Includes video clips of Leningrad, Stalingrad, and D-Day.
Includes video of Stalin celebrating May Day in 1950
Includes pictures of Stalin and important people, places, and events in his life.
Discusses conspiracy theories surrounding Stalin's death
“It is time to finish retreating. Not one step back! Such should now be our main slogan.” – Joseph Stalin
Everyone has read about history’s most important people and events in dense textbooks and classrooms, but words can only say so much. In Charles River Editors’ Interactive Biography series, history comes to life in video and audio, allowing people to experience history through the eyes and ears of the people who were there.
If Adolf Hitler had not inflicted the devastation of World War II upon Europe, it’s quite likely that the West would consider Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) the 20th century’s greatest tyrant. A Bolshevik revolutionary who played a crucial role in the Russian Revolution of 1917 and the establishment of the Soviet Union, Stalin was one of the Communist regime’s earliest leaders and went about consolidating power after the death of Vladimir Lenin, whose final wishes were that Stalin be removed from his post as General Secretary of the Communist Party and not be given the ability to take power.
Of course, Stalin managed to do just that, modernizing the Soviet Union at a breakneck pace on the backs of millions of poor laborers and prisoners. Before World War II, Stalin consolidated his position by frequently purging party leaders (most famously Leon Trotsky) and Red Army leaders, executing hundreds of thousands of people at the least. In one of history’s greatest textbook examples of the idea that the enemy of my enemy is my friend, Stalin’s Soviet Union allied with Britain and the United States to defeat Hitler in Europe, with the worst of the war’s carnage coming on the eastern front during Germany’s invasion of Russia.
By the time Stalin died in 1953, it was written that he “had found Russia working with wooden ploughs and [is] leaving it equipped with atomic piles.” Of course, he was reviled in the West, where it was written, “The names of Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler will forever be linked to the tragic course of European history in the first half of the twentieth century.” An Interactive Biography of Joseph Stalin explores Stalin’s life and work before the Bolshevik Revolution, as well as the crucial role he played in establishing the Soviet Union and turning it into a modern superpower. Along with pictures of important people, places, and events, you will learn about Stalin like you never have before.
