I agree with this statement. The Cold War was not only brought about by Stalin’s stubbornness and paranoia, it was also fueled by the conflicting political ideologies between these two Superpowers. Stalin also had great influence over his people, allowing him to further spread Communism and ultimately allowed him to gain total control of his country. While mutual distrust between these countries before and during World War II does play a part in leading up to the Cold War, it is ultimately Stalin’s thirst for power, influence, and paranoia that was the catalyst for this war.
After World War II Stalin was focused on spread Communism and began occupying some of the newly liberated nations in Eastern Europe. This did not sit well with the United
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He had a large group of devout followers, molding them from a young age. Stalin, along with other Communist leaders, used education, literature, and even romance to mold the diverse group people. They used these sources to make the people adopt the positive attitude towards hard work, undying devotion for their country, and strict social cooperation. In A.O. Avdienko’s The Cult of Stalin, Avdienko examines the extent of devotion that Stalin’s followers had for him and how he used this to transform Russia’s society to his liking. He goes on to state that “centuries will pass, and the generations still to come will regard us as the happiest of mortals, as the most fortunate of men, because we were privileged to see Stalin, our inspired leader”. Avdienko then goes on to explain that Stalin “never had an equal in world history” and that when he and his wife has a child “the first word it shall utter will be: Stalin” (Avdienko, p.339-340). Not only does this show the blind devotion these people have for the great “Stalin” it also shows how influential Stalin was. Avdienko refers to Stalin as the “great educator” multiple times, which most likely pays homage to his use of education to promote the Communist way. By having such a wide spread influence over his people and their education, it was no wonder Stalin was able to …show more content…
He had an extreme thirst for power that drove him to completely reform Russia aware from its Tsar monarchy into a Communist empire. Unfortunately while he did have major influence and the devotion of his people, he was also extremely stubborn and paranoid. This paranoia caused him to crush his opposition in any means necessary, even using torture and death to get his way. Stalin’s stubborn and paranoid nature combined with conflicting political ideologies is what essentially drove the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet
Stalin’s hunger for power and paranoia impacted the Soviet society severely, having devastating effects on the Communist Party, leaving it weak and shattering the framework of the party, the people of Russia, by stunting the growth of technology and progress through the purges of many educated civilians, as well as affecting The Red Army, a powerful military depleted of it’s force. The impact of the purges, ‘show trials’ and the Terror on Soviet society were rigorously negative. By purging all his challengers and opponents, Stalin created a blanket of fear over the whole society, and therefore, was able to stay in power, creating an empire that he could find more dependable.
Joseph Stalin was a realist dictator of the early 20th century in Russia. Before he rose to power and became the leader of Soviet Union, he joined the Bolsheviks and was part of many illegal activities that got him convicted and he was sent to Siberia (Wood, 5, 10). In the late 1920s, Stalin was determined to take over the Soviet Union (Wiener & Arnold 199). The main aspects of his worldview was “socialism
When Joseph Stalin became the undeniable leader of Russia in 1929, he realized that Russia was far behind the rest of the world. He knew Russia would have to modernize quickly to catch up with their competitors. When World War II came along, He had already developed a strong army and was developing a promising economy to support his endeavors, but then Hitler decided to try and invade Russia surely enough he got a chunk of territory;...
After Vladimir Lenin, a Russian communist revolutionary, politician and political theorist, died, Stalin outmaneuvered his rivals and won the control of the Communist Party. In the tardy 1920’s he became dictator of the Soviet Cumulation. Then he wanted to industrialize the country because at the time the economic was farming. Millions of farmers reluctant to be apart of Stalin’s orders and were killed as penalization. The civilization led a widespread famine across the Soviet Coalescence and killed millions of people. Stalin wanted to kill anyone who opposed him of his orders. He engendered an army of secret police, and inspirited citizens to spy on others which had many people killed or sent to a labor camp. Virtually everyone around Stalin was considered a threat to him, even the Communist Party, the military, and components of the Soviet Coalescence society, s...
Joseph Stalin was a great politician who ingeniously maneuvered his way up the totem pole stratum. Once in power, Stalin wanted to keep it while accomplishing many nationalistic ambitions. He realized Russia was behind other countries in terms of industrialization and imperialistic dreams. Through the implementation of the first five years plan Stalin achieved one of the greatest attributes of his tenure as the head of the Soviet government; he transformed Russia from a widely agricultural country into an industrialized nation. Industrialization at this point was key for Russia in preparation of a future war. Of course, no one can actually say that Stalin saw a great war coming; but we do know that Stalin had imperialistic am...
Stalin was also politically skillful and cunning. In the Politburo, when matters of high policy were being discussed, Stalin never imposed his views on his colleagues. He carefully followed the course of the debate and invariably voted with the majority. To the party audiences he appeared devoid of personal grudge and rancour and even seemed to be a detached Leninist, a guardian of the doctrine who criticized others only for the sake of the cause. Stalin always adopted policies that were broadly approved by the majority of the Communist party. Hence, using his political dexterity, he maintained a good reputation within the party. Stalin also made full use of Lenin?s funeral to advance his position. He tricked Trotsky into not attending the funeral by letting him know that he would never make it on time (of course this was not true).
Although Stalin’s intentions were somewhat heroic, his actions were villainous, this is so because he was responsible for forced labour and labour laws (punishments involving labour), millions murdered by his secret police, NKVD, if they questioned authority in any way, and used horrific tactics to manipulate Russia so he could obtain power. Stalin promised a flourished and amazing nation by the end of his reign, but instead inflicted pain that will be with Russia’s people forever. Stalin had dreams to modernize and industrialize Russia to make it great, but instead killed off his own people in the process. As that person walks down that street in Russia, fear creeps up their back. A fear of the face on every poster in the town, Stalin. One wrong word, move, look, death was near, ready to pounce at any given momen
Son of a poverty-stricken shoemaker, raised in a backward province, Joseph Stalin had only a minimum of education. However, he had a burning faith in the destiny of social revolution and an iron determination to play a prominent role in it. His rise to power was bloody and bold, yet under his leadership, in an unexplainable twenty-nine years, Russia because a highly industrialized nation. Stalin was a despotic ruler who more than any other individual molded the features that characterized the Soviet regime and shaped the direction of Europe after World War II ended in 1945. From a young revolutionist to an absolute master of Soviet Russia, Joseph Stalin cast his shadow over the entire globe through his provocative affair in Domestic and Foreign policy.
.... “This ambitious plan brought hardship and met resistance as he purged the kulaks (wealthy peasant farmers) (Stalin: The Man and His Era).” This was followed in 1932 by the second, equally ambitious Five-Year Plan. In 1936, Stalin developed a new Soviet constitution, which was seen as a democratic document. “However, the following elections were marred by purge trials from 1934 to 1938 in which Stalin systematically eliminated his opposition(Stalin: The Man and His Era).” Stalin further hurt his international image when he signed a nonaggression pact with Adolf Hitler in 1939. The Nazi leader soon broke this agreement and invaded the Soviet Union in 1941.
In the beginning Josef Stalin was a worshiper of his beloved Vladimir Lenin. He followed his every move and did as he said to help establish and lead the Bolshevik party. Much of the early part of his political career was lost due to his exile to Siberia for most of World War I. It wasn’t until 1928, when he assumed complete control of the country were he made most of his success. After Lenin’s death in January 1924, Stalin promoted his own cult followings along with the cult followings of the deceased leader. He took over the majority of the Socialists now, and immediately began to change agriculture and industry. He believed that the Soviet Union was one hundred years behind the West and had to catch up as quickly as possible. First though he had to seal up complete alliance to himself and his cause.
The state of Education in 20th Century Russia was awfully low, with people living in rural areas having little or no education, to combat this Stalin wanted to make Education more accessible and more widespread, so that everyone could access it. To do this he made education free, however it was also compulsory. The change was immediate with literacy rates in rural areas rising to up to 86%. However we can infer that this would benefit Stalin’s agenda as it would make more people aware of any propaganda that he would have issued this would enable him to promote himself as leader of Russia and cement himself in their history, this policy alone had a great impact on the Children of Russia and certain changed their lives.
There have been many attempts to explain the origins of the Cold War that developed between the capitalist West and the communist East after the Second World War. Indeed, there is great disagreement in explaining the source for the Cold War; some explanations draw on events pre-1945; some draw only on issues of ideology; others look to economics; security concerns dominate some arguments; personalities are seen as the root cause for some historians. So wide is the range of the historiography of the origins of the Cold War that is has been said "the Cold War has also spawned a war among historians, a controversy over how the Cold War got started, whether or not it was inevitable, and (above all) who bears the main responsibility for starting it" (Hammond 4). There are three main schools of thought in the historiography: the traditional view, known alternatively as the orthodox or liberal view, which finds fault lying mostly with the Russians and deems security concerns to be the root cause of the Cold War; the revisionist view, which argues that it is, in fact, the United States and the West to blame for the Cold War and not the Russians, and cites economic open-door interests for spawning the Cold War; finally, the post-revisionist view which finds fault with both sides in the conflict and points to issues raised both by the traditionalists as well as the revisionists for combining to cause the Cold War. While strong arguments are made by historians writing from the traditionalist school, as well as those writing from the revisionist school, I claim that the viewpoint of the post-revisionists is the most accurate in describing the origins of the Cold War.
Stalin was determined to go ahead with this radicalism through economic and social change. His totalitarian leadership however was far from perfect, it was in fact a political system that was defectively flawed. The main issue was the lack of control the administration and party h...
One impact of Stalin’s autocratic style was his ability to use violence and to create fear within the people to show everyone that he will do anything to rule as long as he can. For instance, Stalin created a young savage military group known as the Red Army. The purpose of the Red Army was to patrol neighborhoods and to see if anyone was planning against Stalin. If they were the individuals were shot dead and executed. They, however, also fought wars with the other western countries. Furthermore, “The Red Army was successful in perpetuating a brutal totalitarian system at home and in Eastern Europe” (“Red Army” 1). Clearly, Stalin became obsessed with power and wanted to rule as long as he could; anyone who tried to overthrow him was shot dead immediately because he did not want a revolution to happen and cause another civil war. Additionally, Stalin achieved that by creating the Red Army he could kill anyone who even thinks about overthrowing him and the government. By creating the Red Army, Stalin was able to become a brutal dictator that ruled for so long, and he was also able to completely suppress the people so he can carry on the communist ideology. The concept of the Soviet Gulag was another effect of Stalin’s leadership style. It was consisted of systems of labor camps, to which millions of people during Stalin’s reign were exiled to. “Approximately, 50 million people from all over the Soviet Union perished in the gulag during Stalin’s reign, succumbing to starvation, exposure, execution, and mistreatment. Anyone who Stalin considered to be a threat or potentially subversive was sent to Siberia” (Catherwood 1). Clearly, Stalin wanted to achieve his goals of making the Soviet Union to slowly become a superpower. In process of achieving his goal, Stalin eliminated anyone that he considered might be a threat to him. Furthermore, Stalin
By the mid-1930s, Stalin had forcibly transformed the Soviet Union into a totalitarian regime and an industrial and political power. He stood unopposed as dictator and maintained his authority over the Communist Party. Stalin would not tolerate individual creativity. He saw it as a threat to the conformity and obedience required of citizens in a totalitarian state. He ushered in a period of total social control and rule by terror, rather than constitutional government.