Stalin achieved a successful revolution within the USSR but at a price

After Lenin’s death in 1924, Joseph Stalin gradually rose to power by marginalising his opponents. General Secretary of the Communist Party since 1922, he became the leader of the USSR in 1928. A dictatorial regime is established, imposing economical, political and social changes, in order to revolutionise the USSR.

Stalin decided that he would use his control over the country to increase production. The New Economical Policy (NEP) was abandoned in 1928, and Stalin replaced it with the first of his two Five Year Plans. Industries were collectivised, banning the possession of businesses. The first Five Year Plan introduced in 1928, concentrated on the development of iron and steel, machine-tools, electric power and transport to industrialise the USSR. Workers were indoctrinated by the propaganda of the Stakhanoviste model, with the aim of increasing their work.

Lenin’s New Economic Policy of 1921 allowed farmers and peasants to make private profit in their production (known as kulaks). However, in 1929 Stalin starts the collectivization of lands. Peasants are forced to enter co-operative agriculture: kolkhozy. According to Stalin, the replacement of individual peasant farms by kolkhozy would immediately increase the food supply for urban populations, the supply of raw materials for processing industry, and agricultural exports. This economic change dissatisfied many kulaks (who had become richer peasants) and left poorer peasants unhappy as well. Over two million peasants opposed to the establishment of collective farms were deported between 1929 and 1930. Those peasants who were accused of individualistic tendencies were sent to Gulags. Large numbers of Caucasians, Kazakhs, Kirghiz, Moldovians, Ukrainians and Uzbeks fell into this category. Any kind of opposition to the Stalinist dictatorship was arrested. The Great Purge (1936-1938) allowed Stalin to get rid of all the leaders of