List of things Stalin did while in power that made people think of me him as a totalitarian ruler:
- Launched a series of five-year plans intended to transform the Soviet Union from a peasant society into an industrial superpower.
- He expanded the powers of the secret police, encouraged citizens to spy on one another and had millions of people killed or sent to the Gulag system of forced labor camps.
- During the second half of the 1930s, Stalin instituted the Great Purge, a series of campaigns designed to rid the Communist Party, the military and other parts of Soviet society from those he considered a threat.
- Stalin built a cult of personality around himself in the Soviet Union. Soviet history books were rewritten to give him a more prominent role in the revolution and mythologize other aspects of his life. His government also controlled the Soviet media.
- He expanded the powers of the secret police, encouraged citizens to spy on one another and had millions of people killed or sent to the Gulag system of forced labor camps.
- During the second half of the 1930s, Stalin instituted the Great Purge, a series of campaigns designed to rid the Communist Party, the military and other parts of Soviet society from those he considered a threat.
- Stalin built a cult of personality around himself in the Soviet Union. Soviet history books were rewritten to give him a more prominent role in the revolution and mythologize other aspects of his life. His government also controlled the Soviet media.