Stalin's Russia

Josef Stalin was leader of the Soviet Union for 25 years. He was the unlikely successor to Vladimir Lenin when the Communist Party leader died in 1924, but he made the most of his power. Stalin established a murderous political dictatorship which restricted democratic rights and freedoms, unleashed a war against the peasantry and assassinated long-time comrades. But he also oversaw the modernisation of the country, laying the foundations of a highly industrialised system which fundamentally transformed the Soviet Union.  

Without the economic changes of the 1930s, the USSR could not have played such a huge role in the defeat of Nazi Germany in the 1940s. Nor could it have become a nuclear superpower by 1949. This course examines Stalin the man, the system he created, and the legacy he left behind. It considers whether the USSR was a totalitarian dictatorship or some form of socialist state, and it assesses Stalin’s role as one of the most significant political leaders of the 20th century.