In 1917 Vladimir Lenin came to power establishing a dictatorship under the Bolsheviks. He died in 1924 leaving a fight for the role between head of Military Revolutionary Committee Leon Trotsky and commissar for nationalities and general secretary of the party Joseph Stalin. Lenin had wanted Trotsky as his successor since he didn’t feel Stalin was kind enough for the job, but Stalin was able to manipulate the party and place his supporters in more powerful, crucial places. During this fight for power Trotsky stated that he wanted the Soviet Union to encourage proletarian revolutions around the world while Stalin was more focused on the improvements and developments within the country before looking at the world. This is what really put Stalin over the top. Trotsky fled to Mexico where he was eventually killed. Once in office he threw out Lenin’s policies and dictated everything such as factories and crops. He introduced collectivization where the government owned and operated farms in which peasants pooled their land. Once they became wealthier they started to rebel which didn’t amuse Stalin. He instigated a reign of terror in 1929- 1930 in which about three million were killed. He wanted to have complete power. Stalin executed eight high ranking generals to get rid of Trotsky’s supporters.
There was a big tension between Stalin and Hitler which encouraged Stalin to enter the Spanish Civil War. Molotov – Ribbentrop Pact was a non-aggressive treaty between Nazi Germany and Soviet Union which included how Poland was to be divided among them. The two invaded Poland in 1939 and in 1940 Soviet Union went on to invade Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania. The Soviet Union’s Red Army didn’t do well in the Winter War against Finland causing Hitler to ignore the treaty and invade them. During the beginning the Soviets lost a lot of people and didn’t have good defense. The US had a program called lend-lease which provided the Soviets with planes, tanks, trucks, and other war necessities. They managed to stop the Nazis in December of 1941 outside of Moscow. The Red Army, Soviet Union’s national army, did a counteroffensive in the winter that pushed the Germans back to the outskirts of Moscow. In the Battle of Stalingrad the Soviet Union circled and destroyed a lot of the German army. In the Battle of Kursk the Soviet Union was completely liberated from the Axis occupation. After this they launched an attack on Berlin which pretty much ended WWII in Europe. A lot of Eastern Europe and some of the USSR was destroyed by the Red Army. After Germany’s surrender, the Red Army joined war against Japan as an offensive party. They were the most powerful land army with five million soldiers and more tanks and other artillery than the other countries combined. Vey high death toll.
After WWII Stalin was paranoid about invasions on his border and became sort of an isolationist. He made about one and a half million non-Russian occupant’s leave, most being Muslim and Nazi sympathizers. Other minorities were also force into Siberia. The Soviet Union had less influence because of the U.S.
Allies of the Soviet Union were Great Britain, France, the United States, and China.
Joseph Stalin
Soviet Union in WWII
http://www.sparknotes.com/history/european/interwaryears/section4.rhtml
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_the_Soviet_Union#Interwar_period
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