Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin[g] (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922–1952) and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (1941–1953).
Initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, he consolidated power to become a dictator by the 1930s. Ideologically adhering to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism, he formalised these ideas as Marxism–Leninism, while his own policies are called Stalinism.
There’s a popular anecdote about Joseph Stalin that goes as follows. One day, the dictator of the Soviet Union told his closest advisors that he would show them how easy it was to control a person that had already been subjugated. He brought in a live chicken, which he then proceeded to pluck until it was naked and bleeding.
“Now, watch where the chicken goes,” Stalin said as he put it on the ground. Finally freed from its torturer’s grasp, the chicken wasted no time getting away. However, when it failed to find an exit, it readily returned to Stalin and attempted to warm itself between the dictator’s legs. Stalin then took out some grain from his pocket, which he fed to the chicken.
The chicken ate the grain despite the pain. When Stalin started to walk around the room, the chicken timidly followed, leaving a small trail of blood wherever it went. “So, you see,” Stalin said to his advisors, smiling. “People are like chickens. You pluck them, and then let them go. Then you can control them.”
Whether Stalin’s hypothesis is right or wrong is a question of real life experience and practical observations.
Nigerian politicians and the Citizens are points of examples. When you make an objective observation of the interrelationship between the leaders and the citizens, you will surely see the theory in real life practice.
The leaders, at various levels, will subject the masses to abject poverty by embezzling the people’s money, mismanaging their resources and unjustly acquiring their properties.
The citizens, out of their abject poverty, will lose their right senses. They will be ready to die for the same thieves who authoritatively stole the resources of the state and the nation.
Are they not similar to Stalin’s chicken?
It has happened many times before. It’s presently happening. What you may not be sure of is whether it will still continue to happen.
