Joseph Stalin's Official Reign of Terror
Joseph Stalin’s official reign of terror ended with his death in 1953, but the effects of his autocratic rule continued for many years to follow. His lasting hold on the people of the former Soviet Union still lingers in a few brainwashed minds. In the article “Stalin’s Afterlife” and the movie “Russia’s War - Blood Upon the Snow”, Stalin is portrayed as the monster really was and should be remembered as. It said in “Stalin’s Afterlife” that “Stalin’s policies created a holocaust greater than Hitler’s.”, which unbelievably is true. The horror of the crimes Joseph Stalin committed against his own people is appalling. For example, Stalin’s plan for collectivization resulted in the death of twenty million people. The great five-year plan to turn the peasant farmers into one, huge farming community brought on famine, starvation and eventually death to twenty million peasant farmers. Another atrocity that Stalin was responsible for was the forced labor camps known as Gulags. “...the murderous forced labor camps of the Gulag archipelago - victimized tens of millions of innocent men, women, and children for more than 20 years.” Millions of people were sent to the Gulag camps from 1939 through 1953, for the crime of doing absolutely nothing. There were “...eight million souls (a conservative estimate) who languished in Soviet concentration camps every year between 1939 and 1953.” under the horrible conditions at the Gulags. Every year Stalin, in his paranoia sent millions of people off to their deaths. “Russia’s War - Blood Upon the Snow” brought into view a more detailed, personal account of Stalin’s atrocities. People recalling memories they had of what it was like to live under Stalin’s paranoid rule. During his five-year plans to become a more industrialized nation, Stalin had thousands of people forced into building