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ENG4U
June 3, 2015

The Sadistic Nature of Stalin’s Regime Joseph Stalin once proposed that, “Death solves all problems - no man, no problem” (BrainyQuote). This truly reveals the sadistic nature of the Soviet Union during Stalin’s regime. Joseph Stalin is the epitome of a leader of corruption, and essentially imploded the Soviet Union through his many gruesome and appalling ideologies and premises. Child 44, by Tom Rob Smith, illustrates the horrid nature of Stalin’s Communist Russia through horrific conditions, deceptive lies, and vicious torture. Obviously, the terrible living conditions within Russia at the time of Stalin’s Regime strongly depict the horrific nature of his essentially man-made communist country. It is only fitting that Stalin’s regime takes place in Russia, home to some of the most brutally cold weather on the planet. Travel was nearly impossible, “The roads out of Moscow were covered with icy mulch…wind and snow gusted around them… with visibility less than ten metres” (48). This illustrates the grisly conditions in which Russian citizens must sustain life with no help whatsoever from a Stalin run government, where they live in a ‘burn your floor boards for warmth or freeze to death’ type of society. In addition to awful weather, food was a very scarce entity. Thousands and thousands of people starved to death in this communist Soviet Union. Leo Demidov, as a child, living with his frail mother and little brother, rarely ate anything. Although when he discovers a cat, an animal thought to be almost extinct, he “closed his eyes and tried to remember the last time he’d eaten meat. When he opened his eyes he was salivating.” (2). This quote reveals the saddening conditions people had no choice but to live in. It portrays the fact that people would do almost anything and eat everything they could get