t millions of Russians in the Gulag, an expansive network of concentration camps that had been developed throughout Siberia and the arctic. (Lord 4). By the time of Stalin's death in 1953, Russia had indeed become something of a global superpower, though at a terrible cost. Under Stalin, at times up to 25,000 peasants a day were dying of starvation, freezing or exhaustion, often due to artificial famines or in forced labor camps (Lord 4).
An invaluable ally to the US and Britain during World War II, the USSR under Stalin was nonetheless a nation that highly antithetical to democracy. Instrumental in defeating the Nazis and, in effect, pulling the West back from the edge of defeat, Stalin had more in common with his Hitler than with Roosevelt and Churchill. Like Hitler, Stalin was a despotic megalomaniac infatuated with an illusory dream of progress. For this dream, some have estimated that by 1953, Stalin's brutality may have ultimately "deprived the Soviet Union of 100 million people who would otherwise have been born in conditions of normality (The Economist)."
Many of the seminal events of the latter half of the 20th century would be foreshadowed in the Soviet Union, in large part due to the legacy of Stalin and his quest for industrialization, progress and modernity. Men in space, open heart surgery, satellitesùthese things were pioneered in the Soviet Union. No matter how history judges Stalin in hindsight, he had, by the time of his death, created a formidable and frightening USSR that commanded respect around the world. Without his efforts, the USSR may never have achieved the prominence that ultimately enabled it to effectively countervail the might of the United States during the Cold War years that would envelop so much of t
...