Why Did Stalin Control The Ussr

How did Stalin control the USSR?

After Vladimir Lenin died on January 21st 1924, in charge were the 9 members of the Politburo for a limited time; the Soviet Union went through a power struggle between Joseph Stalin, Leon Trotsky, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev and Nikolai Bukharin. No elections were held, but Stalin became the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR) in 1929, having already been in the position of General Secretery since 1922. Although he had the control over the party, his ideas were not shared by all of the members, especially Trotsky, who created the leftist movement called “trotskyism”, which believed in the theory of permanent revolution, contrary to Stalin’s beliefs. Also Stalin’s authority was not

To achieve his aims, he exploited the gulag prisoners, he arrested thousands of kulaks and people who showed signs of capitalism support and public trials were held to humiliate the punished ones and to give an example to the rest of the population. Moreover “purges” were created, the first ones recorded starting from 1930 until 1933. The most important mass murders and imprisonments of this kind were held from 1934 until 1939 and were called “The Great Purges”. They were led by the Communist Secret Police (NKVD) and aimed the country’s traitors, the dictator’s opponents, religious leaders, Army generals, commanders and admirals, but also civilians. Stalin explained and justified by saying that “death is the solution to all problems; no man-no problem” and that “the death of one man is a tragedy, [while] the death of millions is a statistic”, which show that the ruler would not have stopped anywhere to maintain control over the USSR, even if it meant death of innocent