Effects Of Joseph Stalin On 1984 By George Orwell

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In the novel 1984 by George Orwell, the people are oppressed by a tyrannical party system. Even though 1984 was a science fiction novel controlling powers such as dictators exist and have existed throughout history. One such dictator was Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union who kept the people under his rule in an iron fisted regime. Under this regime millions of people were negatively affected. Stalin’s dictatorship lasted from 1929 to 1953; during this time he turned the Soviet Union into an industrial and military superpower. However, he reigned by terror and millions of his own people died (“Joseph Stalin”). In the late 1920’s Joseph Stalin wanted to change the Soviet Union from a peasant society to an industrial superpower through a series of five year plans. His main plan was to force the collectivization of agriculture, in which the government took control over farms. The farmers who refused were murdered or exiled, and this lead to widespread famine, which lead to even more deaths (“Joseph Stalin”). …show more content…
The people who opposed him were killed or sent to forced labor camps called Gulags. During his Great Purge, in the second half of the 1930s, he instituted various campaigns in order to remove those he considered a threat to his regime (“Joseph Stalin”). By 1939 his secret police also known as the NKVD had removed more than one million party members and thirty five thousand high ranking officers during this purge. The country and military was ultimately negatively affected by this during World War II (Rotnem, Thomas