Good Afternoon!!!!
1. NVC
2. Wrap Up Russian Revolution(s)
3. Totalitarianism: The Rise of Stalin
Essential Question: What kind of leader was
Joseph Stalin
• How were the causes and effects of the
February Revolution and October Revolution
similar and different?
Reactions to the Russian Revolution
• Western Europe and U.S.
frightened of the Russian
Revolution and Lenin’s
ideas
• Russian Civil War
– White Army vs. Red Army
• Liberals/Royalists vs.
Lenin’s Marxists
– Britain, France, and U.S.
support White Army
• Lenin’s side wins
– Bolsheviks rename
themselves the
Communist Party
Rise of Stalin
• 1924 Vladimir Lenin dies
• Two possible successors
– Leon Trotsky: moderate
former Menshevik and leader
of the Red Army
– Joseph Stalin: “man of steel”
and General Secretary of
Communist Party
• “Comrade Stalin has
concentrated enormous
power in his hands, and I
am not sure that he always
knows how to use that
power with caution”– Lenin,
1924
• 1928 Stalin has Leon Trotsky
murdered with an ice pick
– rises to absolute power
Totalitarianism
Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would
not let our enemies have guns, why should we
let them have ideas?. –Joseph Stalin
Totalitarianism: no limits on the power of the
government. Controls every aspect of life and
society
Stalin’s Agenda
• Creates a Totalitarian
state
• Five-Year Plans
– Plan for rapid industrialization
• Command Economy
– Government controls and
owns every aspect of the
economy
• Collectivization of land
– government controls all
land and decides how its
used
Human Cost of Totalitarianism
• Famine
– 6-8 million people starve
due to Collectivization
• The Great Purge
– “all bourgeoisie or antisoviet elements” killed
or jailed
– Gulags: prison labor
camps fuel
industrialization
– 1.5 million killed