Stalin
Stalin did not demonstrate truly wise and honourable leadership of his country, and it was only because of the unstable nature of Europe at this time that the people of Russia trusted and put their faith in him. Stalin was the son of an alcoholic cobbler and a washerwoman, and was all too aware of the privileges of class. He came to loathe anyone wealthier than himself (he even annihilated the Kulaks, a wealthy peasant class) and was obsessed with a vision of 'liberating' his native Georgia from the rule of the Tsars. Trotsky wrote that Stalin's hatred of the oppressors was much stronger than his love of the oppressed, and even Lenin did not want Stalin to succeed him.Stalin's has often been compared with Hitler, but while Hitler only left graves, devastation and degradation in Germany, Stalin turned a starving, destitute land into a powerful industrial state. However, this gain, and Russia's increase in territory in Eastern Europe, came at enormous cost to the Russian people. To understand why Stalin led Russia in the way that he did after the war it is first necessary to go back and see how he operated during World War Two. When the Second World War broke out, Stalin decided to claim neutrality. His idea was that if all th
Russia moved into these areas quickly, and only when Germany reclaimed control of them did Stalin renegotiate with the west and form a new alliance. Stalin planned to set up a buffer zone between the Soviet Union, the home of Communism, and the democratic, capitalist, decadent ways of the West. The Potsdam Conference took place in Germany, from July 17 - August 2 1945. Stalin did everything with his own interests at heart. He was a very selfish autocrat who was so paranoid that it led to him severing all ties with the west - since he felt they were out to get him. Stalin was there, but Truman had become President of the U. He realised that if his country continued to indulge in the inhumane communism he had developed, the western powers would be unwilling to allow communist expansion. Stalin's influence affected many Eastern European countries for decades, and lasted even beyond his death. He assumed a kind of 'big brother' role and made the people of Eastern Europe think he was trying to help them - and he was to some extent - but only because it helped him. The idea of a fair distribution of wealth was tempting, despite the strings attached. For example, when he first came into power he introduced methods of advancing the Soviet Union by forced industrialisation and collectivisation. These efforts were laid out in five year plans, the first of which included a campaign of mass executions, arrests, and deportations of the Kulak class. Stalin used this to his advantage and found it relatively easy to set up communist regimes in the countries under Russian control. Stalin was very ambitious, ruthless and power-hungry.
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