Stalin's Rule

When Joseph Stalin first stepped into the limelight of being Russia's leader, it seemed apparent that something had turned him into a power hungry ruler. Not only did Stalin have extreme determination, but he was, unlike Leon Trotsky and his predecessors, a simple, common man. It is clear that his youth played a major role in his succession to power, but it also molded him into a rebel and an agitator in groups he associated with. After surpassing any rivals, his beliefs, hatred for intellectuals, revolutionizing the Soviet Republic, replacing Lenin's beliefs with his own, and his 'Great Purges' were the result of what Stalin endured in his past.
In his youth, his father, Vissarion, played an immensely large role in Stalin's childhood and "drove from [Stalin's] heard love of God and people and caused him to hate his own father... the position of the Georgian woman (his mother) as a slave in the family, was imprinted upon Joseph for all his life" (Trotsky 210). Although his f...