ipl-logo

What Did Joseph Stalin Do?

1095 Words5 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Stalin's rise to power

Who is Joseph Stalin? Is Joseph Stalin important? What did Joseph Stalin do? Joseph Stalin was the ruler of the Soviet Union and helped defeat Nazism. Joseph was born on December 18, 1879 in Gori.On December 18, 1879, in the Russian peasant village of Gori, Georgia, Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, later known as Joseph Stalin, was born. The son of Besarion Jughashvili, a cobbler, and Ketevan Geladze, a washerwoman, Joseph was a frail child. At age 7, he contracted smallpox, leaving his face scarred. A few years later he was injured in a carriage accident which left arm slightly deformed, some accounts state his arm trouble was a result of blood poisoning from the injury. Joseph Stalin’s early life consist of the children in his village …show more content…

In 1922, Stalin was appointed to the newly created office of general secretary of the Communist Party. Though not a significant post at the time, it gave Stalin control over all party member appointments, which allowed him to build his base. He made shrewd appointments and consolidated his power so that eventually nearly all members of the central command owed their position to him. By the time anyone realized what he had done, it was too late. Even Lenin, who was gravely ill, was helpless to regain control from Stalin.After Lenin's death, in 1924, Stalin set out to destroy the old party leadership and take total control. At first, he had people removed from power through bureaucratic shuffling and denunciations. Many were exiled abroad to Europe and the Americas, including presumed Lenin successor Leon Trotsky. However, further paranoia set in and Stalin soon conducted a vast reign of terror, having people arrested in the night and put before spectacular show trials. Potential rivals were accused of aligning with capitalist nations, convicted of being "enemies of the people" and summarily executed. The purges eventually extended beyond the party elite to local officials suspected of counterrevolutionary activities.In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stalin reversed the Bolshevik agrarian policy by seizing land given earlier to the peasants and organizing collective farms. This essentially reduced the peasants back to serfs, as they had been during the monarchy. Stalin believed that collectivism would accelerate food production, but the peasants resented losing their land and working for the state. Millions were killed in forced labor or starved during the ensuing famine. Stalin also set in motion rapid industrialization that initially achieved huge successes, but over time cost millions of lives and vast damage to the environment.

Show More
Related
774 Words | 4 Pages

From 1928, when the plan started, to 1932 to its end, many factories, dams, power stations and even cities were being built. Despite there being harsh penalties implemented to workers for failure to meet their targets, there was still a significant increase in Russia’s industrial growth in a very short period of time. Just like the emancipation of the serfs in 1861, under Tsar Alexander II, in protest of Stalin’s policies, the peasants, in protest, refused to work harder than they needed too, causing them to destroy livestock and crops, which eventually lead to their unnecessary death. Stalin, just like the Tsarist autocratic regime, was not committed to collectivism but preferred capitalism in his ruling of the Soviet Union. This caused a lot of rebellion from the Kulaks who opposed collectivism.

Read More
254 Words | 2 Pages

The genocide that Stalin inflicted on the Ukrainians began in 1929 with massive deportations of the most successful farmers of Ukraine. All farmers were forced to give up their land to the government. These farms would then be state owned and factory ran. If farmers and families would refuse to leave their homes, they would be drug out of their houses and forced onto freight trains that would then take them to remote areas. To add on, the Soviet Union sharply increased Ukraine 's’ production quotas, to make it near impossible to fill, which eventually led to the widespread starvation all across Ukraine.

Read More
784 Words | 4 Pages

The best way to answer any question is to be clear about what is being asked and to look only for the facts of that question. We are not being asked whether Joseph Stalin was a good person. The question is, what are the accomplishments of Joseph Stalin that improved his country and made it great? From this point, we can clearly identify what he did, as seen in the articles. Was Stalin beneficial to the USSR?

Read More
619 Words | 3 Pages

Post WWl, Russia was still not industrialized, suffering economically and politically and in no doubt in need of a leader after Lenin’s death. “His successor, Joseph Stalin, a ruthless dictator, seized power and turned Russia into a totalitarian state where the government controls all aspects of private and public life.” Stalin showed these traits by using methods of enforcement, state control of individuals and state control of society. The journey of Stalin begins now.

Read More
744 Words | 3 Pages

During the five years, the government took control of farms; whoever refused was shot or exiled. Since people had no control over their farms, they had no food. Famine led to many deaths. Stalin wanted a better industry so he was trying to turn the Soviet Union into an industrial superpower. They had agricultural needs, along with needing oil, coal, steel and

Read More
509 Words | 3 Pages

This is because Stalin’s rule was oppressive and led to millions of deaths for soviet citizens, and much of it through his own cruel methods. One of the first things he did was to put his communist ideas into place. He developed the collectivization policy which took small peasant farms to form large collective farms. (Document 3) In doing this, Stalin brought all of the farms under the operation of the state, upsetting the kulaks who were the wealth farmers.

Read More
407 Words | 2 Pages

Joseph Stalin came into power as leader of the USSR in 1929, after the death of the late Communist Party leader and leader of the USSR, Vladimir Lenin in 1924 (1). He was a close, committed ally of Lenin’s in the Party and a staunch Communist, who helped played a part in the success of the October Revolution by using his skills as a criminal to assist in stealing money for the Party and ensuring that the Bolsheviks’ revolution plans could be executed without hindrance (1 & 2). However, before Lenin died, he stated in his “Last Testament” that he was secretly sceptical of Stalin becoming leader of the Communist Party and the USSR due to his uneducated background, arrogance, rudeness towards other Party members, particularly Leon Trotsky, and

Read More
696 Words | 3 Pages

This caused a famine to take place and many more people died. Some people even turned to cannibalism in order to survive. (Document Three) Stalin didn’t care about any of this as long as his plans went

Read More
2040 Words | 9 Pages

Process of Findings The first part of this report will discuss the evidence pertaining to the “genuinely concerned, pragmatic” side to Joseph Stalin’s leadership. Stalin was a leader who was honoured and praised by many of his people in the USSR for various reasons. He was portrayed on propaganda posters as a kind, caring and genuinely concerned leader particularly towards children who were the future of the USSR (Source A). By Stalin being portrayed as a leader who shows genuine concern and care for the children of his country, it propagates the message that children and the entire population of the USSR will have an “enlightened future” under his leadership13 (Source A), and would in turn help Stalin gain more support for himself.

Read More
1223 Words | 5 Pages

Stalin proudly reports to the committee that “[w]e did not have a automobile industry. Now we have one... We did not have a an aircraft industry. Now we have one” (Document 3). The staggering amount of new industries built throughout this time period proves that the once called unrealistic goal of industrial advancement had been accomplished.

Read More
1757 Words | 8 Pages

Introduction Joseph Stalin is perhaps one of the most important and discussed people in Russian history. He was arguably a feared tyrant cursed and despised by many. At the same time, one finds sufficient evidence for the adoration and worship of Stalin that used to exist in the minds of the citizens of the Soviet Union. One reason for this worship was the existence of the so called ‘Cult of Personality’ where Stalin was celebrated as a wise leader, father of all people, and the architect of victory of the Second World War. In his book, The Stalin Cult: A Study in the Alchemy of Power, Jan Plamper states that Stalin’s cult of personality was largely a visual phenomenon.

Read More
1373 Words | 6 Pages

The abortion debate is an ongoing argument involving the legal, moral, and religious status of an induced abortion, an abortion sought with the intent of terminating one’s pregnancy. Typically, abortion arguments are made based on the “pro-choice” or “pro-life” movements. Those who fight for the “pro-choice” movement, state that pregnant women have the right to choose whether they carry the fetus to term or not; whereas, those who argue for the “pro-life” movement, state that the fetus has a right to life and should be carried to term. What about the gray space, the space where perhaps women do not have a choice in the matter? If a woman’s life is at risk or if the pregnancy was the result of rape, then she should have the option of abortion

Read More
1319 Words | 6 Pages

Joseph Stalin was and still is universally known for his harsh leadership in the Soviet Union. To examine the extent of his cruelness, World Civilization II: The Rise and Fall of Empires© 1500-present stated, "Stalin was not a communist; he was a sociopath. He enjoyed hurting people and ordering their deaths. In his time as dictator of the Soviet Union, he was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of his people, and the cruel torture and imprisonment of millions more" (Sattler, 71).

Read More
662 Words | 3 Pages

Stalin would launched these purges annually in order to instill his position. Stalin had gulags where he sent anybody who defined the ideals of the Communist Party. He created a culture climate of fear within the country . People who spoke of being unhappy with the political party were endangered of being exposed of their political beliefs by neighbors. Dissidence was not tolerated under Stalin’s government.

Read More
274 Words | 2 Pages

Courage “The quality of mind or spirit that enables a person to fight difficulty”(Dictionary.com) . Courage is something a lot of people have like Charles Lindbergh first nonstop flight NY to Paris, Sir Edmund Hillary climbing Mount Everest ,and firefighters and police who tried to save lives on 9/11 and my father George Quarranttey Sr. So one day had a been walking home from school and had a bully coming his way and said give me your money. He said “ No” than he yelled at him again “Gimmie(that is how he said it) your money now!!!”

Read More

More about What Did Joseph Stalin Do?

Related Topics

Open Document