The Wrath of Stalin “Death is the solution to all problems. No man - no problem.” (Joseph Stalin). This quote accurately represents Stalin’s stance as the ruler of the Soviet Union. Millions of Ukrainians died due to the cruelty of this one man. In 1917, Czar Nicholas II abdicated the throne and was replaced by a provisional government. Ukraine decided to take advantage of the new government's weakness by demanding its freedom, and temporarily obtained it. Lenin, the leader of the Bolshevik party, created a temporary force to help him overcome the provisional government. This group, known as the Cheka, was Russia’s first major secret police and infiltrated the various governmental buildings and historical landmarks of Russia. Through use of the Cheka, Lenin was able to obtain control with minimal bloodshed. …show more content…
Stalin implemented new policies such as the Five Year Plan and collectivization. He knowingly made impossibly high quotas on wheat for the Ukrainians, which was then sold on global markets at extremely low prices. These prices were so low that it even harmed the Canadian economy as they couldn’t match the Soviets’ prices. Each year the quota for wheat would increase. Eventually the Soviet Union had so much grain that it was impossible to export it all. The surplus was invested into alcohol production or left to rot in warehouses. In addition to Stalin’s new policies, he also began murdering Ukraine citizens. This genocide is now known as Holodomor. He originally targeted Kulaks, or any peasant who owned a large farm and could afford to hire workers. Once the Kulaks were killed Ukraine was turned into a large Gulag, or a place where people were forced to work themselves to death. In June 1933, as many as 30,000 people were dying daily. Approximately 12 million people were killed in the Gulags. These actions are collectively known as Stalin’s Five Year Plan, also known as the modernization of the Soviet
Holodomor is a Ukrainian word meaning “Genocide Famine” in English [holodomor.org]. The Holodomor ultimately began in 1928 when the then current leader of the Soviet Union Joseph Stalin introduced a program which would lead to the collectivization of agriculture within the Soviet Union. In order to do this, farmers would have to give up privately owned farms, livestock and equipment. These farmers would have to join state owned collective farms as they would no longer have their own farms to run. These collective farms would need to produce large amounts of grain along with feeding their own workers. Ukrainian farmers refused to join these farms, as they considered it a returned to the serfdom of centuries past. In response, Stalin
“Stalingrad is the scene of the costliest and most stubborn battle in this war. The battle fought there to its desperate finish may turn out to be among the decisive battles in the long history of war…In the scale of its intensity, its destructiveness, and its horror, Stalingrad has no parallel. It engaged the full strength of the two biggest armies in Europe and could fit into no lesser framework than that of a life-and death conflict which encompasses the earth”
The Bolsheviks a more intense revolutionary group took over. This party was lead by Vladi-mir Lenin who believed in the ideas of Karl Marx and Marxism (Stock). Lenin’s First step was to sign a peace treaty with Germany to pull Russian troops out of the war. The Bolshevik govern-ment was a dictatorship. Lenin had revolutionary antecedents His older brother, Alexander was plotting to murder Tsar Alexander and was executed leaving Lenin with hate toward the royal (Lerner). Lenin created the very first Communist state and declared Russia a Soviet republic. There were more people getting involved in this revolution, inspired by the Bolsheviks and Len-in’s over all ideas for Russia. His slogan Peace, la...
Most of which were executed as traitors. Lavrentiy Beria was attacked for his crimes during this speech and later executed. Khruschshev enacted a countrywide process called de-Stalinization that aimed at disarming Stalin’s cult of personality. Many places bearing Stalin’s name were renamed to their former names, and Stalin’s body was removed from Lenin’s Mausoleum in the Red Square on October 31, 1961. The Gulag institution was shut down by the MVD in 1960, yet forced labor camps continued to exist.
I. A good majority of the Russian people were weary and uncontent with the way the war was going and with the Czar's rule. This uncontent, along with economic hardships, caused riots and demonstrations to break out. The Czar called for the army to put down the revolution, as they did in 1905. But the army joined the revolt and the Czar was kicked out of power soon afterwards.
Russian Social Democratic workers party. Lenin eventually returned home and started working against the tsarist regime. From the beginning of the regime, the Bolsheviks relied heavy on a strong secret police known as the Cheka (“Secret Police”). The secret police became quickly known for its brutality. Since the Bolshevik seizure of power in the October revolution, Lenin had been focus on keeping his...
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.
People say that the Stalin’s Great Purges could otherwise be translated as Stalin’s Terror. They grew from his paranoia and his desire to be an absolute autocrat, and were forced to join the NKVD and public show trials. When someone went against him, he didn’t really take any time to do anything about it. He would “get rid of” the people that went against industrialization and the kulaks. Kulaks were farmers in the later Russian Empire.
Stalin’s leadership of the Soviet Union can be best described as a period of terror and censorship. In other words, he was very strict, considering the fact that he created the totalitarian government. In order to create this type of government, Stalin used fear and propaganda. He took part in The Great Purge, which was a campaign of terror that was supposed to eliminate anyone who threatened Stalin’s power. He also relied on secret police, who would arrest and execute any traitors. The online blog, “The Reasons For the Failure of The Russian Revolution”, brings up information on how Stalin planned to rule as dictator of Russia. It has been noted, “This ‘reshaping’ had three main aspects: the elimination of all dissent; the liquidation of all forms of democracy and of working class organisation; the slashing of the living standards of the working class and the physical annihilation of millions of peasants” (Text 5). This quote explains how Stalin wanted to industrialize Russia, which includes the deaths of several peasants of Russia. The Russians did not just die from The Great Purge, but also from Stalin’s Five-Year Plan. The Five-Year Plan was an attempt to industrialize the Soviet Union. It was also a plan for increasing the output of steel, coal, oil, and electricity. He had control over economic resources, including farms and
When Stalin became leader of the USSR the quality of life and standard of living dropped considerably. For instance the people had no personal freedom. Meaning that they had to worship Stalin as all other religions had been abolished and most churches had been demolished. The people who went into those churches that were left standing were arrested or punished otherwise. Soon there were food shortages. Somewhere between 1932 and 1933 over 6 million people died of starvation. This was the greatest man made famine in history. The famine came as a result of Stalin’s unrealistic goals . Also, people had poor family lives. Abortions came a dime a dozen as did divorces. Wedding rings were banned. There was insufficient housing, as some people had to live in tents. This may be because of workers not working hard enough. Maybe if the workers worked harder they could have received better housing.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks Replacing the Provisional Government as Leaders of Russia by November 1917
A few weeks later, he was ousted from this prompted the Ukraine revolution and the annexation of Crimea also known as the Crimean crisis. A revolution in Ukraine took place in February 2014 for a period of 5 days in Kiev, the capital of Ukraine, after a series of violent events in the capital culminated with the ousting of the then-President of Ukraine. Immediately following the ousting of Yanukovych, immediate changes took place in Ukraine’s sociopolitical system. Starting with the new interim government being installed and the constitution restored to its original state, the government plans to hold impromptu presidential elections in the months to follow. Before the revolution, Ukraine had been sunken by years of corruption, mismanagement, lack of growth economically, their currency value had dropped, and they had the inability to secure funding from public markets.
On July 16, 1918, in the crowded basement of an old imperial mansion, one of the most unjust and tragic occurrences in Russia’s history took place. The Romanov line that had ruled Russia for over 300 years was terminated. Lenin and the Bolsheviks seized power in October 1917 after the popularity of Tsar Nicholas II had profoundly diminished, forcing the Romanovs into exile in Ekaterinburg. Radicals there took it upon themselves to assassinate the entire family without trial or orders from Lenin and the Bolshevik high command.
Joseph Stalin ruled the USSR from 1929 until his death in 1953. His rule was one of tyranny, and great change from the society that his predecessor, Lenin, had envisioned (Seton, 34). Stalin put into effect two self proclaimed "five-year plans" over the course of his rule. Both were very similar in that they were intended to improve production in the nation. The first of these plans began collectivization, in which harvests and industrial products were seized by the government and distributed as needed. The government eliminated most private businesses and the state became the leader in commerce. Stalin also initiated a process called "Russification". (Great Events, 119)"