Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Communists in Russia, he was paranoid of opposition. That paranoia was what led to the Great Purge also known as the Great Terror, where millions of people were executed or sent to labor camps in Siberia. Stalin believed that the country had to be united with him as their leader if it wanted to be strong. His first purge was 1930 to 1933 and were aimed to kill those who opposed industrialization.
Stalin killed more of his people than Hitler did, he killed people who was a threat to his power and any former allies. The Great Purge was a campaign of political repression in the Soviet Union. His purges started in the early 1930s then carried on to 1940. The nation that suffered the most from the purges in the
…show more content…
The purge was motivated by the desire to get rid of protesters of the Communist Party. Everyone praised Stalin, mothers taught their children that Stalin was “the wisest man of the age”, history textbooks were changed to make him the hero of the Revolution, and to take out the names of the purged people. One of his plans was to create a “cult of personality”, which focused the nation on him and his purges.
The USSR, which is also referred to as the Soviet Union, suffered from the deaths of 34 to 49 million people that Stalin killed. Four to six million people were forced to labor camps, one million executed during that time, and about three million people arrested for various crimes. Many people seemed to believe that he had “purges” because he was abused as a child and wanted others to feel what he had to live through as a child.
Stalin admitted that it was completely and all his responsibility for the treason and treachery. Near the end of World War Two, he suffered from atherosclerosis from his smoking addiction, a mild stroke, and a severe heart attack. Stalin died on March 5, 1953, at the age of 74, by suffering from a stroke. One day after his death he is lying in a coffin with more than 1.5 million mourners make their way through the streets to pay their last