The 1917 communist revolution in Russia inaugurated the first totalitarian
state. The communist leader Vladimir Lenin created the beginnings of a
totalitarian system of control to maintain absolute power. His programs resulted
in civil war, starvation, famine, and the death of millions of Russians. After
the death of Lenin in 1924, Joseph Stalin replaced Lenin as the head of the
Communist Party. Stalin was suspicious, cruel, ruthless and tyrannical. His
efforts to transform the Soviet Union into an industrial power and form
state-run collective farms resulted in the deaths of at least ten million
people. In what became known as the Great Terror, Stalin purged the Communist
Party of real or suspected traitors in the 1930s, ordering the deaths or
imprisonment of up to a million people.
state. The communist leader Vladimir Lenin created the beginnings of a
totalitarian system of control to maintain absolute power. His programs resulted
in civil war, starvation, famine, and the death of millions of Russians. After
the death of Lenin in 1924, Joseph Stalin replaced Lenin as the head of the
Communist Party. Stalin was suspicious, cruel, ruthless and tyrannical. His
efforts to transform the Soviet Union into an industrial power and form
state-run collective farms resulted in the deaths of at least ten million
people. In what became known as the Great Terror, Stalin purged the Communist
Party of real or suspected traitors in the 1930s, ordering the deaths or
imprisonment of up to a million people.