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Stalin Essay, Research Paper

Joseph Stalin was a dictator of the U.S.S.R from 1929 until 1953. He

rose from bitter poverty to become ruler of the country that covered one sixth of all

the land area in the world. Stalin ruled by terror for most of his years in office. He

didn’t allow anybody to say anything about his ideas. Stalin killed all who had

helped him rise to power because he thought they would threaten his rules. Stalin

was responsible for millions of deaths of Soviet peasants who disagreed with his

program called “Collective Agriculture” (government control of farms). Under

Stalin’s commands, the Soviet Union operated a world wide network of

communist parties. By the time Stalin died, communism had spread to other

countries. His style of rule became known as “Stalinism” and continued to

influence many other countries. The people of the soviet union began to hate

Stalin, and most of the world was afraid of him. He changed the Soviet Union

from once one of the most undeveloped countries to one of the most industrial

nations.

How were you able to gain absolute power in Russia?

During the second half of the 1920s, I set the stage for gaining absolute

power by employing police repression against opposition elements within the

Communist Party. The machinery of coercion had previously been used only

against opponents of Bolshevism, not against party members themselves. The first

victims were Politburo members Leon Trotskii, Grigorii Zinov’ev, and Lev

Kamenev, who were defeated and expelled from the party in late 1927. I then

turned against Nikolai Bukharin, who was denounced as a “right opposition,” for

opposing his policy of forced collectivization and rapid industrialization at the

expense of the peasantry. I had eliminated all likely potential opposition to my

leadership by late 1934 and was the unchallenged leader of both party and state.

Nevertheless, I proceeded to purge the party rank and file and to terrorize the

entire country with widespread arrests and executions. During the ensuing Great

Terror, which included the notorious show trials of my former Bolshevik

opponents in 1936-1938 and reached its peak in 1937 and 1938, millions of

“innocent” Soviet citizens were sent off to labor camps or killed in prison.

By the time the terror subsided in 1939, I had managed to bring both the party and

the public to a state of complete submission to his rule. Soviet society was so

atomized and the people so fearful of reprisals that mass arrests were no longer

necessary. I ruled as absolute dictator of the Soviet Union throughout World War

II and until his death in March 1953.

Why did you make the Russo-German Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler when you knew that he was an enemy of Communism?

By this Treaty, Hitler would allow the Soviet invasion of Lithuania, Latvia,

Estonia and Finland, and would make his Rumanian allies cede their province of

Moldavia to the USSR as well. In return, I agreed to divide Poland with Germany.

This was not a wise move, for while the USSR would gain more territory than

Germany, this removed all the buffer-zones between them and left the Soviets

more exposed to attack. Also, by invading these little countries, I lost any chance

of an alliance with the British and French to stop further Nazi expansion. I showed

a nearly fatal faith in Hitler’s promises. He took “his” half of Poland and tried to

occupy the other territories “given” to him under the treaty. In Moldavia and the

three Baltic Republics, he succeeded, but his brutal methods destroyed any hope

that the population would be thankful that he had saved them from the Nazis. In

Poland, for example, he had 4,000 of the officers of the defeated Polish Army

taken to the Katyn Forest and shot! On 21 JUNE 41, Hitler launched Operation

Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The combination of Red Army

disorganization, unreadiness, popular hatred for me and my own military

incompetence let the German invaders reach the suburbs of Leningrad and

Moscow. They were halted by overstretched supply lines, the beginning of winter,

and ZHUKOV, one of the very few generals who had been missed by my

purges. Trusting Hitler was a very bad move on my part.

How much did you fear ZHUKOV knowing that he had full control of the military and knowing that Russia would lose the war if he wasn`t around?

I had much fear of ZHUKOV because i have had so many generals like him

that i ordered to be killed because i felt they were gaining to much power. I

couldn`t do this with Zhukov because he pushed the Germans back from the gates

of Moscow. In the spring and summer of 1942, Hitler made one of his great

blunders, by not finishing the drives on Moscow and Leningrad he had begun the

year before. Instead, his panzers were sent southeast, towards Stalingrad and the

oil fields at Baku, on the distant Caspian Sea.

Zhukov was sent to Stalingrad, and his successes of 1941 were repeated.

The Germans, having made tremendous advances, were halted by over-extended

supply lines, cold weather and fierce fighting. When the winter was well

underway, Zhukov launched a counteroffensive, as he had in front of Moscow. But

this time, he did not merely drive the Germans back. Instead, he trapped the entire

Sixth Army behind Russian lines, where it surrendered! After the Battle of

Stalingrad, two things

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