Who Was Joseph Stalin A Monster

Of all the dictators during the 20th century, Joseph Stalin was the worst, while also being the most effective in the ways that he changed Russia. Nearly everyone would agree that Joseph Stalin was a monster, but he did help Russia in many ways. Before Stalin’s rule, Russia was a poor, peasant country, and he transformed it into an industrialized nation with a strong military. However, Stalin ruled by fear, and killed twice as many people as Hitler did- 50 million estimated deaths- including his own citizens that were supposed to trust and support him. Therefore, while Stalin does have positive attributes, his negative ones strongly overpower those.
Joseph Stalin’s harsh ways began to show at a young age, perhaps because of his rough childhood consisting of …show more content…
Many people complained that the industrialization was too fast, too drastic. The favoritism of workers being paid different salaries created inequality, and the lower paid citizens were unhappy with this, creating tension. Stalin was in charge though, and no one would risk standing up to these changes- if they did, they were killed or arrested. If only that was as bad as it got, though. Stalin’s ways of industrializing Russia went further than simply working people more and playing favorites, though. During this process, Stalin replaced many farms in favor of modernization, causing a large number of peasants and farmers to now be out of work. From the farms that were left, he gave orders to forcibly take all agriculture and crops, no exceptions. Stalin’s men took over the farms, and the farmers no longer owned that land. Maybe this would be a little more justifiable if Stalin had only done this to a small number of people, but he robbed 80% of the population of nearly everything. Some people tried to make an escape, to leave the Union, but Stalin blocked the roads, ruling out that