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
Joseph Stalin and His Rise to Power Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili was born on December 18th 1878 in Gori, Georgia, which, at the time, was still part of Russia. His early years consisted of hardship, having been born an only child to an impoverished family with an alcoholic father who abused him and contracting smallpox that left him riddled with facial scars. In his teens he was granted a scholarship in order to study priesthood at the Georgian Orthodox Church, where he secretly began reading the writings of Karl Marx, and would eventually throw away his scholarship and be kicked from the school for missing exams, having claimed it to be for communist propaganda. He soon became a political agitator, fighting for the revolutionary movements against the Russian monarchy by partaking in strikes and demonstrations; however, these peaceful protests soon turned into bank heists, of which the money went to the Bolshevik Party, and would get him “arrested multiple times between 1902 and 1913, and subjected to imprisonment and exile in Siberia”(“Mini-biography on the life of Joseph Stalin” 2009). After his imprisonment, when he was in his thirties, he changed his name to Joseph Stalin, meaning ''man of steel” in Russian.
Almost no more uprisings occurred during the next part of Stalin’s ruling. When clouds of the Cold War began coming overhead, Stalin made a brilliant tactical move, making a non-aggression pact with Hitler and Nazi Germany. And when his military general warned him of German troops approaching them, Stalin made no move and was sure that they wouldn’t do anything rash. He was mistaken, and they attacked and obtained parts of Russia’s eastern territory. Stalin was so distraught at Hitler’s treachery that he even hid in his office for several days.
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.
Death or being sent to a labor camp, such as Gulag, was the fate of most. From 1936 to 1938, people were being killed over paranoia and no actual evidence. The purges were aimed to efface the threat of political retaliation. The Blood Purges were a time of paranoia, brutality and terror. Russian citizens were forced to admit to crimes they may or may not have committed.
Joseph Stalin acted tyrannically towards civilians of the USSR and made dreadful decisions that negatively affected many. Stalin’s paranoia was the root of the negative decisions he made. Joseph Stalin’s childhood contains: “violent outbursts following alcohol intoxication, generally from the father and aimed at both mother and child [...] it is plausible to argue that Stalin’s violent tendencies developed as a result of his father’s behavior; paranoia is said to oftentimes enter within a maladaptive relationship with the father” (Marina 4). With Joseph Stalin’s father being so violent to him and his mother,
He would even burn his own villages just to instill fear in the peasantries and to discourage criminals from stealing food shipments. After he took control he did massive purging of the followers and loyal officers of Lenin, and these purges involved more deaths and exiling. His death count was higher than Hitler’s and then all he ruined lives of those who were exiled or the families of the ones who died. Although some people can argue that Stalin did some good things, such as help the Allied forces defeat the Axis powers during WWII. When he helped the Allied forces, Hitler’s army was beginning to invade Russia and Stalin had the Russian army push back the invading forces all the way back to Berlin.
With power came the question of how to maintain it. In order to cement their leadership in their countries, both Hitler and Stalin employed the same method: eliminate political rivals and those they distrusted to strengthen their influence and further their interests. The Great Purge, also known as the Great Terror, occurred in the 1930s in Russia and had been a time of oppression and persecution. It began in 1935 when Sergey Kirov, a Communist leader and political rival of Stalin's, was assassinated. Then, anyone associated with Stalin's opposition would be charged with treason, espionage, and more by the NKVD, the Russian secret police, and sentenced to death.
Doctor’s Plot Stalin’s rise to power can be attributed to his extreme paranoia and willingness to cut down anyone that poses even the smallest threat to his station. This combined with his utter disregard for human life culminated in the deaths of millions of Russians under his regime. To maintain his firm grasp on power, Stalin utilized scare tactics involving show trials, executions, and mass purges. These were effective in eliminating dissent and ensuring Stalin’s unshakable position as leader of the Soviet Union. The alleged doctor’s plot and its intended results were among Stalin’s final acts of paranoia and anti-Semitism, intended to kickstart a massive party surge as Stalin wished to further consolidate his power.
With his death came a change in the Hungarian regime from the “hard line” communist leadership of Matyas Rakosi to the reformist Imre Nagy and his belief in communism “with a human face.” Not long after Stalin’s death there was a revolt of workers in Eastern Germany on the 17th of June 1953. The Soviets suppressed this revolt militarily and set a precedent for how they handled future revolts. When Poland had an anti-communist revolt in June of 1956 the Soviets imposed martial