Rise of the Soviet Union
Overview
Statewide Dual Credit Modern World History: Unit 14, Lesson 2
A discussion of the beginning of the Soviet Union including Joseph Stalin, a brutal dictator who pursued rapid industrialization, military expansion, and the suppression of dissent through the Great Purge.
Hitler’s lebensraum plans brought him into conflict with the Soviet Union. In October 1917, Vladimir Ilyich Lenin’s Bolshevik forces overthrew the government of Czar Nicholas II. Executing the Czar and his family, the revolutionaries announced the creation of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, the first Communist state in the world. As secretary general of the Central Committee of the Communist Party, Lenin signed a humiliating peace treaty, surrendered territory to Germany, and fought off challenges from Russian military forces still loyal to the old Czarist regime. He also nationalized all aspects of Russia’s economy and began plans to industrialize the nation. In 1924, Lenin suffered a series of strokes and died in office. Joseph Stalin (1870-1953), a Georgian native who had trained to become a priest before becoming a full-time communist revolutionary, became the new leader of the USSR. A bold visionary and brutal dictator, Stalin announced the creation of Russia’s first five- year plan by which industry would be pursued at all costs and private farms would be collectivized. Stalin rapidly increased the size of the Soviet military and instituted a secret police force known as the NKVD to crack down on dissenters. During the Great Purge, which lasted from 1936-1938, Stalin’s agents targeted millions of intellectuals, writers, religious leaders, ethnic minorities and other “enemies of the state.”