February 24, 1956 marked a pivotal moment in history. Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the Soviet Union after Stalin, outwardly criticized the former policies and actions of Stalin. Such criticism included Stalin’s purges, in which innocent citizens were wrongly tortured and executed. He also stated that Stalin misinterpreted the idea of communism and abused his own people out of paranoia of losing power. In addition, Khrushchev accused Stalin of being inadequately prepared for the German invasion of 1941 because Stalin purged most of his military and mismanaged the war. Khrushchev gave his speech at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. This congress included 1,500 communist leaders from all over the world. The speech was supposed to be kept secret, but word of it eventually spread worldwide. Khrushchev’s unexpected remarks against Stalin shocked the world. He knew that his comments would feed the anti-communists. However, his efforts were necessary because he saw that communism was beginning to fail due to Stalin’s purges. By criticizing the areas where Stalin messed up, Khrushchev was able to restore communism and …show more content…
Communist opposed nations were elated to hear that the new Soviet leader was denouncing Stalin’s actions. Khrushchev followed up his speech by continuing to make reforms by increasing cooperation with the west and improving the Communist Party. One significant feat of Khrushchev’s speech was criticizing the purges. To make up for Stalin’s actions, Khrushchev released thousands of prisoners and recognized those killed under Stalin’s rule. Once the rest of the world learned of the speech, there were mixed reactions. The U.S. was happy, some eastern European nations started to rebel, and Asian nations criticized Khrushchev. Khrushchev was ultimately able to influence foreign policy everywhere due to the criticism of
According to him, the Union has to keep their pace, or they would be defeated. (Document 1) This was a positive part of Stalin's rule. This made the people proud of their country and made them want to come together and grow stronger. Stalin provided the
He had the suspected communists blacklisted. He mostly accused famous people and urged people that the individuals who should be feared were the communists. People also feared the Soviet Union during this time period Many people were accused of trying to
In early February of 1945 Winston Churchill, Joseph Stalin, and Franklin D. Roosevelt met to make a plan for the postwar world. This was called the Yalta Conference, and because of it the world was set up for a confrontation that would last for 45 years. As a result of this conference the Soviets gained most of Eastern Europe and half of Germany, and the Allied powers kept control of all of Western Europe and the other half of Germany. The Soviets gained a lot of power from this conference and used it in hostile ways, such that in the US the tensions were high and fear of communism was growing. US citizens felt as if communism could take away their right to life and liberty, and this was reflected in the acts of the government.
Stalin was indeed good for the USSR, because he improved the economy by using collectivization farms, which led to an increase in quality of life. Although he did good for the country, he wanted prosperity and recognition more than anything, so he was willing to sacrifice his own citizens’ lives. Stalin was good for the USSR, because he changed the USSR’s economy positively by using sets of goals, called the “Five Year Plan”. The objective of this was to multiply production in manufacturing, like coal, oil, pig iron, and steel.
Many Western Nation in Europe saw the Soviets actions as a threat to global democracy. The Soviet Union wanted to maintain their power and spread their communist ideology throughout the world. A longtime democracy advocate, the United States came to Europe’s aid. Through the Marshall Plan, the
Joseph Stalin became dictator of the Soviet Union in 1928 (“Joseph Stalin – Powerful Communist Ruler”) after the death of Russia’s former ruler Vladimir Lenin (“Joseph Stalin”). In the late 1920’s he created a sequence of five year plans which were created to alter the Soviet Union from a peasant society into a country that was industrially advanced (“Joseph Stalin.”) after he realised Russia was far behind in comparison to the west (“Joseph Stalin.”). The idea was for the government to control the economy in which they forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture, the idea in which the government controlled farming.
The author says that perhaps many citizens may be drawn to Communist ideology if the social injustices become more prevalent, and urges the readers to look into the problems of Communist civilizations. This article is an example of how many felt during the Red Scare and Cold War in regards to communism. It shows that people felt a collapse
forcing the russians to do the same. The second idea of his was to rollback soviet influence both with his rhetoric and his action. he was quick to use action globally in places the soviets had invades like Eastern Europe and Afghanistan. also he fought hard against the spread of communism. for example when Nicaragua become communist.
Millions upon millions of innocent people have been killed due to unjust reasons. Across the world multiple groups of people have been executed, tortured, or arrested for reasons like racism, sexism, ageism, and hating against one's religion. Some of the mass executions and public scares went on for a couple months however others lasted years. Most of them lasted until someone did not agree with what executioners were doing. Some examples of mass executions and public scares were the Salem Witch Trials, The Holocaust, The Great Purge, and the after effect of the Attack on Pearl Harbor.
When Stalin died in 1953, Nikita Khrushchev came into power. He brought about huge changes such as the de-Stalinization of the Soviet Union, the progress of the early Soviet space program, and ‘several relatively liberal reforms in areas of domestic policy’. However, as to quote the internet, ‘Hoping eventually to rely on missiles for national defense, Khrushchev ordered major cuts in conventional forces. Despite the cuts, Khrushchev 's rule saw the most tense years of the Cold War, culminating in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Some of Khrushchev 's policies were seen as erratic, particularly by his emerging rivals within the Party, who quietly rose in strength and deposed him in October 1964’.
Stalin went on a spree of execution, imprisoning and firing many officials (especially the officials with higher level) “The Great Purge 1934-1940.”(H-Headlines). Stalin would do whatever it takes to upset any building power bases or alliances who he thought might work against him to take his leadership status.
As noted during lecture Russia and the Soviet Union goes through a pattern of reform and reaction. For over 3 decade Stalin terrorized the Soviet Union and surrounding countries in effort to purge the party. After the death of Stalin on March 5, 1953, the Soviet Union had to put in place a new leader. They selected a peasant man Nikita Khrushchev. Who with the help of an evolving party began a period of reform, or in other words destalinization.
Before Stalin become an ally to the U.S. and U.K., he was an ally to Nazi Germany. Stalin sought to achieve only what he felt was in his best interest. Stalin wen so far as to break promises that he made at the conference of Yalta to organize free elections, and inserted a puppet government. Stalin believed that the communist political, social, and economic ideology was what he could spread throughout the world. Just as President Wilson wished to spread democracy far and wide, Stalin desired to spread communism far and wide.
Joseph Stalin was and still is universally known for his harsh leadership in the Soviet Union. To examine the extent of his cruelness, World Civilization II: The Rise and Fall of Empires© 1500-present stated, "Stalin was not a communist; he was a sociopath. He enjoyed hurting people and ordering their deaths. In his time as dictator of the Soviet Union, he was responsible for the deaths of tens of millions of his people, and the cruel torture and imprisonment of millions more" (Sattler, 71).
In some circumstances, Lenin made accusations, won wars greatly, and was treated as a threat in fear that he might start a World War III. Although he was treated like a great and dangerous person of higher power, Lenin had also gave improvement to life in Russia since his revolution in