[Music] in terms of ruthlessness uh bloodlust Stalin remains one of the greatest villains of the 20th century y of jash was born on December 18th 1879 he later changed his name to Stalin meaning Man of Steel Stalin had a very harsh childhood in terms of poverty and he had had a tough life as a young man and was very quickly attracted to radical movements and causes between 1902 and 1913 Stalin was imprisoned eight times by the Russian secret police Stalin's rise to power started after the Russian Revolution of 1917 when the Bolsheviks deposed the Zar
and created a communist Society Lenin died in 1924 and there was a big struggle about the succession of Lenin Stalin eventually took over in a very complex maneuver that really showed his master skills as a manipulator of men under Sal Russia became the second largest industrial economy in the world it was all planned economy's 5year plans and if you didn't play by his rules you went off to a labor camp and or you were sarily executed in in some fashion 3 million kulaks died as a result of Stalin's policies in the early 19 1930s now
he did increase the amount of food that was being produced but at what cost during what many historians term Stalin's reign of terror no one was safe from his ambition his forced industrialization led to countless millions of deaths and the worst man-made famine in human history just before World War II Hitler and Stalin signed a non-aggression pact that fell apart uh in June of 1941 when Hitler invaded the Soviet Union when the Germans turned and began to invade Russia they underestimated Joe Stalin the siege of salr was so great there was no food on either
side so the German soldiers would give little children who were residents of Stalingrad a crust of bread if they would fill their cantens from the boo River and as the children came back into Stalin gra they were shot by Stalin snipers that's how he Consolidated his power the most uh feared man in Russia and with very good reason the Soviet Union lost an estimated 20 million people during World War II more than any other Nation during the big three conferences Stalin demanded much of Eastern Europe as compensation Stalin established an iron curtain from the Baltic
to the Adriatic Sea the Soviet Union was a major superpower with the potential of a nuclear Arsenal in 1949 so that meant he had brought the Soviet Union from a minor Regional power in Europe to a global superpower on March 5th 1953 Joseph Stalin died Stalin is regarded by many Russian citizens is a great man they had enormous pride in what he did for their country uh he raised it to a level that it had not been before he was mostly feared he gave us the KGB he gave us the Soviet labor camps he gave
us summary executions we don't know how many people died at his hand in his own country for both reasons that were real and imagin because they did not play by Stalin's rules I think Stalin's image today is increasingly concentrated around his role as one of the greatest mass murderers of the 20th century [Music]
