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Cold War Essay

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Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, and Gorbachev all had varying degrees of control and success. Stalin had a policy of absolute control, and while the U.S.S.R. became a world power under him, the quality of life throughout the whole country remained low. Khrushchev tried introducing a few reforms, and led the destalinization movement, trying to return to Lenin’s ideals of Communism. He was also an agriculturist, and was expected to increase the agriculture output in Russia by making it more efficient and streamlined. Brezhnev loosens control, and under him the Soviet Union begins to fall, he allows all dissidents to leave, and the Soviet Union is begins losing its power under him. Gorbachev ended the Soviet Union, and its power by allowing states to disband from the Warsaw pact, and free elections to take place. Stalin’s policy of absolute power caused the USSR to thrive while the people living in it to become unhappy, hungry, and have widespread famines. He used a secret police, and wanted to have everything under Government control, while the rest of the world saw him as erratic leader, domestically he was seen as a man to be feared. People being sent to Gulag’s became common, to such an extent it was hard to find someone who did not know anyone in a Gulag. Stalin had all his political opponents killed, and develops the first nuclear bomb for Russia, and has a giant arms race with the US. Under Stalin, the USSR become the first people to send a machine to space, and take over many colonies under the Warsaw Pact. While Stalin had many successful things, he did many things that people domestically hated. He had the Berlin Wall built so no one could leave. He had widespread famines due to wanting to collectivize farming and killing all the rich ones, who worked the hardest, and were the best at their job. Stalin also, led many purges of good generals, and political

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