“The man who turned the Soviet Union from a backward country into a world superpower at unimaginable human cost (Joseph Stalin).” “Stalin was born into a dysfunctional family in a poor village in Georgia (Joseph Stalin).” Permanently scarred from a childhood bout with smallpox and having a mildly deformed arm, Stalin always felt unfairly treated by life, and thus developed a strong, romanticized desire for greatness and respect, combined with a shrewd streak of calculating cold-heartedness towards those who had maligned him. “He always felt a sense of inferiority before educated intellectuals, and particularly distrusted them (Joseph Stalin).”
Sent by his mother to the seminary in Tiflis (now Tbilisi), the capital of Georgia, to study to become a priest, the young Stalin never completed his education, and was instead soon completely drawn into the city's active revolutionary circles. “Never a fiery intellectual polemicist or orator like Lenin or Trotsky, Stalin specialized in the humdrum nuts and bolts of revolutionary activity. Risking arrest every day by helping organize workers, distributing illegal literature, and robbing trains to support the cause, while Lenin and his bookish friends lived safely abroad and wrote clever articles about the plight of the Russian working class (Lenin & Stalin).” “ Although Lenin found Stalin's boorishness offensive at times, he valued his loyalty, and appointed him after the Revolution to various low-priority leadership positions in the new Soviet government(Lenin & Stalin).”
In 1922, Stalin was appointed to another such post, as General Secretary of the Communist Party's Central Committee. “Stalin understood that "cadres are everything": if you control the personnel, you control the organization. He shrewdly used his new position to consolidate power in exactly this way--by controlling all appointments, setting
agendas, and moving around Party staff in such a way that eventually everyone who counted for anything owed their position to him(Stalin Biography).” By the time the Party's intellectual core realized what had happened, it was too late--Stalin had his people in place. While Lenin, the only person with the moral authority to challenge him, was on his deathbed and incapable of speech after a series of strokes, and besides, Stalin even controlled who had access to the leader. The General Secretary of the ...
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.... “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 Allied negotiations after the war, Stalin succeeded in obtaining control of half of Europe, and the following year the Iron Curtain descended over the Soviet Union and its "satellites" in Eastern Europe as Stalin consolidated his gains (Joseph Stalin).” This began the cold war, which continued throughout Stalin's rule. He died in Moscow in 1953 and was entombed in Red Square alongside Lenin. “However, his character was later attacked by Nikita Khrushchev and his body removed from the Lenin mausoleum (Stalin Biography)”.
Joseph Stalin said, “Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don 't let our people have guns. Why should we let them have ideas?”. Stalin was a dictator of the USSR from 1929 to 1953. Under his dictatorship, the Soviet Union began to transform from a poor economy to an industrial and military based one. While still a teen, Stalin secretly read Karl Marx 's book the “Communist Manifesto”, and became more interested in his teachings. When Stalin gained power, he ruled his nations using terror and fear, eliminating those who did not comply with his governance.
Joseph Stalin became leader of the USSR after Lenin’s death in 1924. Lenin had a government of abstemious communist government. When Stalin came into government he moved to a radical communist society. He moved away from the somewhat capitalist/communist economy of Lenin time to “modernize” the USSR. He wanted to industrialize and modernize USSR. He had overworked his workers, his people were dying, and most of them in slave labor camps. In fact by doing this Stalin had hindered the USSR and put them even farther back in time.
Under a backdrop of systematic fear and terror, the Stalinist juggernaut flourished. Stalin’s purges, otherwise known as the “Great Terror”, grew from his obsession and desire for sole dictatorship, marking a period of extreme persecution and oppression in the Soviet Union during the late 1930s. “The purges did not merely remove potential enemies. They also raised up a new ruling elite which Stalin had reason to think he would find more dependable.” (Historian David Christian, 1994). While Stalin purged virtually all his potential enemies, he not only profited from removing his long-term opponents, but in doing so, also caused fear in future ones. This created a party that had virtually no opposition, a new ruling elite that would be unstoppable, and in turn negatively impacted a range of sections such as the Communist Party, the people of Russia and the progress in the Soviet community, as well as the military in late 1930 Soviet society.
According to Medvedev, Joseph Stalin’s leadership style was one that was molded from his need to control the situation and paranoia. Stalin did rely on his close network of political allies to effectively rule, but decisions that could affect the U.S.S.R must be authorized by him and no other person. (Medvedev 115) This made party members very nervous and also very repla...
Khrushchev rose steadily up the party ladder, always combining his talents as an administrator with his technical training. After assignments in the Ukraine, he became head of the Moscow regional party committee, and in 1934 he became a member of the Central Committee of the Soviet Communist party. In these positions he directed the construction of the Moscow subway. Although increasingly influential, Khrushchev was never an intimate associate of Joseph Stalin; he concentrated on technical rather than political accomplishment. After World War II he was brought back to Moscow, where he became ¡¥one of stalin¡¦s top advisers¡¦. When Stalin died in 1953, Khrushchev used his wit to thrust all his opponents for leadership, including Malenkov. He became both Party Secretary and controlled the government through his associate Marshal Bulganin, who he named Premier. He ruled from 1956 to 1964.
While Trotsky was a brilliant orator and military mastermind, willing to do whatever it took to win the war, his greatest flaw was that he greatly lacked the political traits necessary to gain support of his party and obtain the leadership during the power struggle with Stalin. Trotsky was unable to formulate realistic policies following the death of Lenin and increasingly lost the support of his party and the general populace, on the other hand Stalin was a master political manipulator who was able to mould any situation in a way which put him in an advantageous position. This is delineated upon in Trotsky’s continued obsession of Marxist theory and the idea of permanent revolution, an idea which showed little prospect of success. He was unable to recognise the want for his surrounding members to focus on their own country following 8 years of political turmoil, while Stalin was able to, promoting his idea of “socialism in one country.” Combined with this Trotsky continued to carry himself in an increasingly egotistical way, with his patronising and demeaning manner doing nothing to gain the support of his fellow members in the Politburo, lacked an understanding of party organisation, displayed naivety in internal party affairs and misunderstood the mood of the country. As David
When most people hear the name Joseph Stalin, they usually associate the name with a man who was part of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union and was responsible for the deaths of millions of people. He was willingly to do anything to improve the power of the Soviet Union’s economy and military, even if it meant executing tens of millions of innocent people (Frankforter, A. Daniel., and W. M. Spellman 655). In chapter three of Sheila Fitzpatrick’s book, Everyday Stalinism, she argues that since citizens believed the propaganda of “a radiant future” (67), they were able to be manipulated by the Party in the transformation of the Soviet Union. This allowed the Soviet government to expand its power, which ultimately was very disastrous for the people.
Stalin was “born in Gori, Georgia” as the third and only surviving child of a “cobbler and ex-serf”(Compton’s 403). His true name was Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. “In 1912 he took the alias of ‘Stalin’, from the Russian word stal, meaning ‘steel”, hence his nickname “Man of Steel”(Compton’s 402). Stalin began his studies at the seminary as a devout believer in Orthodox Christianity, where he was soon exposed to the radical ideas of fellow students. In 1899, just about the time of graduation, he gave up his religious education and to devote his time to the revolutionary movement against the Russian monarchy. In 1902 Stalin was hunted down and arrested by the imperial police for organizing a large worker’s demonstration. A year later he was sentenced to “exile in the Russian region of Siberia, but soon managed to escape and was back in Georgia by early 1904”(Archer 58). When the Russian Social Democratic Party split into Menshevik and Bolshevik factions, Stalin sided with the Bolsheviks, who just happened to be led by Vladimir Lenin. Stalin immediately became a staunch follower of Lenin, studying his every move. He did marry in 1905 but his beloved bride died of tuberculosis two years later. Their son, Yasha, died later in a Nazi Prison camp during World War II. After the Bolshevik’s Civil War victory, Stalin became highly organized and was elected secretary of the Communist Party. “After Lenin’s death, Stalin gradually isolated and shunned his political rivals, especially Leon Trotsky, and by the end of 1929 Joseph Stalin had succeeded in eliminating his opponents and became the supreme leader of the USSR” (Compton’s 404).
During Stalin’s regime, the individual Russian was the center of his grand plan for better or worse. Stalin wanted all of his people to be treated the same. In the factory the top producer and the worst producer made the same pay. He wanted everyone to be treated as equals. His goal to bring the Soviet Union into the industrial age put tremendous pressure on his people. Through violence and oppression Stalin tried to maintain an absurd vision that he saw for the Soviet Union. Even as individuals were looked at as being equals, they also were viewed as equals in other ways. There was no one who could be exempt when the system wanted someone imprisoned, killed, or vanished. From the poorest of the poor, to the riches of the rich, everyone was at the mercy of the regime. Millions of individuals had fake trumped up charges brought upon them, either by the government or by others who had called them o...
By 1928, Stalin had ousted Trotsky and the rest of the Left opposition. In four years, Stalin had single handedly taken major steps away from Lenin’s collective leadership and free inter party debate and replaced them with his autocratic dictatorship. Stalin began to secure predominant power over the communist party and the state by destroying passive opposition from the peasantry and former Lenin supporters. He won growing support from the working class who were impressed with the initial five-year plan. As it promised increased industrialization, which would lead to socialism in one country within their lifetime.
Much like Adolph Hitler, Joseph Stalin was one of the most ruthless and despised people in the recorded history of the world. Stalin though his policies found it fit to abused his people in any way he saw fit. This man started what history now calls "The Great Purges."
Joseph Stalin is a polarizing figure. Decades after his death his legacy still continues to create debate about his tumultuous years as the leader of the Soviet Union. This is evident throughout the four documents while some praise Stalin as impeccable others criticize his policies and lack of political, economic, and social progress during his regime. Even though Stalin was behind various violations of human rights he was able to maintain the Soviet Union during a time of turmoil both domestically and internationally as a result he has earned notoriety as a great leader and advocate for Marxist ideology.
Stalin believed that there needed to be a dictatorship that regulated every aspect of its citizens’ lives in order to industrialize the Soviet Union. “His plans were in 5 year intervals in which the government took control over all businesses
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...
...gerous (Johnson 97) -- began making his grab at power. Unfortunately for Russians, Stalin beat Trotsky and became Secretary of the Communist Party upon Lenin’s death, a position which was as good as dictator (100). Stalin, who was probably mentally unstable (96) , trashed the ideals of Marx, Lenin, and Trotsky in his own thirst for power. Marx had held the view that “The key to Communism is education,'; (New Generation) and the working class must be a learned people. As dictator, Stalin resorted to censorship of all media to consolidate his power (Johnson 114). Had Lenin lived longer, he could have seen Communism through to its ideal state. Nevertheless, even under Stalin, Lenin was virtually deified for having saved the nation.