Stalin Power Essay Example for Free

Stalin Power EssayJoseph Stalin, the Man of Steel, is one of the most precedentful dictators in history. Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party and the Soviet Unions sole leader from 1924 until his finale in 1953. Stalin is one of the most controversial figures in Russian history he is still the airfield of fierce discussions. Stalin was a in truth powerful leader who had a huge impact on USSR Stalin consolidated power in the USSR by dint of propaganda, fear and, the five-year plan. Stalins rise to power was methodical and strong. The construction of his image was very well thought of and arranged. Nearly every medium propagandized Stalins image, propaganda was used to build up Stalins image. Like a religious worship, a cult of Stalin was formed. Stalin was like a godlike leader to the people, praised in the newspapers, books and in films, posters and poems. Everything praised his deeds, his skills, his modesty, his experience and his brilliance. Censorship was used to censor anything and everything that might reflect badly on Stalin. Leaving, no one a chance to see the bad side of Stalin, hence having everyone love and praise him.The soviet education brass was geared not to independent thinking but to Stalinist propaganda. Parents taught their children that Stalin was the wisest and greatest. History books and photographs were changed to make him the hero of revolution, and revoke the names of purges people. Stalin gave the people no chance to worship any kind of religious path he did not want the people to have loyalty to anyone but him. Belief in god was replaced by belief in communism and Stalin. Cities and towns were named in his honor. Stalin established and consolidated his power through and through propaganda, thus gaining the love, honor and trust of the majority of the Russian people.However, propaganda alone was not enough to consolidate full power. Stalin was a paranoiac ruler, always feared that political opponents, mi litary officials, even common citizens were plotting against his political position and even his life. Perhaps as self-defense, Stalin was responsible for killing one thousand thousands. Stalin consolidated his power base with the Great spews against his political and ideological opponents. Under the absolutism of Joseph Stalin, tens of millions of ordinary individuals were executed or imprisoned in labor camps, that were little more than death camps. The Purge period of Soviet history can be considered the worst period of the twentieth century. Stalin managed to use purges and power to make people fear him, and therefore back him. Stalin imprisoned and executed anybody who opposed industrialization, and the kulaks who opposed collectivization.Stalin overly arrested thousands of his political opponents, they were put on show trials, where they pleaded guilty to impossible charges of treason. Stalin executed or imprisoned nigh all of the admirals and half the Armys officers. Man y people disappeared including teachers, miners, doctors, and ordinary people. Around 18 million were sent to labor camps, ten million died. Stalins secret police had very effective whirl methods. Many of the accuseds families were excessively killed or tortured in order to provoke confessions. Stalin had succeeded in destroying any sense on independent thinking. Everyone knew that his or her lives depended on thinking exactly as Stalin did. Stalin complaisant power through fear, by using purges and violence to make people fear him and therefore support him, by having anyone who threatened his leadership, killed or murdered.Propaganda and fear are not enough to explain Stalins extraordinary power. No dictator can hope to rule without popular support, and this was also true of Stalin. Power can scarce be acquired and retained by delivering benefits to significant numbers of people. In Stalins case, this was achieved via five-year plans. Collectivization brought mechanization, rat ionalization to the umpteen small plots that peasants worked on and put in place the distribution and supply networks needed to modernize culture and to produce enough grain for export. This system gave Stalin effective control over the entire economy, and thereby the Soviet people. The most effective means of increasing Stalins power was collectivization. This involved the elimination of private possession of agricultural land, and its replacement with a system of state-owned and collectively owned farms.The peasants who worked on these farms were under the control of the Party, which in turn was under the control of Stalin. Collectivization also gave Stalin the opportunity to eliminate large numbers of class enemies, the kulaks, and to steal Party members to wholesale murder. Serious famines resulted, livestock and grain were destroyed and agriculture never set up its potential. Yet most peasants remained grateful to Stalin for giving them a better standard of living. The Five Year Plans were also an essential part of Stalins consolidation of power. Targets were set for coal, iron and electricity production and progress was achieved through propaganda, fear, education, forced labor and socialist competition.Stalin had declared that Russia was at least 100 years behind the industrialize valet and, in setting out to modernize Russia he was symbolically breaking with the past. Stalin consolidated power through the achievements of the fiver year plan new cities, dams and hydroelectric power, farm machinery, coal steel, plastic, education and no unemployment and doctors and medicine were available. For all the problems and hardship caused by the Five Year Plans, by 1941, Stalin had transformed Russia into a world class industrial power. This was to be vital for Russia as the war was about to test her to the extreme.Today the subprogram of Stalin in Russian history is the subject of bitter debate, with a number of Russian history textbooks business him an effective manager and others presenting him as absolute evil dictator. Nevertheless, It can be seen that Stalin succeeded in consolidating power through many factors, mainly from propaganda, fear and terror, and the five-year plan.