A Brief Biography of Joseph Stalin Essay

Throughout the 1920's and 30's Joseph Stalin was able to rise to power and build a totalitarian state. After Vladimir Lenin died in 1924, Stalin was able to maneuver his way to the top. Stalin was able to rise to power, build a totalitarian state, and was able to disrupt and transform soviet society by using propaganda.

During the years following the death of Lenin in 1924, there was an immense power struggle in the politburo of the Communist Party, as its leading figures competed to replace him. By 1929, Joseph Stalin had defeated his rivals - and therefore become leader of the party - through three stages: the defeat of the left opposition (and therefore Trotsky), the united opposition (Zinoviev, Kamenev and Trotsky), and finally the right deviation (Bukharin). Stalin gained power due to a number of factors, particularly his position as General Secretary of the party, along with his other roles, but also through errors made by the Bolsheviks, most notably their underestimation and dismissal of Stalin. However, his position as General Secretary gave

One of the most important reasons why Stalin won the power struggle is that he used his high positions in the Communist party and the power that came with it to his advantage. Several factors fall under this category. Firstly is how Stalin used his position as General Secretary, as well as jealousies between the leaders and Trotsky’s illness to stage-manage Lenin’s funeral. To the general public, it appeared that Stalin was very close to Lenin, and as a result

Once eliminating Trotsky, Stalin’s idea of, “socialism in our country,” inevitably meant that Russia needed strength. The productions in the USSR had almost reached pre-war levels by the mid-1920s, but the population of Russia had also increased by 20 million people. No matter, Stalin assured that maximum efforts and resources would be given to the expansion and strengthening of Russia herself rather than an effort to start a revolution elsewhere. This is explained in his famous 1931 speech, gaining power for himself. The people had nowhere else to turn to and needed a leader. Stalin was there and knew what to do to make the people interested in his ideas, thus acquired their trust and control. From these ideas, he created his first

Joseph Stalin, from the time that he was a low level revolutionary to the years that he spent as the dictator of the Soviet Union, always knew what he needed to do to achieve his goals. His organized rise to power allowed him to gain a steady flow of followers who would support him for decades to come. Stalin received a minor government position in 1917, but by the time a new leader was needed in 1924, he “had turned the largely routine post of Party general secretary into the most powerful office in the Soviet Union” (“Joseph Stalin) and “had built a personal empire for himself through his control over committee appointments at all levels . . . expand[ing] the leading Party organs with his supporters, who then voted against his rivals”

After Lenin’s death, Stalin removed his colleagues from power and many were exiled including Leon Trotsky,

Joseph Stalin greatly influenced Russia in the years 1924 through 1932. His rise to this power can be explained by the Russian Revolutionary experience that allowed him to gain authority in Russia. Although historians often refer to Stalin as a ruthless, mindless dictator, he redirected the Russian Revolution to major economic development. Stalin’s character in Russia during the Revolution catalyzed the many events that took place during the time period. Because of Stalin’s ability to both appeal to the masses, and take advantage of events, like Lenin’s death, Stalin was able to rise to power. Essentially, the Russian Revolution fostered the development of Stalin’s dictatorship leading the country into a state of economic growth and influence. The Revolution fostered Stalin’s ability to maintain a central leadership, use violence to gain control, and regenerate a previously disconnected economy.

In 1917, Russia was crumbling into pieces. The World War I was draining all of Russia’s resources. There was shortage of food throughout the country, which left people starving. At the battlefront, millions of Russian soldiers were dying, they did not possess many of the powerful weapons that their opponents had. The government under Czar Nicholas II was disintegrating, and a provisional government had been set up. In November of 1917, Lenin and his communist followers known as the Bolsheviks overthrew the provisional government and set a communist government in Russia. However, in 1924, Lenin died and Josef Stalin assumed leadership of the Soviet Union, which was the name for the communist Russia. Stalin was a ruthless leader who brought

This determination greatly affected Stalin’s rise to power, and allowed him to completely decimate all opposition to his leadership. Originally, Stalin was a powerless citizen of the USSR, yet he managed to quickly rise to the top of the political field. He began his role in politics by joining the Bolsheviks in 1903. Due to his thirst for power he steadily rose through the ranks of the party and was soon the General Secretary. The Bolshevik insurrection to Russian leadership was successful and placed Stalin in a position of great power. He then used his power to isolate members of the party in an attempt to take away their power and popularity. Determined to gain absolute dominance over the other members, he caused the dismissal, and possibly the deaths, of several of his political opponents. This left him in total rule over the Communist party,

Upon the creation of the USSR, Lenin introduced new rule that would ensure greater totalitarian control. Only communists would be able to stand for the soviets, and so this meant that the communist party had the true control over the

Yet it was Joseph Stalin who was eventually to emerge as leader of the party. This was largely because Stalin was a clever and astute politician, who was seen as being a man of the people. He was able to manoeuvre himself into a position of power through his role as General Secretary of the Communist Party. Once in power, he exerted an iron grip on the USSR. Stalin’s aims differed from Lenin’s in that he did not expect to spread Communism worldwide until Communism was secure in the USSR.

Joseph Stalin was born on December 18th, 1879, in Gori, Georgia. He was the son of a cobbler and a washerwomen. Joseph was a very weak child. He has scars on his face from smallpox whenever he was only seven. He was in a carriage accident a couple years after that that left his left arm a little disfigured. He could have gotten his injury from blood poisoning. The children around him treated him awful because of he was seen as nothing but weak. This led Joseph to want to be respected more and he wanted to be better overall. This also led him to be awful to anyone that was mean to him.

Stalin’s race to become the all mighty ruler fully started after Lenin died of a stroke on the 21st of January 1924. With Lenin gone, Stalin started to eliminate the other members of the Communist Party: Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Rykov, Tomsky and Bukharin. He very cleverly switched between the left wing and the right wing, by making alliances with one wing the suddenly breaking with them, only to join the other wing, going against everything that they had just achieved. Stalin knocked out all other party members along the way even those who were considered to be his friend. His violent childhood, misguided early life and the death of his first wife caused him to lose all sense of emotion turning

Stalin was extremely ambitious and his initial taste of power had made him even more egotistical. Trotsky fled but was hunted down and eliminated to ensure Stalin retained power. The long term effects of this ensured that future opponents of Stalin would also be eliminated. With Lenin dead and Trotsky eliminated Stalin realized he was now able to concentrate on his own policies. He abandoned Lenin's idea of 'World Revolution' and adopted his own policy of 'Socialism in One Country'.

When Lenin suffered his first stroke, Stalin helped kept the government in order while he was recovering. Stalin began criticizing how the government were handling business and eventually took complete control by 1930 by eliminating his enemies. As a result of being able to siege that much power in so little time, he dominated the Politburo, the Soviet Union's legislature. In 1934, Stalin organized the murder