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Joseph Stalin, Leader of the Soviet Union

 Joseph Stalin was born in Gori, Georgia on December 21, 1879. He was his mother’s fourth child, and he had three older siblings who had all died. He was accepted to the Tiflis Theological Seminary, where he joined a secret organization called Messame Dassy. This is where he was introduced to the ideas of Karl Marx. He was soon expelled for trying to convert his peers to Marxism. In 1901, Stalin joined the Social Democratic Labor Party. He began part of the Russian underground revolutionary group and supported the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social – Democratic Workers’ party in 1903. After the Russian Revolution of 1917 brought the Bolsheviks into power, he became a commissar for nationalities and for state control in the government. He was a member of Politburo, and in 1922 he became secretary – general of the party’s Central Committee. After Vladimir Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin took control of Soviet politics and became the leader of the Soviet Union and the Communist party. Joseph Stalin ruled by instituting fear and terror into people. He was responsible for the execution of millions of people. Under his rule, there were purge trials, which was also called the Great Purge. These were three show trials under which many important Old Bolsheviks were found guilty of treason and executed. However, it has been suspected that the people executed were innocent, that the cases were extremely exaggerated by the secret police, and that the confessions of wrong doing were due to the terrible torture. These men were all prominent figures throughout the Soviet Union. In addition to these show trials, there were also a series of closed trials in which top Soviet military officials were executed. The purpose for these purges was to eliminate all potential threats of Stalin’s. The daily life of citizens under the dictatorship of Joseph Stalin was extremely hard. Every day was filled with fear. Each citizen’s life was manipulated by the government officials. They were told of false information and were terrorized by officials. Although Stalin ruled by fear, he also accomplished many things for the Soviet Union. One of his greatest accomplishments was the Five Year Plan of 1928. It was a plan that had great emphasis on the growth of big industries. Stalin hoped to lay the ground work for the solid foundation of the industrial growth in the nation. Stalin feared that if other countries were more advanced in industries, the Soviet Union would have a risk of being abused by those other nations. Stalin also hoped to reform the agriculture by creating collective farms, which meant that individual land labor was formed together. This was part of his policy known as collectivization. The results of his five year plan were the number of industrial laborers in the Soviet Union almost tripling, and the nation became a leading industrial nation. However, his agricultural reforms resulted in the imprisoning, murdering and torturing of many farmers. This led to famine and poverty in a large portion of the population. Although Stalin’s five year plan targeted industries and agriculture, the only part of the economy that improved because of his plan was the industries. In George Orwell’s __Animal Farm__, a parody of life of the communist Soviet Union under the leadership of Joseph Stalin, he was represented by Napoleon, a pig. Joseph Stalin and Napoleon were similar yet different in their personalities. Napoleon was very excluded from the rest of the farm once he gained power, while Stalin made many public appearances to his people. Their personalities are similar because both are very manipulative. For example, Napoleon was against the windmill plan at first. However, once he got rid of Snowball, he wanted to go forth with the windmill plan. This was similar to when Stalin at first was completely against Leon Trotsky’s push for large scale industrialization, then embraced the policy with open arms after Trotsky was put in exile. In __Animal Farm__ the purges and trials were represented when Napoleon executed any animals with the vicious dogs that were in contact with Snowball or plotting against Napoleon with him.

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Hoyt, Alia. "How Communism Works." Online Image. No date. No date .  "Joseph Stalin." Online Image. __Shmoop__. No date. 09 Nov 2009 . ||
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"purge trials." __Encyclopædia Britannica__. 2009. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 09 Nov. 2009 <[|**http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/483936/purge-trials**]>.

Remeta, Jennifer. "Jospeh Stalin." Online Video Clip. __Encyclomedia__. No date. No date .

"Russian Revolution." Online Image. __1917 Russian Revolution__. No date. No date . ||