Group+10-+Reign+of+Terror

__The Early Life of Stalin__ On December 18, 1852 in Gori, Georgia, Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili was born, later known as Joseph Stalin. He was the fourth child to very poor peasant parents, but Stalin was the only child to survive. Stalin’s father left his mother when Stalin was v ery young leaving the family to survive of less than they already had. At school, Stalin was always smart and did very well but not socially. Because his family had less money than most the families at his school, he was often bullied. Stalin was very interested in linguistics and literature where he found his nickname Koba, who was the Georgian version of Robin Hood. Stalin received a scholarship allowing him to go to a very good school for post secondary where he would constantly get in trouble for reading books that were banned. He started rebelling and starting protests which he later became the leader of his protest group. Stalin later changed his name to Joseph Stalin because Stalin meant “man of steel” in Russian. He did this to improve his image. Stalin later got expelled from his school (reason unclear) and went on to be arrested numerous times. The whole time, Stalin was very fascinated and engulfed in Vladimir Lenin’s ideology. After the death of Vladimir Lenin, Stalin sided with Bukharin where he was later given control over the party.

__Cult of Personality__ Stalin created a cult of personality around both himself and Lenin in the Soviet Union. A cult of personality is the national obsession of individual loyalty to the leader who is exemplified to the population. This is usually associated with a dictatorship and arises when an individual uses mass media to create an idealized public image. Personality cults were first described in relation to totalitarian regimes that sought to radically alter or transform society according to radical ideas. Stalin’s cult included having towns named after him, creating statues of himself, and rewriting the history books to give him a more significant part in the revolution. In 1929, the media began to build Stalin up as a hero, portraying him as the ‘father of the nation’, who would save the Soviet Union from its enemies. Stalin became associated with this revolutionary transformation, and came to be treated as a guide for the nation, without whom a transformation to a brighter future would be impossible. This has generally been the justification for the personality cult in this totalitarian society. It was easy to manipulate the population into believing this false image of Stalin as most were uneducated.

__Politburo__ The Politburo was the central governing body of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It was made up of the top members of the Central Committee and, in theory, acted as the political bureau of the Central Committee and was subject to the Central Committee. In reality, the Politburo was a self-perpetuating body that served as the executive branch of the Soviet Union, and its decisions had the force of the law. It made all of the major policy decisions as its control extended from the Party to the government. This is because the Party personnel held all key government posts. Under Stalin the processes under which the leadership of the party was determined became an entirely hierarchical matter, with the General Secretary determining the composition of the Central Committee and even that of the Politburo rather than the reverse. The Politburo was formalized to re-establish what would later become the center of political power in the Soviet Union. It ordered the Central Committee to appoint a five-member Politburo to decide on questions too urgent to await full Central Committee deliberation. The original members of the Politburo were L enin, Trotsky, Stalin, Kamenev and Krestinsky. The leading members of the Politburo and, obviously, Lenin, were highly influential in determining the body's composition. This reflected the competing influence of various individuals within the party, their allies within the Politburo and supporters outside of it. Stalin used his power in the Politburo to achieve his aims in Russia, including providing a basis for his purges. His position in the Politburo allowed him to take action quickly while explaining his actions to few, if anyone.

__Secret Police__ The original secret police, the “Cheka”, was created by Feliks Dzerzhinskii in December of 1917. It was created to be a temporary institution which would be cancelled once the power was restored to Vladamir Lenin and the Bolsheviks. The Cheka started out as not having much power but quickly grew to gain power, such as powers of summary justice. This started what was called a campaign of terror against the enemies of Bolshevism and propertied classes. Many Bolsheviks spoke out against the Cheka and did not agree with the overall beliefs. After the Civil War (1918-1921), the Cheka was abolished because the threat of domestic violence was no longer an issue. The powers of the Cheka transferred to the State of Political Directorate in 1922 but this was less powerful than the Cheka had been. Once Joseph Stalin was assigned as party leader, the secret police began to receive more power once again. In 1934, Stalin renamed his group of Secret Police to NKVD (People’s Commissariat for Internal Affairs) which was no longer restricted by law. Stalin used the NKVD to lash out against the party and whatever he disagreed with; giving Stalin total control over what life in the USSR would be like. The NKVD had the power over the labour camps which meant they could basically p ut whoever they wanted into the camps. The NKVD was known as the most powerful and most feared group under Stalin’s control. They would arrest people that were against Stalin such as political figures and would use intense interrogation tactics which would slowly break down the prisoners. The whole point of the interrogations was to get the prisoners to sign a confession that stated that they had been attempting/planning to overthrow Stalin. Many prisoners were taken because they were said to be associated with Leon Trotsky and his plans against Stalin. The greatest example of this would be in 1936 when Stalin appointed [|Nikolai Yezhov] as the head of the NKVD. During this time, the secret police arrested many political leaders that did not agree with Stalin, most of them were executed. This was part of a time known as “The Great Purge”. During WW1, Stalin’s secret police uncovered one of the greatest intelligence coups of the 20th century. They uncovered the Axis battle plans which helped the Soviet Union defeat Hitler and also stole secrets of the U.S. atomic bomb program.

__Stalin’s Control: Purges and Genocide__ Stalin caused mass amounts of chaos and deaths throughout the years that he was dictator. This included Stalin’s genocide, which was caused by Stalin’s command economy; food production was interrupted and caused a widespread famine. This famine was known as “The Soviet Famine of 1932-1933”. Stalin also led a series of campaigns, known as purges, against different political groups. Some of the purges included the purge of The Red Army and Communist Parties. Under Stalin, it is said that tens of millions of individuals were executed/imprisoned in labour camps. The largest purge was known as “The Great Purge”, which took place from 1937-1938; this included all of the Soviet Union and all types of people, not just one race or religion. Stalin’s goal throughout all his purges was to wash out all those that were his enemies. He did this by organizing a number of trials that almost always ended in execution of the person/group being tried. The Great Purge started with the assassination of [|Sergey Kirov] who Stalin had treated very nicely until he discovered that he could not trust him. Sergey Kirov was killed by Leonid Nikolayev who was said to be a young party member that Stalin confirmed was part of a conspiracy with Leon Trotsky. This resulted in the arrest of 16 party leaders that were soon executed. Many more after this incident were arrested and interrogated by Stalin’s secret police, and most were executed soon after. The Communist Party was also a party that was said to be working with Leon Trotsky and in 1937, 21 of the members were put on trial, only three of them were not executed. In 1937, Stalin moved on to the Red Army, saying that they were involved in a conspiracy with Germany. Eight top army leaders were executed; this also included 30,000 men of the armed forced. Stalin’s last step was to kill all those that were either involved or were aware of the purges that took place. [|Lavrenti Beria] was appointed to find all the NKVD leaders who were involved in the purges and to have them executed, and so all senior officers were executed. __ After the death of Stalin __ After the death of Stalin, die d of [|cerebral haemorrhage], Nikita Khrushchev, his successor, started the process of de-Stalinizing the country, getting rid of everything that had to do with Stalin. This meant even moving Stalin’s body from Lenin’s [|Mausoleum] to near the Kremlin walls.

__In your opinion, explain how Russians both loved and feared Stalin?__ During his reign of terror, the Russians both loved and feared Stalin. His cult of personality created respect and admiration amongst the people towards him, and he was given affectionate nicknames such as ‘Uncle Joe’. The majority of the population considered him a hero, completely revolutionizing and industrializing Russia. His five year plans were directly responsible for increased productivity and made Russia a legitimate force following the Great War. However, he was a powerful man, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee and General Secretary of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, and the amount of power he held caused some to be cautious of him. He was a ruthless leader, and in order to accomplish his visions of Russia he killed millions of innocent people. The bloodshed along with his purges caused fear in the citizens of Russia.

__By 1939, USSR was ready for war. The Soviet people paid a heavy price for this growth. Was it worth it?__ During World War II, Hitler and Stalin had designed a pact saying that Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union would be non aggressive toward each other. Nazi Germany broke this pact on June 22, 1941 when Hitler decided to launch [|Operation Barbarossa]. Stalin still believed that even though Hitler had broken the pact he would not attack the Soviet Union. But of course Hitler went ahead and attacked the Soviet Union and by the end of the war the Soviet Union had lost 4.3 million and Germany initially won. Being that the Soviet Union lost so many people, especially after Stalin’s purges against many military figures, it was definitely not worth all the death that proceeded.

__ Bibliography __ "Communist Secret Police: NKVD." // Spartacus Educational - Home Page //. Web. 21 Oct. 2010. . "Secret Police." // Ibiblio.org - Storytelling //. Web. 21 Oct. 2010. [] Minister, The Prime. "The Great Purge under Stalin 1937-38." // BRAMA - Gateway Ukraine //. Web. 21 Oct. 2010. [] "The Great Purge." //Spartacus Educational - Home Page//. Web. 21 Oct. 2010. .

"Stalin Politburo - Google Search." // Google //. Web. 21 Oct. 2010. . DeMarco, Neil. // The World This Century: Working with Evidence //. London: CollinsEducational, 1987. Print.