Short rise to power
Stalin spent his first years after the revolution building his post as general secretary secretly into the most powerful one in the communist party. After Lenin's death in 1924, a triumvirate of Stalin, Kamenev, and Zinoviev governed against Trotsky (on the left wing of the party) and Bukharin (on the right wing of the party). Soon after, Stalin switched sides and joined with Bukharin. Together, they fought a new opposition of Trotsky, Kamenev, and Zinoviev. By 1928 (the first year of the Five-Year Plans) Stalin's supremacy was complete. From this year, he could be said to have exercised control over the party and the country (although the formailities were not complete until the Great Purges of 1936-1938).
The final stage of Stalin's rise to power was the ordered assassination of Trotsky in Mexico in 1940, where he had lived since 1936 (he was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929.). Indeed, after Trotsky's death only two members of the "Old Bolsheviks" (Lenin's Politburo) remained - Stalin himself and his foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov.
the target for both plan is in the bracket
chart following table gives some idea of what progress was made when the base line figure is 1927 - before the five year plans. The target for both plans is in brackets.
1927 1932 1937 Coal 35 million tons
64 mt (75 mt target)
128 mt (152 mt target) Oil 12 million tons
21 mt (22 mt target) 29 mt (47 mt target) Iron Ore 5 million tons
12 mt (19 mt target) unknown Pig Iron 3 million tons
6 mt (10 mt target) 15 mt (16 mt target) Steel 4 million tons
6 mt (10 mt target) 18 mt (17 mt target)
A World War II era photo of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin (on right) with top aide Viachislav Molotov who helped implement the 1932-33 famine policy in the Ukraine.
To accomplish the first he engineered a famine targeted at Ukrainians who objected to his collectivistic plans. This resulted in the death by starvation of an estimated five to six million people.
thousand people stand at snow to see stalin , he crowds were so dense and chaotic outside that some people were trampled underfoot, others rammed against traffic lights, and some others choked to death. It is estimated that 500 people lost their lives while trying to get a glimpse of Stalin's corpse.
stalin had been leader of the Soviet Union for nearly 30 years. Though he is now considered responsible for the deaths of millions of his own people through famine and purges, when his death was announced to the people of the Soviet Union on March 6, 1953, many wept. He had led them to victory in World War II. He had been their leader, the Father of the Peoples, the Supreme Commander, the Generalissimo.
As ruler of the U.S.S.R. from 1929 to 1953, Joseph Stalin was in charge of Soviet policies during the early phase of the Cold War. Born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili on December 21, 1879, he adopted the name Stalin, which means "Man of Steel," while still a young revolutionary.
