Dictator Profile – Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin was born on December 18, 1878, and died (er.. thankfully) on March 5, 1953. He was the General Secretary of the Communist Party in the Soviet Union. After his initial power-power-gainings, he eventually became the dictator of the Soviet Union. He also established a regime now know as Stalinism.
After Vladimir Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin and Leon Trotsky, his rival, began a power struggle, which resulted in the deportation of Trotsky. Stalin promoted a new economic system, which replaced the New Economic Policy of the 1920′s. Around the same time, he forced rapid industrialization of rural areas by confiscating farmers’ land. He transformed the Soviet Union into an industrial powerhouse in a short amount of time. Many people died, however, from the hardships that occurred because of the new party policies and economic upheaval. Factories were a much harder environment to work in. The industrial confinements were rarely cleaned, let-alone ever in a livable condition.
The Great Purge was launched by Stalin at the end of the 1930′s. It was an event of major repression, and killed millions of people who were considered to be ‘a threat to Soviet politics’. Others were either exiled and/or sent to labor camps in Siberia and Central Asia, where they later died of various causes such as malnutrition and disease. Stalin committed these crimes through the security apparatus known as NKVD. I don’t know what that stands for, but its probably something cool like ‘Nickolaog Kilionduous Villainous Division’ or something. Luckily, in the 1950′s, Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin’s eventual successor, denounced Stalin’s views and began the process of “de-Stalinization.”
During WWII, Joseph Stalin owned tha Nazis, meaning he kicked their big bigoted butts, and as a result the Soviet Union was viewed as one-out-of-two of the world’s supernations. This victory could have possibly been used as a sort-of leverage tool, because anything with morale-boosting power can be manipulated to take advantage of people.
Joseph Stalin was (is) one of the world’s craziest leaders and I hope I never face a dictator like him. Actually, it makes me really grateful that I live in America, with the Bill of Rights and such. But that said, LET’S KEEP IT THAT WAY!
