'Joseph Stalin was able to secure genuine support and adoration from the Soviet people.' Discuss.

One might argue that Stalin's cult of personality was a success, creating a climate in which he was worshipped as a great man and a disciple of Lenin. Forms of media such as party newspapers, posters, statues and radio were used to amplify the successes of the Communist Party, and place Stalin as the great mind behind these successes. The art style 'Socialist Realism', for example, idealised everyday life and made it clear that Stalin was responsible for the prosperity and might that the artists portrayed. This had some effect, as Stalin was flooded with kind letters and gifts on events such as his birthdays and cheered in the streets on official processions. It has been suggested that even the Gulag prisoners, incarcerated in harsh conditions throughout Stalin's leadership, cried at the news of his death in 1953. Therefore it can be fair to say that Stalin commanded a high degree of devotion and love from his people.
However, the use of the secret police under Stalin suggests a different side to the story. The NKVD, evolving from Lenin's Cheka, were a law unto themselves as they persecuted the enemies of the Soviet state. Operating from the Lubyanka building in Moscow, the secret police specialised in torture, terror and labour camps. Their leaders, men such as Yagoda and Beria, were the cruellest and most brutal the Communist Party had to offer, setting quotas for arrests and executions that were then signed, or even raised, by Stalin. Anyone who opposed the Soviet regime, even high-ranking party members such as Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and Bukharin, were targeted by the NKVD, with figures of importance placed in publicised show trials, acts of terror in themselves, while smaller figures were violently disappeared. Therefore it is more than possible that the people were not genuine, as the statement suggests in their apparent love of Stalin, but were submitting themselves to him to avoid the attention of the secret police. However, the use of the secret police can coincide with the genuine devotion of the people if one considers Stalin's paranoia. The people may have adored Stalin, but been victimised anyway.