Stalin was a master of using fear, eliminating his competition, scapegoating, controlling education, creating an effective Propaganda machine, controlling the flow of information to the people, and killing any communist party members who opposed his regime. He believed that he was the the true communist leader and to carry out all of his policies, he had to be the USSR's dictator. No threat to his power was too small to liquidate. Within a few years after Lenin's death, Stalin created his totalitarian state.
Arresting and executing citizens who were suspected of disloyalty to Stalin
Stalin’s rule in the USSR was clearly totalitarian, but he didn’t establish it as much as continue with the existing system that he took over.
Joseph Stalin did not create the Soviet Union. Vladimir Lenin did that.
When Soviet Leader Lenin died in 1924, it was Joseph Stalin who quickly ascended to power, ultimately leading the Soviet Union to a totalitarian state.
Both Vladimir Lenin and Joseph Stalin imposed harsh totalitarian governments in Russia and the Soviet Union. Stalin's was harsher and more totalitarian than Lenin's though.
Communism as a vicious martial dictator.
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin was the "totalitarian" leader of the Soviet Union after Lenin, however he did not have dictatorial powers immediately after Lenin's death in 1924. It took Stalin until the mid 1930's before he had eliminated almost all of his equals in the Communist Party and installed people loyal to him personally in positions of power. Once he had done that he became the totalitarian leader that history remembers him as.
During World War 2, Joseph Stalin was the dictator of the Soviet Union.
Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin was the Soviet leader responsible.