Sam Taylor 10w

1.
Joseph Stalin was born in December 1879 in the peasant village of Gori, Georgia. His given
name was Losif Vissarionvich. Joseph was pretty sick as a child and at the age of seven had
small pox. His left arm was deformed and his face was scarred from the small pox. Joseph
was teased by the other village children and this made him fell small because of this he
began a quest for greatness and respectfulness.
In 1895 Stalin met with Messame Dassy which was an organisation that wanted Georgian
independence from Russia. This is ironic since Stalin took over Georgia as supreme leader of
the soviet union. Some of the members were socialists and introduced Stalin to the works of
both Stalin and Lenin. Stalin joined the group in 1898.
Stalin was forced to leave school in 1898 although he was doing well in school he was forced
to leave for one of two reasons either he didnt have enough money to pay schools fees or
they kicked him out for his socialist views. Stalin joined the social democratic labour party in
1901 where he would work on revolutionary movement.
In 1902 he was exiled to Siberia for being part of a labour strike. Stalin escaped from exile
and was marked by the Tsar secret police as an outlaw
and had to stay in hiding or risk being caught out. He
raised money for revolutionary efforts through
robberies, kidnapping and extortion. The Russian
revolution stared in February 1917 and the Bolshevik
were in control by October of the same year.
In 1922 Stalin was appointed general secretary of
communist party and was leader of Soviet Union in
1929. He then seized land from peasants to create
collective farms and started rapid industrialisation. The
rapid industrialisation was a huge success but cost
millions of lives and a lot of damage to the
environment and the peasants starved and were killed
In forced labour camps.
Stalin signed a nonaggression pact with Hitler in 1939
however Hitler went against this and attacked Russia in June 1941. Stalin was very
distressed about this and hid for several days. The Germans were turned back in 1943 and
then the Soviet Union began helping out Eastern European countries. The war ended on the
2
nd
of September 1945. Post war Stalin did not have a good relationship with the west and
was very suspicious of them.
Stalins health began declining in the early fifties and he died on the 5
th
of March 1953.
Sam Taylor 10w
2.
In 1917 there was the Russian revolution where the Bolsheviks overthrew the Tsar. Since
the Bolsheviks were communist strict control was placed on the economy by the state.
Businesses that were privately owned were placed under strict government control. After
the war Russia did not have reparations to pay however there was damage to Russias
already out dated telegraph lines which made communication very difficult for the
government which was a huge problem. People who worked in factories moved to the
country side so the output of the factories was much less than before the revolution. After
1921 Lenin changed the economic policy to the NEP (new economic policy) to stop the
economy collapsing. Peasants now no longer worked for the government and peasants were
and people were allowed to own business without government control. The NEP years were
the best years for the soviet people.
These conditions did not assist his rise to power because he was not really wanted by the
people. Stalin was tricky and eliminated his rivals to gain a position of total power. The
conditions did not assist his rise to power at all as Russia was going very well with the
Bolsheviks.

3.
Communism is a system of government where property is shared and things are owned and
controlled by the government.
Communism is the solution to the perfect world that rarely works out. Communism is based
around Equality and sharing. The state owns everything and there is no private ownership
and the state owns all businesses. Everyone is middle class the lower class are brought up
and the upper class are brought down as wealth is shared. To achieve communism
revolution must take place to overthrow the government and a dictator or elite lead has to
gain absolute control.
4. Stalin was appointed general secretary of the communist party in 1922. Stalin used his
position as the secretary to manipulate the party. In 1922 Lenin was ill and went into semi-
retirement and wanted Stalin out, however Stalin was secretary so he hid those documents.
Stalin was determined to take control of the communist party after the death of Lenin in
1924. First he started removing people from power he then started arresting people at night
who opposed him. Any of his rivals were executed under false charges. Stalin turned the
Soviet Union from a peasant country to a world superpower.


Sam Taylor 10w
Even though Stalin killed millions of people he still had a lot of people who thought he was a
great leader. Stalin did a lot of good for Russia and the amount of deaths that he caused was
still inexcusable. Under Stalins reign there was free health care, free education, virtually no
unemployment, rights for women, and very fast development of industry. For those reasons
people think that Stalin was a great leader.
5.
Timeline
1901- Joined Russian social democratic labour party.
1905- Met Lenin for the first time.
1912- Named by Lenin to Bolshevik party central committee.
1917- Named commissar of nationalist after Bolshevik revolution.
1922- Appointed general secretary of communist party.
1928- Began five year plan to industrialize the Soviet Union.
1929- Began dictator of the Soviet Union.
1935- Began great purge of communist party members.
1939- Signed non-aggression pact with Germany.
1941- Named himself premier of Soviet Union
1941- Germany attacked soviet Union and Stalin was very distressed.