PRESENTATION OUTLINE
Joseph Stalin was born on December 6 or 18 in 1878. He grew up poor and as an only child. His father was a shoemaker and his mother was a laundress.
Joseph Stalin did well in school and was accepted into a seminary where priests are trained. He soon turned to Marxism. In 1899 he was expelled form missing a number of exams. He then joined the Bolsheviks, a Marxism Social Democratic movement and became a follower of Vladimir Lenin. He became involved in a number of criminal activities.
In between 1902 and 1913 he was arrested 8 times! He escaped prison 7 times and was exiled from Siberia. In prison, Joseph took on the name Stalin, which translates to "Man of Steel".
In his time working with the Bolsheviks, he was awarded seeming less positions in the party. But in reality this gave him the perfect opportunity on who he can trust and who he can't.
After the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924, Stalin worked to out maneuver his opponents to be the leader of the Bolshevik Party. His hard work paid of as he was voted to be the leader. The party then later took control of Russia.
After he became leader he launched a number of 5 year plans to turn Russia from a peasant country to an industrial superpower. This included taking land from farmers, which most refused to do so. Most were shot or exiled form Russia. This also meant forced collectivization from remaining farms. This lead to a wide spread famine in Russia.
The economy did grow as they industrialized farms and grain factories from using the land they took.
He had cities renamed in his honor, and his name was apart of the Soviet Union national anthem. In 1939, the day before WW2 started, Stalin and Adolf Hitler signed a non-aggression pact. He annexed many states such as Lithuania, Estonia, and Latvia, and sent in invasion of Finland. When Hitler broke the pact and invaded Russia, they had much success until they approached the capital Moscow. After Russia's victory there they took back the rest of Russia and invaded Germany, where they met up with the Allies in the german city of Torgau.
As time went on, Stalin still ruled with terror and fear. He even gave permission for North Korea's leader communist leader, Kim II Sung to invade United States supported South Korea. This triggered the Korean War. This lead to 1,355,434 million deaths.
Stalin after WW2 became very paranoid and died on March 5th, 1953, after suffering a stroke. His body was preserved and buried in Lenin's mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square.
After 1961 his body was moved near the Kremlin walls and buried there as part of the de-Stalinization process.
Though many bad things came from his rule, but there was one thing that helped Russia. Women where given an education equal to men. There where given more job opportunities and where even allowed to join the military. The number of women in higher education as a percentage was a total of 28%!
