Joseph Stalin was born as Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili on 18th of December, 1879. To the peasant class, the class of poor people. His father would drink heavily and beat him up as a kid, causing his mother to work excessively in order to support the family. This made Stalin ambitious, wanted to believe in a fairer world, where he would not need to be beat up by his father (essentially a similar idea to communism) ("Joseph Stalin," 2013).
During his education in a church school, he was exposed with theocracy, which got him interested in politics, but he was more interest in communism because of his background. As a result, Stalin was kicked out of school. From that point on, Stalin became an agitator, and was associated, and later joined with the Russian Social Democratic Party. He was repetitively arrested by official and exiled to Siberia various times, he adapted many different names in order to escape, but finally stuck with “Stalin”, meaning “steel” in Russian, referring to himself as the “man of steel”.
Stalin later joined the Bolsheviks when Lenin split the party in half. To organize the party and spread it’s forces around Russia, Lenin assigned party members to be leaders to each different region as a “leader”. Stalin was on of the leaders that was assigned a place to guard. To Lenin’s surprise, he was amazed at how Stalin works, he was well organized and had ambition just like Lenin. When Lenin took control of Russia and renamed it the U.S.S.R, he made Stalin one of the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist party, therefore, increasing his reputation and power. It was not long before Lenin noticed that Stalin’s power was increasing too much, and the way that Stalin handles things were unstable, Lenin even claims that “Stalin is too rough” and convinced his second partner, Leon Trotsky to help take down Stalin with him. All this was way too late, as Lenin has suffered from stroke and died shortly after that.
After Lenin’s death on 24th of January, 1924, Stalin used his influential power to force Trotsky to resign from the party and expelled him to Mexico in 1929, and later murdered in Mexico in 1940. After that, Stalin became the new leader of the United of the Soviet Social Republics. Wanting to eliminate anyone like Trotsky who would potentially oppose him, he created the “Red Terror” where anyone he finds suspicious would be taken away for questioning, and regardless of their answer and status they would be killed, where Stalin would use the excuse that they were “plotting against the state”.
Stalin later found the problem with Soviet Russia, he said: “We are 50 to 100 years behind advanced countries. We must cover this distance in 10 years.” He then start to collectivize farms to transform Soviet Union, even though he failed, all the plans he proposed, he would prevent any information about the failure to be released. From the hopeful socialist communist country, he would transform it to a communism described as “Stalinism”, which ironically, is not much different from fascism, which communism is supposed to be the opposite of. However, even though Stalin’s 3 five year plans would fail, it still managed to bring the Soviet Union to the level of current developing countries (Simkin. n.d.).
Stalin finally died on 5th of March, 1953, when he suffered from a sudden stroke. His body was buried with the body of Lenin, as he was still idolized by the Soviets. His image however, would be torn down over the next decade into pieces, when every negative image about him was finally released to the public. His body was then removed from the place where they buried Lenin, and then buried nearby, covered in concrete, so that his body would be never removed.
Even though Stalin may be considered as a ruthless dictator of the Soviet Union, you can never say that he was completely evil, as he still had ambition for Russia’s change. You can say that he at least tried to create a better Soviet Union by establishing the 5 years plan, but repetitive failure has caused him to give up, and eventually corrupted by the massive power he holds.
During his education in a church school, he was exposed with theocracy, which got him interested in politics, but he was more interest in communism because of his background. As a result, Stalin was kicked out of school. From that point on, Stalin became an agitator, and was associated, and later joined with the Russian Social Democratic Party. He was repetitively arrested by official and exiled to Siberia various times, he adapted many different names in order to escape, but finally stuck with “Stalin”, meaning “steel” in Russian, referring to himself as the “man of steel”.
Stalin later joined the Bolsheviks when Lenin split the party in half. To organize the party and spread it’s forces around Russia, Lenin assigned party members to be leaders to each different region as a “leader”. Stalin was on of the leaders that was assigned a place to guard. To Lenin’s surprise, he was amazed at how Stalin works, he was well organized and had ambition just like Lenin. When Lenin took control of Russia and renamed it the U.S.S.R, he made Stalin one of the general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist party, therefore, increasing his reputation and power. It was not long before Lenin noticed that Stalin’s power was increasing too much, and the way that Stalin handles things were unstable, Lenin even claims that “Stalin is too rough” and convinced his second partner, Leon Trotsky to help take down Stalin with him. All this was way too late, as Lenin has suffered from stroke and died shortly after that.
After Lenin’s death on 24th of January, 1924, Stalin used his influential power to force Trotsky to resign from the party and expelled him to Mexico in 1929, and later murdered in Mexico in 1940. After that, Stalin became the new leader of the United of the Soviet Social Republics. Wanting to eliminate anyone like Trotsky who would potentially oppose him, he created the “Red Terror” where anyone he finds suspicious would be taken away for questioning, and regardless of their answer and status they would be killed, where Stalin would use the excuse that they were “plotting against the state”.
Stalin later found the problem with Soviet Russia, he said: “We are 50 to 100 years behind advanced countries. We must cover this distance in 10 years.” He then start to collectivize farms to transform Soviet Union, even though he failed, all the plans he proposed, he would prevent any information about the failure to be released. From the hopeful socialist communist country, he would transform it to a communism described as “Stalinism”, which ironically, is not much different from fascism, which communism is supposed to be the opposite of. However, even though Stalin’s 3 five year plans would fail, it still managed to bring the Soviet Union to the level of current developing countries (Simkin. n.d.).
Stalin finally died on 5th of March, 1953, when he suffered from a sudden stroke. His body was buried with the body of Lenin, as he was still idolized by the Soviets. His image however, would be torn down over the next decade into pieces, when every negative image about him was finally released to the public. His body was then removed from the place where they buried Lenin, and then buried nearby, covered in concrete, so that his body would be never removed.
Even though Stalin may be considered as a ruthless dictator of the Soviet Union, you can never say that he was completely evil, as he still had ambition for Russia’s change. You can say that he at least tried to create a better Soviet Union by establishing the 5 years plan, but repetitive failure has caused him to give up, and eventually corrupted by the massive power he holds.