Cj Lessentine, Jon Miskus, Lucy Rolbes

In 1930 Joseph Stalin gained total dictatorial control over the party, the state, and the entire Communist International. Apparently In 1932 his second wife, Nadezhda Alleluyeva, killed herself over Stalin’s dictatorial rule of the party. During World War 2 his first child, Jacob, was taken by German soldiers. In back-to-back five-year plan, the Soviet Union under Stalin began to modernize with great speed. World War 2 brought total destruction to several cities and death to millions of Russian citizens. By the end of Stalin’s life the nation had become an important industrial country in the world (second to the United States). Stalin jailed and executed vast numbers of party members, especially the old revolutionaries and the leading figures in many other areas. Stalin created a new kind of political system characterized by severe police control, strengthening of the government, and personal dictatorship. Stalin also had complete political control with no opposition. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union at the begging of WWII Stalin then assumed formal command of the entire military establishment. His military strategy was not like others during the war. Stalin and the Soviet Union won the war, and emerged as one of the major powers in the world, and managed to bargain for a distribution of the spoils of the war that enlarged its area of domination significantly. On March 5, 1953 Joseph Stalin died of a brain hemorrhage (an abnormal bleeding of the brain). His body was placed in a tomb next to Lenin’s in Red Square in Moscow (Russia’s capital city). After Stalin’s heath he became a controversial figure in the communist world, where appreciation for his great achievements was offset by harsh criticism of his method