Nikita Khrushchev rose to power after the death of Stalin. He was a leader who desperately worked for reform yet his reforms hardly ever accomplished their goals. He was a man who praised Stalin while he was alive but when Stalin died Khrushchev was the first to publicly denounce him. Khrushchev came to power in 1953 and stayed in power until 1964, when he was forced to resign.
	Stalin died without naming an heir, and none of his associates had the power to immediately claim supreme leadership. The deceased dictator’s colleagues initially tried to rule jointly through collective leadership, with Malenkov holding the top positions of prime minister and general secretary.	Lavrenti Beria took over Ministry of Interior and
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Malenkov’s post was then given to Bulganin who had little influence. Khrushchev had become the most important figure within the collective leadership. (A Country Study)
	At the Twentieth Party Congress, held February 1956, Khrushchev further advanced his position within the party by denouncing Stalin’s crimes in a "secret speech". Khrushchev revealed that Stalin had arbitrarily liquidated thousands of party members and military leaders and had established a cult of personality. With this speech Khrushchev not only distanced himself from Stalin, and Stalin’s close associates, Molotov and Malenkov, but also abjured the dictator’s policy of terror. As a result of the
de-Stalinization campaign launched by the speech, the release of political prisoners, which had begun in 1953, was stepped up and some of Stalin’s victims were posthumously rehabilitated. Khrushchev later intensified his campaign against Stalin at the Twenty-Second Party Congress in 1961, winning approval to remove Stalin’s body from the Lenin Mausoleum. De-Stalinization encouraged many in artistic and intellectual circles to speak out against the abuses of the former regime. Although Khrushchev’s tolerance of creative works wavered during his years of leadership, the new cultural period, known as the "thaw", represented a clear break with the repression of the arts under Stalin.
	After the Twentieth Party Congress,
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.
Joseph Stalin was the most controversial person in Russia who has come into power. This has come from his 5 year plan that he has assembled when Russia was in shambles, due to the civil war, the economy failing, and no industrial equipment. His job now was to restore Russia and make it into an industrial powerhouse.
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
Between 1924 and 1945, Joseph Stalin was able to emerge as the leader of the USSR and maintain what Kruchev described as “the accumulation of immense and limitless power”. Stalin's rise to power was a combination of his ability to manipulate situations and the failure of others to prevent him from taking power, especially Leon Trotsky. Stalin ruled the USSR from 1929 until his death in 1953. His rule was one of tyranny, a great change from the society that his predecessor, Lenin, had envisioned. During his time of reign, Stalin put into effect two self-proclaimed "five-year
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”
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.
When Lenin/Old Major died there was a power struggle for control between Trotsky/Snowball and Stalin/Napoleon. Trotsky was a very smart strategist while Stalin was a simple yet effective leader. While not as smart as Trotsky he was a very effective politician.
Following the timeline of Josef Stalin’s ruling as a leader of Soviet Russia, it can be seen that his positive accomplishments brought Russia from a period of
The Source is an extract of a speech given by Nikita Khrushchev at the Twentieth Party Congress of the Soviet Union on February 25th 1956. Khrushchev served as First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers, or Premier, from 1958 to 1964. Khrushchev was responsible for the partial de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, for backing the progress of the world's early space program, and for several relatively liberal reforms in areas of domestic policy. Stalin's political heirs fought for power after his death in 1953, a struggle in which Khrushchev, after several years, emerged triumphant. In 1956, at the Twentieth Party Congress,
The events which led to Stalin’s rise to power were not simple and it was
The effects of the purges on the political structure and community of the USSR can be described (as Peter Kenez asserts) as an overall change from a party led dictatorship to the dictatorship of a single individual; Stalin. Overall power was centred in Stalin, under whom an increasingly bureaucratic hierarchy of
This time period was known as the "Great Purge." Stalin systemically executed anyone who stood in his path. Stalin had millions of people arrested and killed. The government once again changed in its economic status. All private ownership was ended. Industrialization commenced, and the strength of the Soviet's Military significantly increased. The only downfall was agriculture production slowly diminished. This eventually led to food shortages. During this time period the Second World War broke out and drained most of what was left of the already impoverished state. However after the war, national unity was improved and the Soviet Union once again became a super power of the world. (" Stalin and World War II," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 99 Encyclopedia) <br><br>Stalin's death in 1953 marked the end of the supreme power for the head of the Soviet party. Stalin's successor, Nikita Khrushev, marked the beginning of the fall of Communism in the Soviet Union. Khrushev became the first Secretary of the Communists party ("Nikita Khrushev," Microsoft(R) Encarta(R) 98 Encyclopedia). He believed Stalin's actions were unnecessary and harmful to the process of moving the Socialist government to its goal of complete Communism. During his period of control the public was given some say in the government. A new policy of economy was brought in known as "New Course." It helped to balance the agriculture and increase food production so there were less food
Khrushchev fervently believed in communism and the prospects of the Soviet Union as a world power. He was much older and more experienced than Kennedy, but in global relations, the United States held the upper hand. Khrushchev was well aware of the Soviet Union as the weaker power and used intimidation to create a sense of apprehension within the United States. The threat of nuclear war for Khrushchev was not to reach a boiling point with Kennedy, but to give “the Americans a taste of their own medicine” (Dobbs 37). Therefore, the American and Soviet people felt unremitting trepidation because of possible nuclear war.
Joseph Stalin’s three decade long dictatorship rule that ended in 1953, left a lasting, yet damaging imprint on the Soviet Union in political, economic and social terms. “Under his inspiration Russia has modernised her society and educated her masses…Stalin found Russia working with a wooden plough and left her equipped with nuclear power” (Jamieson, 1971). Although his policies of collectivisation and industrialisation placed the nation as a leading superpower on the global stage and significantly ahead of its economic position during the Romanov rule, this was not without huge sacrifices. Devastating living and working standards for the proletariat, widespread famine, the Purges, and labour camps had crippling impacts on Russia’s social