Dictator: Joseph Stalin Answer the following: Where? When? What were his Major Beliefs? Why did people follow him? What makes him a DICTATOR
Dictator: Joseph Stalin Answer the following: Where? When? What were his Major Beliefs? Why did people follow him? What makes him a DICTATOR
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Dictator: Joseph Stalin
Answer the following:
Where? When?
What were his Major Beliefs?
Why did people follow him?
What makes him a DICTATOR?
Transcribed Image Text:Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) was the dictator of the Union
of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1929 to 1953.
Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was transformed from a
peasant society into an industrial and military
superpower. However, he ruled by terror, and millions of
his own citizens died during his brutal reign. Once in
power, he collectivized farming and had potential
enemies executed or sent to forced labor camps. Stalin
aligned with the United States and Britain in World War
II (1939-1945) but afterward engaged in an increasingly
tense relationship with the West known as the Cold War
(1946-1991).
The Soviet Union was founded in 1922, with Vladimir
Lenin as its first leader. After Lenin died in 1924, Stalin
eventually outmaneuvered his rivals and won the power
struggle for control of the Communist Party. By the late
1920s, he had become dictator of the Soviet Union.
Starting in the late 1920s, Joseph Stalin launched a
series of five-year plans intended to transform the
Soviet Union from a peasant society into an industrial
superpower. His development plan included the forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture, in which
the government took control of farms. Millions of farmers refused to cooperate with Stalin's orders and
were shot or exiled as punishment. The forced collectivization also led to widespread famine across the
Soviet Union that killed millions.
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.
Additionally, Stalin built a cult of personality around himself in the Soviet Union. Cities were renamed in
his honor. Soviet history books were rewritten to give him a more prominent role in the revolution and
mythologize other aspects of his life. He was the subject of flattering artwork, literature and music, and
his name became part of the Soviet national anthem. His government also controlled the Soviet media.
Joseph Stalin did not mellow with age: He prosecuted a reign of terror, purges, executions, exiles to
labor camps and persecution in the postwar USSR, suppressing all dissent and anything that smacked of
foreign-especially Western-influence. He established communist governments throughout Eastern
Europe, and in 1949 led the Soviets into the nuclear age by exploding an atomic bomb.
By some estimates, he was responsible for the deaths of 20 million people during his brutal rule.
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