What was the cause of Russia becoming a totalitarian country?

Answer 1

Russia has never really been anything other than a totalitarian country until the fall of communism in 1990, and even now, Vladimir Putin is somewhat dictatorial for an elected President. If we go back in history we would find that the first unified government of Russia was that of Gengis Khan's Mongolian empire (specifically, it fell under the branch known as the Golden Horde); subsequently Russia was conquered by the Norse who founded the Russian monarchy which lasted until the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917; all three of these forms of government were totalitarian. Any ruler powerful enough to establish a totalitarian state is likely to do so; people do not make concessions and weaken their own power unless forced to do so. Egocentric rulers always prefer absolute control, rather than having to make compromises and having to persuade people of the wisdom of their decisions (which often are not very wise anyway). However, there was a specific cause relating to the most extreme totalitarianism which Russia adopted in 1917, and that was WW I. The population of Russia was quite unhappy about the high cost to Russia of its alliance to France and England, which hardly seemed to justify the many deaths of Russian soldiers, and the Bolshevik Revolution was therefore primarily a pacifistic revolution, promising to take Russia out of the war as well as to remedy various other injustices resulting from the class sytem and the disparities of wealth and power which existed at that time. The Russian public did not know that the new injustices which would be inflicted by the communist party would be tremendously worse than the old ones which communism remedied. So, idealism fueled the adoption of a totalitarian system which promised everything and delivered very little.

Answer 2

The Soviet Union became a totalitarian state under Joseph Stalin. Stalin was a member of the Bolshevik Party and was the secretary of the party. His duties included appointing members, so he appointed members who he trusted and would follow him. He then seized power and killed off all members of the Old Bolshevik Party and anyone he thought was a threat to him. He had became a dictator.