Stalin's Ten Blows - History of The Expression

History of The Expression

The term was heard for the first time in November 1944 from Joseph Stalin in his speech "27th anniversary of the Great October socialist revolution" (Russian: «27-я годовщина Великой Октябрьской социалистической революции») during the 1944 meeting of the Moscow's Soviet deputies. The term was coined as a reflection of the "cult of personality" that prevailed in Soviet Union at the time. It did not reflect specific strategic planning of the Stavka, and at times had been called the "Year of twelve victories," based on the order issued by Stalin on the following day, authorizing the firing of artillery salutes with 24 guns in twelve cities of the Soviet Union: Moscow, Leningrad, Kiev, Minsk, Petrozavodsk, Tallinn, Riga, Vilnus, Kishinev, Tbilisi, Sevastopol, and Lvov.

The term was discontinued in use after Nikita Khrushchev's Secret speech denouncing Stalin and ending his "cult of personality" following his death.

Read more about this topic:  Stalin's Ten Blows

Famous quotes containing the words history of, history and/or expression:

    The history of work has been, in part, the history of the worker’s body. Production depended on what the body could accomplish with strength and skill. Techniques that improve output have been driven by a general desire to decrease the pain of labor as well as by employers’ intentions to escape dependency upon that knowledge which only the sentient laboring body could provide.
    Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)

    Tell me of the height of the mountains of the moon, or of the diameter of space, and I may believe you, but of the secret history of the Almighty, and I shall pronounce thee mad.
    Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)

    Fashion is the most intense expression of the phenomenon of neomania, which has grown ever since the birth of capitalism. Neomania assumes that purchasing the new is the same as acquiring value.... If the purchase of a new garment coincides with the wearing out of an old one, then obviously there is no fashion. If a garment is worn beyond the moment of its natural replacement, there is pauperization. Fashion flourishes on surplus, when someone buys more than he or she needs.
    Stephen Bayley (b. 1951)