and actions of barbarism. Stalin is dead, but Stalinism has survived. It will continue to survive through dictators who crave power and achieve it at any cost. That is why democracy must remain to free those under tyrannical rule.