According to Thoman Carlyle, a "great man" is one who shapes history and affects the course of the future. In the case of Joseph Stalin, dictator of the Soviet Union from 1929-1953, one can perceive that through torment and brutal force, he was able to modernize a nation and oppress his own people.
One can argue that Stalin was a great leader of the 20th century. After all, he took an undeveloped country and molded it into one of the world's greatest industrial and military forces. But, this transformation did not come at a small cost. Stalin was so paranoid that his Communist regime would be ‘crushed' by one of the dominating Capitalist countries of the West that he became obsessed with the mass production of industrial and agricultural machinery, neglecting the production of basic goods needed to sustain human survival. In his mind, getting Russia's industrial sector up to par was more important than producing adequate clothing and household goods. Setting completely absurd......
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