Stalin & the Soviet Union

Biography - Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin was born in 1879 in Georgia (a country on the southern border of Russia) to a peasant family. His father was an abusive drunk who died when Stalin was young. His mother paid close attention to Stalin, who was the only one of her children to not die as an infant. As a teenager, Stalin studied to be a priest and learned to speak Russian (he would always speak Russian with a thick accent). However, in 1898 he was expelled from his religious school because of his interest in communist ideas. After this, Stalin became a revolutionary. He joined Lenin’s Bolshevik party and would spend several years exiled in Siberia after being arrested by the secret police for revolutionary activities.

Stalin participated in the October Revolution and became a member of the Politburo, the Bolshevik leaders who worked with Lenin to run the Soviet Union. In 1922, became General Secretary of the Soviet Union, which was one of the highest positions in the country. Holding this position made it easier for Stalin to take over the government when Lenin died. Soon after taking power, Stalin used the secret police force created by Lenin to have the other Bolshevik leaders who could challenge his power arrested and either killed or exiled from the Soviet Union. After this, Stalin used the secret police and control of all the media (newspapers and radio) to make himself a totalitarian dictator who controlled all parts the lives of the people in the Soviet Union.

Stalin used this control to turn the Soviet Union into a command economy that would make the country into a communist society. Under Stalin's direction, the Soviet government enacted the first Five Year Plan that dictated what every farm and factory in the country would produce. The goal was to turn the Soviet Union into a modern economy that would be equal to the United States. Stalin would order millions of people killed to make this happen. In the 1930’s, Stalin ordered the Great Purge in which many of the communist and army leaders were arrested and killed. He even had all of the leaders of the secret police arrested and shot by other members of the secret police. Nobody was safe.

Stalin’s brutality extended to his own family. In the 1930’s, Stalin’s son attempted suicide after being treated badly by this father. However, he only wounded himself. Afterward, Stalin made fun of him by saying, "Ha! He couldn’t even shoot straight!" Soon after that, Stalin’s wife did commit suicide (there is some evidence that Stalin had her murdered).

The largest challenge Stalin faced in the 1930’s was Hitler’s Nazi Germany. Hitler spoke of a hatred of communism and plans to take over Russia in a future war. In 1939, Stalin signed a treaty with Hitler to give him some time to rebuild the Soviet Army after the Great Purge. However, in 1941, Hitler broke the treaty when Germany invaded the Soviet Union. The war between the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany was a horrifically violent war that killed 20 million Soviet citizens. Stalin was ruthless in this war, issuing the order “Not one step back” to his soldiers – to enforce this rule, behind the Soviet soldiers were secret police men who would kill any soldier who tried to retreat.

During World War Two, Stalin and the Soviet Union was allied with the United States and Great Britain. The leaders of all three countries worked closely together to defeat Nazi Germany. However, Stalin distrusted the United States, which he believed was an enemy and as the war against Nazi Germany ended, Stalin used the Soviet Army to take over and set up communist governments in the countries of Eastern Europe. In addition, Stalin supported the expansion of communism into China and North Korea. The growth of communism after World War Two resulted in the Cold War between the United States and the Soviet Union. Stalin died in 1953 from a brain hemorrhage (bleeding).

Source # 1 - Video about Stalin's building projects in the Soviet Union - click here

Source # 2 - Graphs showing how the Soviet Economy Grew under Stalin's Rule

Source # 3 - Soviet Propaganda Poster that reads "Glory to Stalin"

Source # 4 - Soviet Propaganda Poster that reads "Great Stalin" (in the picture, Stalin is ready a book written by Lenin)

Source # 5 - Video about Collectivization and Famine in the Soviet Union - click here

Source # 6 - Video about the Great Purge and the GULAG labor camps - click here

Source # 7 - Graph of the population of the GULAG

Source # 8 - Map showing the location of GULAG labor camps in the Soviet Union and sources of natural resources

Source # 9 - Video clip from the movie "The Way Back" that shows what the conditions were like in a GULAG camp - click here

(You will have to be logged into you BHS Google Account to watch the video clip)

Source # 10 - Graphs showing how Russian in 2015 think about Stalin.