There can be little doubt that for the immediate future Stalin seemed to have gained more from the treaty than Hitler. He could now strengthen the Soviet Union’s military economy and raise the striking power of the Red Army (Boyce and Robinson 1989). By the 28 September, Warsaw was under attack but the question of Poland still had not been addressed, so Ribbentrop returned to Moscow and agreed to sign an additional ‘boundary and friendship treaty’ with Stalin. This created various alterations to the demarcation line of Russia’s occupied boundaries. Stalin could now have almost all of Lithuania and in return Germany was given a slight increase in their occupied territory of Poland (Beevor 2012).
He then became the secretary of the communist party. Lenin continued to give Stalin power and the people could not do anything to stop it. After Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin had complete control over the communist party. By the late 1920s, he was the dictator of the Soviet Union. Stalin kept finding way to get more power and the people were not able to do anything to fix
By 1928, Stalin had defeated his opposition and established for himself a dominant position in the ruling Politburo1. However, Stalin did not gain a ultimate control over the nation until the late 1930s; when he was then able to consolidate his power and establish a totalitarian regime within the USSR. He does so through a series of processes that help him form a tight grasp over the country. Such processes include the use of propaganda through a cult of personality and a book published by him called the “Short Course”. Another method used was terror; in which people were frighted and thus forced to follow Stalin’s orders.
The Soviet Union leader, Josef Stalin, did not trust the western allies to begin with, after World War I. The Soviets now controlled half of Europe and Berlin under communist power. The United States and the United Kingdom did not want Europe under communist ideologies. Stalin felt threatened and closed routes to Berlin, but the blockade ended, and the Allies combined. The United States envisioned to avoid soviet expansion, but democratic idealism instead.
immediately intervened in the beginning of the Korean War. This is mainly because the capitalist country was extremely afraid of communism spreading around the world, particularly Asia, and would do anything to stop it. The events following the U.S. joining the war created a tension between the country and the Soviet Union, which will later lead to the “Cold War”, because of the U.S.’ plans on stopping the spreading of communism throughout different parts of the globe. The whole conflict between the two countries was caused mainly caused by communism and one’s desire of dominating the whole world. Due to the U.S. worrying about the Soviets’ plans on spreading communism, they centered their foreign policy on the containment of communism, both home and abroad.
Stalin’s power stems from his autocratic power and strict policies. And from these policies, Stalin damaged the Soviet Union forever. Communism has forever damaged Russia, as millions of innocents died under its rule, with millions repressed, and its political environment in shambles. Most prominent, the policies placed under the Soviet Union led to the deaths of millions of innocents. Most deaths were caused by either artificial famines, or executions.
Soviet intervention was seen as an aggressive attack by the United States and its allies, who founded the counter-revolutionary fundamentalists, and thus led to a return to conflicts which were greatly increased in the following years. When Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985, he wanted to restructure the Soviet Union to resemble the Scandinavian model of western social democracy and so he created a private sector economy. He removed Soviet troops from Afghanistan and began a hands-off approach in the USSR's relations with its European allies. This was well-received by the United States, which led to an end of the Cold War and, inadvertently, the fall of the Soviet economy and, in 1991, the dissolution of the USSR. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs headed Soviet foreign policy.
Lenin and Stalin Pre- Stalin era Despite his notoriety and corruption to his state, Russia had experienced tremendous trauma prior to Stalin’s reign. Stalin’s predecessor was Vladimir Lenin. Although Lenin was famous for his methods and his ideals during his rule like the creation of the Gulag system. He did encourage the creation and production of art with the condition that “it aimed serving the goals of a new society” (Roseberry, 1982: 10). Maes (2002) explains that although Stalin was open to the concept of creating art, he still kept a grip on the process by saying “the relative liberalization had been ushered in by the regime itself and was carefully controlled” (Maes, 2002: 243).
One way he made sure of that was by using propaganda. Stalin ran a Totalitarian state, which deprived people of a free way of living. Under no circumstances did he allow people to critic the way he ran things because if they did they were to be executed or even arrested by his secret police. To control his people, Stalin used terror and violence. In severe circumstances, murder or brutal force was even used.
The author Morson says this quote about Stalin, "“was the relative ease with which Stalin could foist the bloodbath upon the political police, army, party-state, cultural elites, and indeed the entire country” (Morson). Joseph Stalin gained control over the people of the Soviet Union by showing extreme discipline through terror and death and promoted