Joseph Stalin (1879 - 1953)

Joseph Stalin, One of the most powerful and murderous dictators in history. Stalin was the supreme ruler of the Soviet Union for a quarter of a century. His regime of terror caused the death and suffering of tens of millions.

Joseph Stalin was born on 18 December 1879 in Gori, Georgia, which was then part of the Russian empire. His father was a cobbler and Stalin grew up in modest circumstances. He studied at a theological seminary where he began to read Marxist literature. He never graduated, instead devoting his time to the revolutionary movement against the Russian monarchy. He spent the next 15 years as an activist and on a number of occasions, he was arrested and exiled to Siberia.

Stalin joined the Bolsheviks in 1900. He did not play a large role in the October 1917 Revolution, but he soon rose through the ranks of the party. In 1922 he was made general secretary of the Communist Party, which gave him control over appointments and thus allowed him to build up a base of support.

After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin promoted himself as his political heir and gradually outmanoeuvred his rivals. He used different methods to eliminate his ultimate rival-Trotsky. By the late 1920s, Stalin was effectively the dictator of the Soviet Union.

His forced collectivisation of agriculture cost millions of lives, Moreover, the population suffered immensely during the Great Terror of the 1930s, during which Stalin purged the party of 'enemies of the people', resulting in the execution of thousands and the exile of millions to the gulag system of slave labour camps.

These purges severely depleted the Red Army, and despite repeated warnings, Stalin was not prepared for Hitler's attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941. His political future, and that of the Soviet Union, hung in the balance, but Stalin recovered to lead his country to victory. The human cost was enormous but that mattered little to him.

After World War Two, the Soviet Union entered the nuclear age and ruled over an empire which included most of eastern Europe.

Increasingly paranoid, Stalin died of a stroke on 5 March 1953.

Reflection:

I feel that if Stalin did not gain power and eliminate Trotsky, Russia would not have been communist and that the people in Russia then would not have suffered that much.

After reading ths article, I feel that Stalin was very paranoid and this led to many people suffering and dying. If it weren't for him being worried about his opponents trying to overthrow him, the innocent people who have been wrongly accused, would not get sent to the gulangs and would not get executed. Then, the Russians would not have to live in fear everyday.

I feel that the way Stalin ruled Russia is very scary and i felt that it was quite cruel to treat the people like that. There was no freedom for the people of Russia. They had no control over thier own lives, Stalin was practically controlling thier lives. Killing millions of people is not right even if he is the ruler of Russia. He did not care about how many people who died because of him but he only cared about his safety.

I feel that Stalin is a true dictator and a murderer.