The Reign of the Man of Steel, Joseph Stalin

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During World War II alone, Joseph Stalin killed an estimated 20 to 60 million people. Born in the late 1870s, Stalin began his rise to power at 43, and by 45 had betrayed Vladimar Lenin to eventually become the leader of the Soviet Union. Stalin was a cruel man, even killing an artist for not potraying him as he wanted to be. He also made considerable use of the Communist International movement in order to keep other Communist parties pro-Stalin and pro-Soviet. Stalin, today, is seen as one of the most sadistic leaders in the past century, even surpassing Adolf Hitler to some people. Joseph Stalin is the man who turned the Soviet Union from a backward country into a world superpower at unimaginable human cost. Joseph Stalin was one of the cruelist leaders in all of history, alongside figures such as Genghis Khan and Napoleon Bonaparte. He destroyed anybody and anything that stood in his path. When Lenin died Stalin had to compete against Leon Trotsky. "Stalin's victory was slow and hard-fought, but by 1927 he had succeeded in having Trostky expelled from the party and, in 1929, from the country (Trotsky was tracked down and killed by Stalin's agents in Mexico City in 1940)" (Unknown). Although Trotsky's personal authority was unchallenged, Stalin was able to convince the Russian people to go with him, and not Trotsky. With his Five-Year Plan, Stalin planed to create a collective farming system and make the USSR powerful and industrial. Both of these goals would require massive amounts of murder, especially to the people of Ukraine. Stalin created a famine from 1932 to 1933 killing about six to seven million people and causing the Ukraine to fall. A combination between Stalin's drive for complete power and his paranoia led milli... ... middle of paper ... ...talin, the Nazis more than likely would not have lost to the Allied Powers. Even though today Stalin is seen as many people as one the most evil people in all of history, he did change Russia for the better. Overpowering Lenin and Trotsky to become the USSR's leader took their ideas and used them to make one the most powerful countries to date. Although his methods may have been unnecessary, they are what have shaped the world into what it is today. Works Cited http://necrometrics.com/20c5m.htm http://www.gendercide.org/case_stalin.html http://www.marxist.com/1927-expulsion-leon-trotsky.htm http://history1900s.about.com/od/people/ss/Stalin_2.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/weisbord/Stalinism.htm http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/communism http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/03/01/joseph-stalin-more-popular-in-russia-now_n_2791776.html

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