Objective:I can evaluate how the consequences of WWI and the worldwide depression set the stage for the Russian Revolution.

One of Lenin’s Bolshevik followers was a man who called himself Joseph Stalin.

Stalin means “man of steel.”

The name fit.Like Lenin, Stalin was

intelligent and calculating.

But Stalin was cruder and more vicious than Lenin.

After the Russian civil war, Stalin established himself in the Soviet government.

Remember Lenin died in 1924. Lenin started having strokes in 1922, which caused Lenin to lose power.

Stalin eventually became head of the Communist party, the only political party allowed in the Soviet Union.

He put his friends in key positions of power.

By 1929, Stalin had complete control of the Communist party and the government of the Soviet Union.

Lenin believed that Stalin was a dangerous man. Shortly before he died in 1924, Lenin wrote, “Comrade Stalin…has concentrated enormous power in his hands, and I am not sure that he always knows how to use that power with sufficient caution.”

Stalin Lenin

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Joseph Stalin

Stalin employed ruthless tactics to maintain his power.

He used secret police to spy on citizens.

Phone lines and private mail were monitored.

Children were encouraged to inform school and government authorities about any disloyal actions of their parents.

Military force was used to put down strikes and other protests.

Churches were destroyed, and those who practiced their faith were persecuted.

Schools and universities were used as propaganda tools to promote loyalty to the state.

Millions accuse you of murder!

Under Stalin, the Soviet government took total control over every aspect of public and private life.

This system is called totalitarianism.

All farms still privately owned were seized by the government and reorganized into collective farms.

These collectives were owned and operated by the government.

Formerly independent farmers became employees of the state.

Children are digging up frozen potatoes in the field of a collective farm, 1933

Those who resisted collectivization (the formation of collective farms out of private ones) were killed, tortured, or sent off to prison camps.

To make matters worse, during the 1930s, millions died of starvation because of poor crops and the food shortages that resulted. (Ukraine)

Passers-by no longer pay attention to the corpses of starved peasants on a street in Kharkiv, 1933

Also in the 1930s, Stalin put thousands of people on trial for disloyalty to his government.

These purges of the Communist party, the government, and the military resulted in the execution of many more Soviet citizens.

This is known as the Great Purges.

Factory workers in 1937 vote in favor of the arrest of "Trotskyite spies"

Results of The Great Purge