Paranoia with

power
Joseph Stalin and
Shakespeares Macbeth
Shakespeare and
during Stalins
dictatorship from
1929-1953,
individuals
distrust often lead
 Root of distrust
BANQUO

1.3.122-128
(in Macbeth) Macbeth should
That, trusted take what the
home, If you trust what theyre saying, weird sisters say
Might yet enkindle you may become king, as well as with a grain of
you unto the crown, Thane of Cawdor, but it is salt, because
Besides the thane strange, and lots of times, things they could be
of Cawdor. But tis of evil tell us the small truths of plotting
strange. large damaging things that will something in the
And oftentimes, to hurt us in the end. long run even if
win us to our harm, they are being
The instruments of honest at the
darkness tell us moment, and
truths, they may be
Win us with honest manipulative.
trifles, to betray s
In deepest
consequence.
 How distrust leads to
paranoia (In Macbeth)
MACBETH
DOCTOR

2.2.58-60
Whence is that knocking?
How is t with me when every
noise appals me?
What hands are here? Ha!
They pluck out mine eyes.
5.1.49-57
Foul whisp'rings are abroad.
Unnatural deeds
Do breed unnatural troubles.
Infected minds
To their deaf pillows will discharge
their secrets.
More needs she the divine than
the physician.
God, God forgive us all! Look after
her,
Remove from her the means of all
annoyance,
And still keep eyes upon her. So,
good night.
My mind she has mated, and amazed
my sight.
 The consequences of
distrust and paranoia (In
Macbeth and Lady
Macbeths distrust in

Macbeth)
anyone who could be an
obstacle in their path to
power and fortune
leads, ultimately, to the
death of those people or
their loved ones. Their
paranoia that others will
rise above them or
block their path takes
over their humanity and
turns them into killing
machines.
 The root of distrust (In the Soviet
Union)

Stalin ruled by terror and with a totalitarian

grip in order to eliminate anyone who might
oppose him. He expanded the powers of the
secret police, encouraged citizens to spy on
one another and had millions of people killed
or sent to the Gulag system of forced labor
camps. During the second half of the 1930s,
Stalin instituted the Great Purge, a series of
campaigns designed to rid the Communist
Party, the military and other parts of Soviet
society from those he considered a threat.
 How distrust leads to paranoia (In the
Soviet Union)

They broke almost all their

promises about aid deliveries to
Russia in between 1941 and 1943
and most importantly they
explicitly led Stalin to believe that
D Day on the continent was
seriously on the agenda in 1942,
when it was not. They continued
Stalin had nearly a million of his own
citizens executed, beginning in the
that deceit through 1943.
1930s. Millions more fell victim to
Stalin intensely suspicious forced labor, deportation, famine,
to the point of paranoia was
massacres, and detention and
interrogation by Stalins henchmen.
probably the last person the
Western leaders should have
The Consequences of distrust and paranoia (In the
Soviet Union)
 BOTH

Power hungry Stalin

Macbeth
Driven by Worried and
Murdered Duncan distrust motivated by
Motivated by the Distrust lead to the possibility of
Weird Sisters an uprising
paranoia
Paranoia lead to
the murdering of
any possible
threats
 Sources
http://www.history.com/topics/joseph-stalin

http://ww2history.com/key_moments/Eastern/st
alin_and_the_west