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Joseph Stalin Rise To Power Essay

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Joseph Stalin Rise To Power Essay
You’re walking home and you notice the color of the sky, gradually getting darker. You pick up your pace and slowly bring your wrist watch up to your face, dreading the result. To your horror, it is 8:54 PM and you are still 10 minutes away from your home. You quicken your pace, remembering the pain you felt when you were beaten last for staying out past curfew. You sprint home and keep your head low, the whole time in fear of being caught. This is is unfortunately, a life lived by many under strict and harsh rulers. It is believed that power is what matters most to a leader , but even more valuable to them is the ability to obtain and maintain this power. It is not initially receiving the power that is difficult, but rather the prolonging …show more content…
Authority is maintained by eliminating new ideas and silencing voices of change. This method of obtainment is seen in the rule of Joseph Stalin . Joseph Stalin was a dictator of the Soviet Union from 1929 to 1953. Throughout the course of his rule, more than a million people died because of his actions. “Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower”.(History. Com) Fear is definitely seen in Stalin’s rise to power. One way he used fear when he rose to power was by the execution of rivals and potential enemies; however, the fear tactics used to maintained his power were far more fatal. Joseph Stalin expanded the powers of the secret police, encouraged citizens to spy and deceive others, and had millions of people sent to labor camps or a system called the “Gulag” system, which were “Concentration camps were created in the Soviet Union shortly after the 1917 revolution”. (Gulag History.com). Another event instituted by Joseph Stalin that showed his totalitarian grip on his people was the institution of the Great Purge, which was a series of campaigns designed to rid the Communist party from anyone that Stalin saw as a threat. His willingness to execute and get rid of those who rivaled him is an example of his method of fear instillation as a way to maintain power, complying with the ideas of Machiavelli in The

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