Why did Joseph Stalin commit genocide?

Answer 1

Joseph Stalin murdered his rivals because he feared that they were plotting against him for power in the USSR. In certain circumstances, his rivals had different ideas on Marxism and he could not handle dissent. This was even for people who had no ill feelings towards him. They believed that Lenin and Marx had opinions that seemed opposed to Stalin's. Aside from Stalin's ultra-fear complex, many murders were done to scare potential rivals into being quiet or to leave the Soviet Union. Stalin used murder to punish failure. When Hitler had taken control of Europe, and before he attacked the USSR, European Communists sought refuge in Moscow. Stalin in particular, saw German communists as failures, having failed to win elections in Germany against the Nazi's. These communists had to pay the penalty of death for their failures. He also used starvation as a method of murder. The Kulak peasants who opposed losing their lands had their livestock and grain taken from them, and they died of starvation. These "rivals" were people he did not even know, however, he saw them as a threat to the collective farm system he wanted to create.

Answer 2

For the most part it was to stay in power and devastate any threats to his power.