In this paper I plan to prove that even though Stalin made improvements in the Russian industrial system, his rule did not benefit Russian society and the Russian people. In order to accomplish this, several questions must be asked. How did Stalin affect Russia's industrial power? How did Stalin try to change Russia's agricultural system? What changes did Stalin make in society? What were Stalin's purges, and who did they effect?

Joseph Vissarionovich Djugashvili was born on December 21, 1879, on the southern slopes of the Caucasus mountains, in the town of Gori. His mother, Ekaterina was the daughter of a peasant who married at fifteen and who lost her first three children at birth. Vissarion, his father, was a self-employed shoemaker who had a violent temper (Marrin 6-7).

Young Djugashvili was small and wiry and had a deeply pitted face from a small pox attack that nearly killed him. He also had blood poisoning in his left arm that was probably caused by Vissarion's beating fists. The arm would stiffen at the elbow joint and wither, making it lame and useless for the rest of his life (Lewis 8; Marrin 8).

He was dedicated to only one pers

Between five and ten million people died from starvation because of the famine (Dmytryshyn 169).

One of the great achievements that Stalin made for the Soviet Union were the Five Year Plans in industry. Russia had not yet had their industrial revolution and were far behind the other powers of the world. Even Stalin said," We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall be crushed." So, that is what Stalin set out to do (Dmytryshyn 158).

Marrin, Albert. Stalin: Russia's Man of Steel. New York: Viking Kestrel, 1988.

Then came the October Revolution and the rise of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Stalin became general secretary of the Bolshevik party's Central Committee. He was also the commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate and the commissar of nationalities (McKay 927; Treadgold 205). After Lenin's, death Stalin gained power by allying himself with the moderates to fight off his rival, Leon Trotsky, who was a radical and another member of the Central Committee. Stalin expelled Trotsky and suppressed his radical followers. Then he turned against his own allies, the moderates. Stalin at last had gained complete control (McKay 927-928).

The kulaks were the well off peasants that opposed collectivization any way they could. The way Stalin dealt with them was to first turn the bedniaks or poor peasants against them offering the bedniaks the kulaks castles and machinery. Then, Stalin had the rest of the kulaks either killed or exiled to the northern or eastern regions of the country. The death toll recorded in the anti-kulak campaign is between three and ten million killed (Treadgold 268; Dmytryshyn 168; Lewis 63).

They were shot by NKVD (secret police) soldiers in NKVD uniform. They shot them from behind, in the back and pushed them into the pit. When that group was finished, they covered the corpses with sand like a layer cake. They got the contents of the next lorry and shot them, and in that way they filled the pit right up to the top . . . people who lived in the villages nearby told us that . . . the earth would breathe. Some people weren't actually dead when they were buried, and the earth breathed and heaved and the blood came through (Lewis 107).

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Approximate Word count = 2629
Approximate Pages = 11 (250 words per page double spaced)