By the time Vladimir Lenin died in , the party was in control of the country and Stalin was in position to lead the party. To do so he defeated other party officials in a power struggle, ultimately exiling his chief rival Leon Trotsky. By the s he had dictatorial control over the new Soviet Union. At the same time, Stalin dedicated himself to creating a cult of personality. This including attaching his name to many cities, buildings, and monuments.
Stalin was keenly focused on the expansion of Soviet ideals around the world. He envisioned a Soviet Union that had the military capability to expand far beyond Russia.
As such, he was eager to pursue any possible military development that could give the USSR an edge over other world powers. Through these channels, Stalin became aware of the beginnings of a bomb program in Britain by , with knowledge of the upcoming American program soon to follow.
After receiving notices from Soviet spies and Soviet physicists who were cognizant of the direction of their field, Stalin began taking steps to creating a Soviet nuclear program.
Before Lenin died in , he expressed misgivings about Stalin's use of power. Nevertheless, Stalin joined in a three-man leadership group, called a troika, to govern the Soviet Union after Lenin's death. He quickly pushed aside all his rivals, including Leon Trot-sky, and became the supreme ruler by During the s Stalin collectivized all private farms in the Soviet Union and in the process sent a million farmers into exile.
He embarked on a process of "russification," which put minority nationalities under strict control of the national government. In he conquered the Baltic countries of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
The Communist party of the United States grew rapidly during the Great Depression of the s, in the process raising questions whether the party was a mere tool of Stalin and the international Communist movement. More importantly, the act made it illegal not only to conspire to overthrow the government but to advocate or conspire to advocate its overthrow.
The U. Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the act in Dennis v. United States, U. Stalin's nonaggression pact with Hitler proved futile: Hitler invaded the Soviet Union in Stalin ignored agreements between the Allies and proceeded to impose Communist rule on these occupied countries.
In the late s, the Soviet Union was captioned by the United States as the Red Menace, seeking to subvert democracy and capitalism. Stalin pushed the United States to the brink of a third world war when he ordered the blockade of Berlin in and To many people, the Rosenbergs were tools of Stalin and the Communist conspiracy. To make matters worse, the purges of the s had depleted the Soviet Army and government leadership to the point where both were nearly dysfunctional.
After heroic efforts on the part of the Soviet Army and the Russian people, the Germans were turned back at the Battle of Stalingrad in By the next year, the Soviet Army was liberating countries in Eastern Europe, even before the Allies had mounted a serious challenge against Hitler at D-Day.
Stalin had been suspicious of the West since the inception of the Soviet Union , and once the Soviet Union had entered the war, Stalin had demanded the Allies open up a second front against Germany. President Franklin D. Roosevelt argued that such an action would result in heavy casualties. This only deepened Stalin's suspicion of the West, as millions of Russians died. As the tide of war slowly turned in the Allies' favor, Roosevelt and Churchill met with Stalin to discuss postwar arrangements.
At the first of these meetings, in Tehran, Iran, in late , the recent victory in Stalingrad put Stalin in a solid bargaining position. He demanded the Allies open a second front against Germany, which they agreed to in the spring of In February , the three leaders met again at the Yalta Conference in the Crimea. With Soviet troops liberating countries in Eastern Europe, Stalin was again in a strong position and negotiated virtually a free hand in reorganizing their governments.
He also agreed to enter the war against Japan once Germany was defeated. The situation changed at the Potsdam Conference in July Roosevelt died that April and was replaced by President Harry S. British parliamentary elections had replaced Prime Minister Churchill with Clement Attlee as Britain's chief negotiator. By now, the British and Americans were suspicious of Stalin's intentions and wanted to avoid Soviet involvement in a postwar Japan.
The dropping of two atomic bombs in August forced Japan's surrender before the Soviets could mobilize. Convinced of the Allies' hostility toward the Soviet Union, Stalin became obsessed with the threat of an invasion from the West. Between and , he established Communist regimes in many Eastern European countries, creating a vast buffer zone between Western Europe and "Mother Russia. In , Stalin ordered an economic blockade on the German city of Berlin, in hopes of gaining full control of the city.
The Allies responded with the massive Berlin Airlift , supplying the city and eventually forcing Stalin to back down. Earlier, he had ordered the Soviet representative to the United Nations to boycott the Security Council because it refused to accept the newly formed Communist People's Republic of China into the United Nations. When the resolution to support South Korea came to a vote in the Security Council, the Soviet Union was unable to use its veto.
It's estimated that Stalin killed as many as 20 million people, directly or indirectly, through famine, forced labor camps, collectivization and executions. Some scholars have argued that Stalin's record of killings amount to genocide and make him one of history's most ruthless mass murderers. Though his popularity from his successes during World War II was strong, Stalin's health began to deteriorate in the early s.
After an assassination plot was uncovered, he ordered the head of the secret police to instigate a new purge of the Communist Party. Before it could be executed, however, Stalin died on March 5, He left a legacy of death and horror, even as he turned a backward Russia into a world superpower.
Stalin was eventually denounced by his successor, Nikita Khrushchev , in However, he has found a rekindled popularity among many of Russia's young people. We strive for accuracy and fairness. If you see something that doesn't look right, contact us! Subscribe to the Biography newsletter to receive stories about the people who shaped our world and the stories that shaped their lives. Joseph Goebbels served as minister of propaganda for the German Third Reich under Adolf Hitler — a position from which he spread the Nazi message.
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