Stalin: The Man of Steel
No world leader, aside from Hitler, was quite like the “Man of Steel,” Joseph Stalin. Stalin was born Ioseb Besarionis Dze Jugashvili and later changed his name to Joseph Stalin. It was probably best that he did that otherwise this paper would be pretty difficult to write. He controlled the Soviet Union from the late 20’s all the way up to 1953 when he died. Stalin saw a lot of political, economic, and bloody action during his reign.
When Stalin took office he quickly changed Russia from an agrarian state to an industrial powerhouse. Not only was Stalin set on joining the industrial revolution, however late he was, but also he was set on eliminating everything that went against the USSR, or the Soviet Union. Stalin set out on a campaign from the 1920’s to 1939 in which he imprisoned millions of so called “enemies of the state”. As maniacal as he was, he was opposed to his neighbor, Adolf Hitler. After he failed to draft anti-Hitler pacts with other European countries, Stalin simply signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler in 1939, which said they would not attack each other for 10 years.
I guess ten years means 2 years to them because they were slaughtering each other by 1941. Despite being heavily outgunned by the German Wermacht, Stalin successfully halted the German invasion in Leningrad and Moscow. Despite putting his life at high risk he remained in, and refused to leave, the capital. After he pushed the Germans out of Russia he drove his way into Germany ultimately capturing Berlin in 1945 and ending the Second World War. During the war the United States and the Soviet Union were allies, a sort of “enemy of my enemy is my friend” deal.
After the war however, we hated each other. Tensions were high in this roughly 40 year period between the east and west. It was Capitalism vs Communism. Stalin is widely regarded as a tyrant, for good reason, and is worse than Hitler in terms of death toll. Stalin was a tyrant who kept office throughthe love of his people.
Of course this love is being feigned while staring down the barrel of a gun. Stalin was a crazy man who controlled the largest country in the world.
