After Lenin’s death in 1924, Josef Stalin became the leader of the Communist government. Stalin was born Josef Dzhugashvili, but he took the name Stalin, which means “man of steel.” Stalin was one of history’s cruelest leaders.Think Ivan the Terrible cruel. Under Stalin’s rule, the Soviet Union became a totalitarian country. In a totalitarian country, a dictator or a small group of people control every part of the lives of its citizens. Life under Stalin was not fun.
Like Peter the Great, Stalin wanted to modernize his country. Stalin wrote that his goal was to: “...transform our land from an agricultural [farming]
country to an industrial giant.”
He wanted the Soviet Union to catch up with the West (Europe and America). Well, that doesn’t sound too bad.To reach his goal, Stalin began a series of ‘five year plans.’ The government controlled …show more content…
Remember, Lenin had taken land from wealthy landowners and had given the peasants their own small farms. In 1928, Stalin announced that all family farms would be abolished. They would be replaced by collective farms, or large farms worked by hundreds of families. The government expected that these collective farms, with the help of modern technology, would produce more food with fewer workers. The members of the collective farm worked the land together. They owned the machinery together. They divided what the collective farm produced according to the work each had done. The Communists liked the collective farms. The government could control the peasants better on collectives than on millions of small farms. The Communists also thought the family farms were too small and poor to use machinery. On the collective farms people were supposed to have tractors and machines. Fewer people could do more work and produce more food. This would free up people to work in the new mines and