[598] Within Western countries, Stalin was increasingly portrayed as the "most evil dictator alive" and compared to Hitler. [509] This resulted in the protracted Battle of Stalingrad. He believed that the best way to revive the Soviet economy was to obtain massive reparation payments from Germany. [23] Malenkov also advocated for an agriculture policy that included tax cuts for peasants, increase in the price paid to the Kolkhozes by the state for grains, and incentives for peasants to cultivate their private plots. These twin policies were known as perestroika (literally meaning "reconstruction", though it varies) and glasnost ("openness" and "transparency"), respectively. [200] Lenin eventually convinced the other senior Bolsheviks of his viewpoint, resulting in the signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918.

[903] Twenty six countries officially recognise it under the legal definition of genocide. [565] He ensured that returning Soviet prisoners of war went through "filtration" camps as they arrived in the Soviet Union, in which 2,775,700 were interrogated to determine if they were traitors. [436] Party functionaries readily carried out their commands and sought to ingratiate themselves with Stalin to avoid becoming the victim of the purge. "65 Years Ago, The USSR Murdered Its Greatest Jewish Poets.

[24] These policies were put in place during Malenkov's premiership and duumvirate, but did not meet their objectives and were very expensive, which led Malenkov's influence to decline. [869], Stalin's Soviet Union has been characterised as a totalitarian state,[870] with Stalin its authoritarian leader. [649], On 1 March 1953, Stalin's staff found him semi-conscious on the bedroom floor of his Volynskoe dacha. Why did statlin have his own people killed?

Stalin and Ribbentrop traded toasts on the night of the signing and discussed past hostilities between the countries.

Soon Zhukov was demoted in rank and moved to a lower position in Odessa where his only foes were local Party forces. [27] He joined 600 trainee priests who boarded at the institution. [391] Stalin would not acknowledge that his policies had contributed to the famine,[380] the existence of which was kept secret from foreign observers. Notable people executed by NKVD were removed from the texts as though they never existed. [292] At the 14th Party Congress in December, they launched an attack against Stalin's faction, but it was unsuccessful. At the same time, Malenkov followed Stalin's orders of building several space centers, such as Kapustin Yar near the Volga river and Khrunichev missile center in Moscow. Zhukov had his first heart attack not long after, and Malenkov's concerns about him had largely faded.[13][14].

A Soviet statesman and Communist Party official, Brezhnev was the leader of the Soviet Union for 18 years, a period of internal stability and slow economic decay. Zhdanov's faction said proper ideology trumped science and called for prioritizing political education and ideological purity. On 7 March, Malenkov's name appeared atop the list of secretaries of the Secretariat, confirming that he had succeeded Stalin as the most powerful man in the Soviet Union. Vladimir Lenin was voted the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the Soviet Union (Sovnarkom) on 30 December 1922 by the Congress of Soviets. [885] During Stalin's lifetime, his approved biographies were largely hagiographic in content. [837], Stalin married his first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, in 1906. After a short sojourn in Kazakhstan, he returned to Moscow and kept a low profile for the remainder of his life. [77] Amid the growing violence throughout Georgia he formed further Battle Squads, with the Mensheviks doing the same. [293] Stalin in turn accused Kamenev and Zinoviev of reintroducing factionalism—and thus instability—into the party. In 1948, Stalin ordered an economic blockade of Berlin. While they watched him struggling for his life, he raised his left arm. [338] In 1928, the first five-year plan was launched, its main focus on boosting heavy industry;[339] it was finished a year ahead of schedule, in 1932.

[531], In 1944, the Soviet Union made significant advances across Eastern Europe toward Germany,[532] including Operation Bagration, a massive offensive in the Byelorussian SSR against the German Army Group Centre. [586] Much of this was constructed by prison labour. [312] Many Communists, including in Komsomol, OGPU, and the Red Army, were eager to be rid of the NEP and its market-oriented approach;[313] they had concerns about those who profited from the policy: affluent peasants known as "kulaks" and the small business owners or "Nepmen". The measure aimed at increasing agricultural output through large-scale collective farms, bringing the peasantry under direct political control and making tax collection more efficient.

[644] In 1950, Stalin issued the article "Marxism and Problems of Linguistics", which reflected his interest in questions of Russian nationhood. [229] On 16 July, the Central Committee decided to take the war into Polish territory. Malenkov rose to prominence in the 20s. [376], Within the Soviet Union, there was widespread civic disgruntlement against Stalin's government. Malenkov was born at Orenburg in the Russian Empire. Stalin’s decision to purge the Red Army was dictated by his suspicions that some high-ranking Red Army officials were plotting against him with Germany. [180] Stalin backed Lenin's decision not to form a coalition with the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionary Party, although they did form a coalition government with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries.

[246] On this trip, Stalin met with his son Yakov, and brought him back to Moscow;[247] Nadya had given birth to another of Stalin's sons, Vasily, in March 1921. By 1925, he was entrusted with overseeing the party's records. [439] His motives in doing so have been much debated by historians. Moscow, 1994".

After a short sojourn in Kazakhstan, he returned to Moscow and kept a low profile for the remainder of his life. [352] Aware that the ethnic Russian majority may have concerns about being ruled by a Georgian,[353] he promoted ethnic Russians throughout the state hierarchy and made the Russian language compulsory throughout schools and offices, albeit to be used in tandem with local languages in areas with non-Russian majorities. [689] The new state would then be able to ensure that all citizens had access to work, food, shelter, healthcare, and education, with the wastefulness of capitalism eliminated by a new, standardised economic system. [8] He was their only child to survive past infancy[9] and was nicknamed "Soso", a diminutive of "Ioseb". [453] Between 1940 and 1941 he also purged the military, leaving it with a severe shortage of trained officers when war broke out. In 1961, Malenkov was expelled from the Communist Party and exiled to a remote province of the Soviet Union.

Churchill was concerned that this was the case and unsuccessfully tried to convince the U.S. that the Western Allies should pursue the same goal.

[604] He demanded that war reparations be paid by Germany and its Axis allies Hungary, Romania, and the Slovak Republic. [16] In 1886, they moved into the house of a family friend, Father Christopher Charkviani.