The Regime of Stalin
Gretchen Choe
Ortiz, Alberto
PIB609
23 March 2010
The Regime of Stalin
During the 1900s, a man under the name of Stalin rose to power, making him, contrary to popular belief, the worst dictator in that period. Unlike the infamously renowned Hitler who had attempted to eliminate all the Jews in the 1900s, Stalin made all the wrong decisions from the very start. Before he came to power, he used trickery and guile in order to gain his place at the top. Then, when he found his way to being the ruler of Russia, Stalin remained distant and separated from his people because of his unkempt, disheveled appearance and poor speaking skills – something most great leaders in history cannot do without. Stalin led his country as a terribly paranoid man whose decisions ended up killing millions of people and costing him the war. The only reason his people did not revolt was because Stalin cleverly devised a cult of personality with his propaganda department which allowed the poorly illiterate and misinformed Russians to trust in his false image of perfection. Without any honest means of earning it, Stalin became a totalitarian dictator by the 1930s. Stalin came into this world named as Joseph Dzhugashvili, who was a normal kid that grew up as a hard-working young man. He was born on December 6, 1878 in a small Georgian town of Gorgi from a shoemaker father and a washerwoman mother. However, he had to “[begin] life as a proletarian revolutionary… disadvantaged and unprivileged” (Overy 6). During his childhood, life was rough for him and he ironically started out in the working class. As Stalin continued to attend school, people were amazed by his “remarkable memory” and promoted him to higher leveled schools where he began to learn about the Marxism that began to shape his grim future (Overy 6). Then, when Joseph turned eighteen, he adopted the name Stalin, meaning “man of steel” and became engrossed in his studies until the point he became the tsar’s trusted secretary
Ortiz, Alberto
PIB609
23 March 2010
The Regime of Stalin
During the 1900s, a man under the name of Stalin rose to power, making him, contrary to popular belief, the worst dictator in that period. Unlike the infamously renowned Hitler who had attempted to eliminate all the Jews in the 1900s, Stalin made all the wrong decisions from the very start. Before he came to power, he used trickery and guile in order to gain his place at the top. Then, when he found his way to being the ruler of Russia, Stalin remained distant and separated from his people because of his unkempt, disheveled appearance and poor speaking skills – something most great leaders in history cannot do without. Stalin led his country as a terribly paranoid man whose decisions ended up killing millions of people and costing him the war. The only reason his people did not revolt was because Stalin cleverly devised a cult of personality with his propaganda department which allowed the poorly illiterate and misinformed Russians to trust in his false image of perfection. Without any honest means of earning it, Stalin became a totalitarian dictator by the 1930s. Stalin came into this world named as Joseph Dzhugashvili, who was a normal kid that grew up as a hard-working young man. He was born on December 6, 1878 in a small Georgian town of Gorgi from a shoemaker father and a washerwoman mother. However, he had to “[begin] life as a proletarian revolutionary… disadvantaged and unprivileged” (Overy 6). During his childhood, life was rough for him and he ironically started out in the working class. As Stalin continued to attend school, people were amazed by his “remarkable memory” and promoted him to higher leveled schools where he began to learn about the Marxism that began to shape his grim future (Overy 6). Then, when Joseph turned eighteen, he adopted the name Stalin, meaning “man of steel” and became engrossed in his studies until the point he became the tsar’s trusted secretary
Cited: Gellately, Robert. Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler: The Age of Social Catastrophe. First Edition. New York: Random House. 2007. Print. Kreis, Steven. Home page. 11 October 2006. Web. 26 February 2010. . Overy, Ryan. The Dictators: Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia. First American Edition. Harrisburg: W.W. Norton & Company Inc., 2004. Print. Ryan, James. “Joseph Stalin.” Student Research Center. Great Neck, 2005. Web. 22 February 2010. . Shirer, William L., The Rise and Fall of Adolf Hitler. New York: Random House Inc. 1961. Print. Spielvogel, Jackson J. World History: The Human Odyssey. Lincolnwood, National Textbook Company, 1999. Print. “Ukraine Famine.” Revelations From the Russian Archives. Library of Congress. 4 January 1996. Web. 2 March 2010. Works Consulted Hingley, Ronald Francis. “Stalin, Joseph.” Student Research Center. Ebsco Host, 2010. Web. 27 February 2010. . Kort, Michael. The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union: Russia’s rocky side, from revolutions to Stalin. United States of America: Franklin Watts Inc. 1992. Print.