Matthew Klepach
Mr. Saleeba
English IV
15 March 2018
Joseph Stalin Joseph Stalin, born Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili, was one of the fiercest leaders of the Soviet Union. He ruled Russia with an iron fist from 1929 to 1953. During his rule, approximately twenty-million of his own citizens died. But to understand his leadership and why he was a cruel leader, we must go back to how it all started.
Joseph Stalin was born in the town of Gori on the date December 18th, 1878. Stalin would eventually create a new “birth date” for himself which was on December 21st, 1879. As a child, Stalin grew up in a poor family and as an only child. As a teen, Stalin earned a scholarship to study for priesthood at the Georgian Orthodox Church. While he
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He joined the Bolsheviks, which was ran by Vladimir Lenin, and would rob banks occasionally to support their funds. He adopted the nickname “Koba” which was from an old Georgian story. Stalin got married to his first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, in 1906. The two had a son, Yakov, who died in WWII later on. His first wife died from typhus shortly after the birth of their son.
In the year 1915 the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia and created the Soviet Union in 1922. After the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, there was a power struggle within the Communist party. By the late 1920s, Joseph Stalin gained control and became dictator of the Soviet Union. One of Stalin’s first actions was a five year plan that would turn the Soviet Union into an industrial superpower from the peasant society it was. Stalin’s plans also included that the government would take control of the economy and the citizens farms to collect all the
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In 1939, right before the start of World War II, Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler signed a nonaggression pact. In 1941, Nazi Germany broke their pact and invaded the USSR. The Allied Forces had informed Stalin on the potential invasion, but he decided to ignore the warning, putting his own people in danger. Even though the Soviets were not prepared for a war, they quickly fought back. Stalin stayed in Moscow as the German army marched on, ordering his men to destroy anything of value that may benefit their enemy.
The tide of war changed for the Soviets at the Battle of Stalingrad. At the battle, the Red Army defeated the Nazis and eventually drove them from Russia. Stalin would go on to attend the meetings of the Allied Powers, and would become a loyal ally. Stalin still planned to expand the Soviet Empire after the war. After the war, Stalin did not change that much as a leader. He still reigned in terror, exiled citizens to labor camps, held executions, and suppressed Western influence.
Stalin would go onto establish communist governments across Eastern Europe. A tension between the United States and the USSR would begin to grow, resulting in the Cold War. No battles were ever fought, but the fear of war would linger. As Stalin grew older, he grew paranoid. On March 5th, 1953, Stalin died of a
Following the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1914, Joseph Stalin took up his position as leader of the Soviet Union. After rising to power, Stalin made drastic changes to Russia that was still torn from war at the time. With his power, Stalin aimed to bring Russia to the top of the world. In the end, while he pushed the Soviet Union’s economy to new heights, his methods were cruel and had negative impacts. After the war, Stalin was determined to turn Russia into a great industrial power.
This which was a collection of campaigns designed to get rid of the Communist Party, the military and other parts of the Soviet Union that he thought were a threat (“Joseph Stalin.”). During the Great Purge thousands of people were killed or sent to slave labour camps (Joseph Stalin (1879 – 1953.”)). Before World War 2, the, Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a non-aggression pact (“Joseph Stalin.”). Hitler broke this agreement and invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. Although Stalin ignored warnings from various sources about the potential invasion (“Joseph Stalin.”), by 1942 Germany was defeated and driven back.
The Soviet Union in Russia used violence to govern their people by exiling or exucuting the bourgeois. The Bourgeois, during that time, had major influence on Russia because of their status, power and wealth. Stalin was the ringleader, as he controlled the population through his swordsman called the KGB. When the Soviet Union was in power twenty million innocent Russain citizans died, and for the people who survivied they lived in famion, fear and fatigue. Therefore, because Stalin killed over twenty million people for his lust of power, Russia was governed by
Throughout Russia’s history, there have been many rulers that tried to manage their country in different ways. Even though, all of these rulers had their own unique ways of ruling, all of them were seen as terrible by the people. This eventually led to a tipping point for the Russian citizens and the Russian Revolution took place. The goal for these people was to gain freedom from their oppressive czar but instead, they got an even worse leader. Joseph Stalin was a leader of the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1953 and he was known for his ability to strike fear into people.
Joseph Stalin embarked absolute power over the USSR upon the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924. Stalin’s primary goal as ruler of the nation was to launch a revolution from above. In order to achieve this, Stalin emphasised on rapid industrialization and collectivization of agriculture. With the growth of these two economic factors, Stalin hoped for the USSR to gain superiority amongst the world. Joseph Stalin and the Five Year Plan developed a beneficial impact to the USSR due to the industrial advancements and collectivization of agriculture, the nation obtained throughout Stalin's position in power.
During World War II the Soviet Union and the United States had been allies against the Axis Powers. However, the two world powers did not get along due to economic and political policies. The United States was capitalist and the Soviet Union was communist, which dilated the tension. The Red Scare was an event where fear of the spread of communism increased in the United States, and was buffered by propaganda. Thus, the Cold War ensued and would continue for decades to come.
On June 22nd, 1941, the Germans invaded the Soviet Union under the codename, “Operation Barbarossa”. Operation Barbarossa is the second largest military conflict in the military history. In 1939, Hitler signed a nonaggression pact with Joseph Stalin, the Soviet Union’s dictator, in which they would have no military action for the next ten years. However not even two years later, Hitler ordered to invade the Soviet Union. This invasion was only suppose to last three to six months; instead it lasted for about three years.
Stalin Primary ambition was to turn what he believed to be the industrial backwater that was the Soviet Union into an economic a world superpower. His goal was to make up decades or even years of time in just a single decade. By the definition of his goal he succeed he had turned a mostly agricultural country into an industrial super power, but it did not come without a cost. Those cost fell on the soviet working class in two ways the first was their atrocious living conditions and the second was their personal freedoms.
Post WWl, Russia was still not industrialized, suffering economically and politically and in no doubt in need of a leader after Lenin’s death. “His successor, Joseph Stalin, a ruthless dictator, seized power and turned Russia into a totalitarian state where the government controls all aspects of private and public life.” Stalin showed these traits by using methods of enforcement, state control of individuals and state control of society. The journey of Stalin begins now.
Imagine living in a society brainwashed by propaganda, where you only can think what you are told. From 1929-1953, citizens of the Soviet Union had to endure this under the rule of Joseph Stalin. Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union in 1929 right after the death of Vladimir Lenin, the first leader of the Soviet Union. From the moment he came into power, Stalin started instilling fear in the population, and those he viewed as a threat were sent to his gulags or labor camps.
The Five-Year Plans were a series of goals which each took five years to complete, that were aimed at quickly improving the economy and industrialisation of the USSR so that it could compete with Western Capitalist countries. According to Stalin in a speech on 7 January 1933, the first Five Year Plan was a great success in terms of its outputs, and furthermore because the working class was able to complete the first Plan ahead of schedule in only four years16(Source B).The Plan was successful in creating an iron and steel industry, a tractor industry, a machine-tool industry, a chemical industry, an agricultural machinery industry and an aircraft industry16(Source B). In addition, the USSR now ranked among the first for electricity, oil products and coal outputs in the world16(Source B).In another speech delivered by Stalin in April 1928, Stalin discusses the modernisation of agriculture and puts forward his idea of Collectivization to increase agricultural outputs for the USSR17(Source C). Stalin knew that agricultural production and development was very slow, and was thus negatively affecting the country’s economy17(Source C). Stalin blamed this slow development on the fact that the USSR still had an “insecure” and “primitive” system of economy because of
Lenin continued to give Stalin power and the people could not do anything to stop it. After Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin had complete control over the communist party. By the late 1920s, he was the dictator of the Soviet Union. Stalin kept finding way to get more power and the people were not able to do anything to fix
The History Channel site asserts, “ The Normandy landings have been called the beginning of the end of war in Europe.” (D-Day). By December 1941, after great controversy between the isolationists and interventionists of America, the United States made the decision to enter the second world war. Prior to America joining the war, the conflict had stayed between the Axis powers and the Allies, excluding the United States. The rise of the Nazi Party along with the idea of a totalitarian rule is what ultimately led to the conflict between the Axis and Allied powers.
Joseph Stalin was and still is universally known for his harsh leadership in the Soviet Union. To examine the extent of his cruelness, World Civilization II: The Rise and Fall of Empires© 1500-present stated, "Stalin was not a communist; he was a sociopath. He enjoyed hurting people and ordering their deaths. In his time as dictator of the Soviet Union, he was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of his people, and the cruel torture and imprisonment of millions more" (Sattler, 71).
The Road to Socialism: An Analysis of Stalin’s Speech “The Results of the First Five-Year Plan” In the span of 11 years, Russia had gone from a nation in the hands of the Tsars to a nation controlled by Joseph Stalin’s Communist Party. Joseph Stalin was a Russian political leader who was the Head of the Communist Party from 1927 until his death in 1953. In 1928, Stalin created the first Five-Year Plan, which aimed to strengthen the USSR by promoting heavy industry, collectivizing agriculture, increasing military defense and establishing a system of state terror. In 1933, Stalin delivered a speech which outlined the goals and achievements of the plan, but covered up the “serious sacrifices” and “excesses” that resulted.