Joseph Stalin Accomplishments

If people back in Joseph Stalin’s era described in one word, most people back then would say he was, “horrifying.” Joseph Stalin would be described as a brutal and unforgiving leader. Joseph Stalin would be known as one of the most ruthless and most evil men in the course of world history, but would help Russia and the Soviet Union’s economies. Joseph Stalin was born Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili on December 18, 1878 in the small town of Gori in the European country, Georgia. Georgia at that time was part of the Russian Empire. Stalin was born into poverty, and committed crimes when he grew older. Stalin rose to power after Lenin’s death in 1924. Lenin was a revolutionary who founded the Bolshevik Party. Lenin was also the first leader
He had planned to create the Soviet Union into an industrial superpower country. Stalin did in fact do this, and his industrial movement was massive. He turned a weak, struggling country into one of the world’s most industrialized and powerful country. He introduced the policy of “collectivized” agriculture. Collectivized means that now private land owners were now owned by other people or the state. Now land was taken away from peasants, reducing them to serfs again. A serf is just another word for slave, and in this case, a peasant was now working for a lord. Although Stalin was criticized for this policy, it created an agricultural boom in the Soviet Union. Another big accomplishment of Stalin was that he stopped Hitler from expanding Germany into parts of Russia. Stalin and Hitler had a pact that divided Poland between Russia and Germany, and neither of them would meddle with each other. Hitler broke this pact, and attacked. Stalin had took control over his army, and Stalin successfully stopped the Germans from expanding into Soviet territories ("Accomplishments of Joseph
Of course, anyone against him was doomed to die. Stalin once said, “One death is a tragedy, one million deaths is simply statistic.” Stalin killed around 20 to 60 million people during his reign as dictator ("The 25 Most Evil People in History"). Stalin also initiated the Great Terror (or Great Purge) of 1936-1939 which purged all the old Bolsheviks (Lenin’s former party) that Stalin believed could be threats to his reign. Only those who were totally obedient to him were allowed to live ("Archive | Soviet Leader RSS Feed for This Section"). He tortured, imprisoned, and shot popular people and killed family members of people who honored him like a god. Stalin’s brutality resulted in his wife’s suicide and his son’s death in a concentration camp, as Stalin refused to trade for his life. Stalin even killed those defending his country against Nazis in World War II. Ten million people died from famine because of Stalin’s poor actions. ("The 25 Most Evil People in History"). As a result of his brutal reign, many people found Stalin as an evil man. At the same time, he helped the Soviet Union industrialize and made it one of the most powerful nations on Earth ("Accomplishments of Joseph Stalin"). On the other hand, people praised