Joseph Stalin

The last President of the USSR was Boris Yeltsin. In the last days of the Republic, he was locked in his office unable to leave.

Lenin felt that Stalin was far too harsh and that he would not make a good leader, but after his unexpected death in 1924, Lenin did not name his succesor, and Stalin took that chance to take power.

Alexey Kosygin succeeded Nikita Krushchev as leader of the Soviet Union on October 14, 1964.

Moscow, Russia.

During but especially after World War II, Stalin sought to occupy and then control satellite nations in Europe, especially, for several reasons. The first was ideological: to spread the Communist revolution. The second was defensive in nature: Stalin sought to establish a buffer of sympathetic nations around the Soviet Union as protection against any further aggression by major powers in future wars.

Not all of them. Some, who were opponents of earlier communist regimes did, but others viewed him as a tyrant. Others thought that if he hadn't been the leader of the USSR, World War II might not have been won and that he was a good leader. And yes, he led purges against his own people.

Josef Stalin died on march 5,1953.After Stalin's stroke,Lavrentiy Beria claimed to have poisoned Stalin, aborting a final purge of Old Bolsheviks Anastas Mikoyan and Vyacheslav Molotov for which Stalin had been laying the groundwork in the year prior to his death. He announced triumphantly to the Politburo that he had "saved [us] all" (according to Molotov's memoirs). Evidence of the murder of Stalin by Beria associates was presented by Edvard Radzinsky in his biography Stalin. It has been suggested that warfarin was used; it would have produced the symptoms reported.

== == He was applying, with ruthless ferocity, Lenin's idea that by terrorizing the population they would be rendered obedient. Essentially, dead people would not oppose him, and if there were millions of dead people, the survivors would be too afraid to oppose him.
Revenge

This question about Stalin's efforts in World War 2 requires a long explanation so I have attached a link to give you a full idea of Josef Stalins actions. He was responsible for half the victory of defeating Germany on the European soil.
Stalin's country really just held off the German advance at a huge cost in life, and they kept the Germans occupied until D-Day. The Russian's were only able to do so because of their massive population and the Russian winter which stopped Napoleon as well. When the allies stormed Normandy the Russians also began an offensive, eventually taking Berlin. Stalin him self coordinated with the rest of the wars leaders, and did to some extent what Churchill and Roosevelt did in keeping the people going.

Although Lenin and Stalin were very different they still had some similarities. When Lenin gained rule, the first couple of years, all he yearned for was to put down the civil war. He wanted to help and repair both the state and economy after it was basically destroyed after World War 1, both revolutions, and the long, hard years of the civil war. He tried to accomplish this by doing many things, and started with the government. First they came up with something called the Supreme Soviet which gave all the citizens 18 and older, the right to vote. This helped because it allowed more people to be involved and gave people an opportunity to put their input. Which was illusionary. Also, Lenin tried to create a new government which brought a lot of the old Russian Empire in the Soviet Union together. He was able to succeed in some things, but after he retreated from policy of war communism, this almost brought down the entire economy to an end. After this, things began to go in the opposite direction. Peasants refused to work and factories and mines outputs had dropped. But he was able to fix the problems by compromising with capitalism which assisted the Soviet economy to recover. That being said, the lifestyle of the people never improved. Unfortunately, in the year 1924 Lenin died suddenly.

After this, Stalin decided to take over. Before Lenin's death, he did speak his mind about Stalin. He described him as rude and not a good leader. Stalin was a sharp political operator. After becoming the general secretary of a communist party, he decided to take advantage of that position by forming a group of communist officials. He wanted to focus his time on building socialism at home. Stalin was a very violent leader though. Trotsky, who also wanted to be leader but lost to Stalin, fled after being isolated by Stalin. Stalin then sent one of his agents to murder him, and Trotsky was killed. This shows that he was a violent leader. Another one of Stalin's aims was to make the Soviet Union into a modern industrial power. In order to help his wishes to be granted, he came up with something called the five-year plan. This was meant to build a strong industry and to have transportation progress. Later he decided to put everything under government rule. Things did begin to progress but still economy was bad, and wages were low. The food was scarce and workers had little to show for their sacrifices. Stalin killed thousands of peasants after they refused collectivization. They killed animals, destroyed tools, and burned the crops and in return Stalin either sent people to murder them or had them die from overworking. But still Stalin was not satisfied. He feared that rival parties were plotting against him, and to take care of that he created the purge. Although the purge increased his power, it hurt his army which he paid for later when Germany attacked.

Few will deny that Lenin was also a violent leader.

Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili

I expect nobody. But since Socialists were before the revolution hunted by tsarist secret service and/or police, it could be possible when there was a clash. In his complete works on e.g. marxists.org you can check his early books by table of contents. May be he has written something about this.

However, I well know the official propaganda in capitalist states - so I guess you mean the ever and ever repeated so-called "millions Stalin killed" . The revolution itself had only a few dead since only some tsarist staff did shoot. But after the revolution the western Nations had sent military, called the entente, consisting of virtually any western country. They also brought money and created armies of former tsarist military personal and forced, payed and equipped poor people.to fight against the socialist state.

They also found support by former big farmers (Kulaks) mainly but not only in Ukraine - who wanted the "defend their ownership of their farm slaves". They killed the new free farmers who organized themselves in collective farms, burned down their fields and damaged their - new at this time - agricultural machinery. They also organized armies with support of western money. This lead to many killed humans, but of course nobody could count exactly the number.

What remains important: All the millions of deaths of these wars and civil wars (actually class wars) and deaths from hunger due to burned wheat fields were later proclaimed as "killed by Stalin".

This is even now supported by the former corrupt alcoholic leaders of the USSR who decided to turn to capitalism and became millionaires or billionaires now - at the cost of their people. To justify and cover the true reasons of this turn to capitalism, they also complain about Stalin.

Politically, Leon Trotsky was Stalin's greatest enemy, because after Vladimir Lenin's death, Trotsky was supposed to succeed Lenin. Stalin managed to eliminate him as a rival for power, exile him and eventually have him murdered.

Militarily, Adolf Hitler was his greatest enemy, because Hitler had the German Army attack Russia in World War 2. The German Army nearly defeated the Soviet Union. Stalin might have been thrown out of power had Germany won.

Once Hitler broke the treaty with Stalin, the Germans invaded Russia. Russian forces, with the help from Russia's terrible winter weather, eventually drove the Germans back, with great loss of life on both sides.

Stalin created puppet states in Eastern Europe to expand the power of the USSR. It also enabled the Soviet Union to take advantage of these nations' natural resources and their industries. The idea that he created the socalled Soviet bloc to protect the USSR from Western Europe and the US, is a convenient way to rationalize his method of imperialism. And, the idea that by controlling the nations of Eastern Europe, he prevented the creation of an anti-Soviet alliance that could become a threat to the USSR falls into the excuse for imperialism stated earlier.

In terms of measuring the validity of the Soviet imperialism argument for Stalin's aggression is fairly easy. For all practical purposes, there is no evidence that the populations of Western Europe made any mass movements into Eastern Europe to be protected from Western imperialism. Quite the opposite, people in these puppet states risked their lives to escape from Eastern Europe, or stage revolutions, such as Hungary did in the mid 1950's.

While Lenin was disabled from strokes, Joseph Stalin, Grigori Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev ran the country through the structure of the Communist Party. This continued after Lenin died in 1924. Stalin was General Secretary of the Communist Party and began placing people loyal to him in important posts in government and on the Central Committee of the Party. He eliminated Leon Trotsky, Lenin's choice for his successor), had him expelled from the Party then from the country.

Over the next few years, Stalin isolated Zinoviev and Kamenev and had them expelled and eventually executed. By 1929, he was the only one left with any power in the government although he was still subject to being removed by vote of the Politburo of the Central Committee. By about 1932, he had enough of his men on the Politburo that he could do almost as he pleased without worrying about being removed. That is when he became the dictator that he is known for.

I'm not sure if Mussolini and Stalin really had any relations. But nationalism is nationalism, so if they did ever meet, they wouldn't disagree about nationalism. But they would disagree about everything else because one of them was Far-Right Winger the other being a far-Left Winger

Joseph Stalin was beaten as a child by his drunken father. He also fell ill with small pox when he was six, leaving him with permenant marks on his face and leaving his left arm stiff. This caused him to be saved from the draft into the Russian army in 1916. Other than that, he attended Tiflis Theological Seminary where he discovered Marxist ideas and writings.

Stalin originaly came from Georgia, south of Russia. His real name was Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Stalin was in trining to become a priest, however he rejected this idea. His mother wished him to become a priest as it would elevate him from his lowly postion in life. Stalin become involved in anti-tzarist movements, which earned him 3 year stint in Siberia, which held many prisoners, political and criminal. It was during this time he changed his name to Stalin, which means 'Man of steel' or 'Steel' in Russian.

Stalin used a number of tactics to gain control of the communist party: exploiting his opponents and their weaknesses; gathering a power base while party secretary under Lenin; and manipulating other party members by playing them against each other; controling the press apparatus.

After Lenin's death, it was clear that the leadership race was between Stalin & Trotsky (a leading bolshevik, popular and powerful from before and through the revolution). The majority of people favoured a collective leadership or rule by committee, fearing a 'dictator' would emerge. THeir biggest fear was not Stalin, but Trotsky who was viewed as arrogant and had an imperial manner that seemed to show a conviction that he knew what direction of the party should take.

Party members were also worried about the unity of the party and how any divisions would tear both the party and the country apart again. Stalin seemed the lesser of evils to many party stalwarts.

Another main issue with the leadership of the party was that of NEP (new economic policy) and the industrialisation debate. The left of the party, including opposition in Trotsky, Zinoviev & Kamenev wanted to end NEP and go for rapid industrialisation.

The right wing, such as Bukharin wanted to continue with NEP and encourage the peasants to become richer and spend money on consumer goods, allowing industry to grow at a normal rate.

It is argued that Stalin became party leader because of his central views that looked after both sides' opinion. He was a bit of a oportunist, changing his views depending on public opinion, which helped build up support for him from a variety of areas.

Stalin's ability as a co-ordinator allowed him to build his power base. He had access to the innerworkings of the party as the party secretary, a job seen as unimportant. But this seemingly insignificant job gave him control of the politburo (communist top body) - he drew up agendas, giving him power to control discussions and information members received. Basically by controling the flow of information, he was able to isolate his enemies and funnel more powers and information to his own supporters.

His positions in the Orgburo and the Secretariat, which gave him control of appointments to positions of responsibility in the party structure, allowed Stalin to move his supporters into key positions, thus further consolidating his powerbase. These people included party secretaries at regional level and party secretaries elsewhere, such as in the Ukraine, who were powerful enough to decide how lower level party members voted.

Stalin's control of the party organisation meant he could influence the section of delegates sent to annual party congress where major issues of policy were discussed. He could pack congress with his supporters, meaning Trotsky received a hostile reception at conferences from 1924 onwards. Stalin also had control of the party membership; this allowed him to get rid of radical elements - students and soldiers - who were likely to support Trotsky.

Stalin aimed to encourage young urban workers and poorly educated ex-peasants, for whom Stalin's practical policies on nationalism appealed. This large powerbase - spread out over Russia, helped to ensure Stalin's supporters far out numbered his opponents. Trotsky found himself isolated and supported by the red army only.

Stalin was also the master manipulator when it came to public opinion. He was quite devious in his ability to manouver better press coverage and further isolate his enemies. A good example of this was when Stalin persuaded Trotsky to not show up for Lenin's funeral, damaging his political prestige and reputation. Lenin was seen as the father of the revolution, and by not appearing at the funeral, Trotsky appeared to be insulting Lenin's legacy. By controlling the press, Stalin controlled public opinion.

He launched the first in a series of five-year plans to modernize agriculture and build new industries from the ground up.

Joseph Stalin's reign as supreme leader of the USSR ended upon his death on 5 March 1953. His death was a result of a major stroke on 1 March 1953 which brought his death in the next few days. Later analysis in 2003 suggests Stalin had ingested a powerful rat poison, warfarin, that predisposes the victim to a hemorrhagic stroke which sums up his death as a possible murder.

The Eastern Front of the European Theater.