Josef Stalin: Between the Wars
Rise to Power
- Editor of the Pravda the Communist newspaper
- Became the People's Commissar of Nationalities Affairs in 1917 (first government position)
- On April 3, 1922, Stalin was made general secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Russian Communist Party
- Lenin became wary of the power Stalin was amassing
- Lenin died in January 1924 and Stalin governed the party alongside Kamenev and Zinoviev beside Trotsky and Bukharin
- Stalin showed loyalty to Lenin, planning his funeral and making a speech of loyalty towards Lenin; this undermined Trotsky
- Stalin slandered Trotsky
- In 1927 his opponents were expelled from the party
- He did not achieve absolute power until the Great Purge of 1936-38
Changes and the Great Purges
Link to Main Article - on great purges
- Increased intelligence agencies
- Introduced his "Five Years Plan" to industrialize and collectivize Russia (First Five Year Plan and the collectivization of agriculture)
- Worked against Russian Orthodox church
- Initiated the Great Purge of the 1930s to expel opposition and counter-revolutionists from the Communist Party
- Held Moscow Trials to try former senior party leaders who were supposed saboteurs
- Great Purges included terror, deportation, and executions
Josef Stalin