We leave Soviet Russia now as it surges forward in thee basic areas under the leadership of Joseph Stalin. First, it is collectivizing its agricultural sector in its brutal way. Second, it is beginning a process of heavy industrialization that will place the country back into the category of first-rate military powers. Third, Soviet Russia is developing into a massive totalitarian state, the likes of which is new to world history, but which, along with Nazi Germany, has set the model for state terror ever since. We will come back to Russia in the weeks to come as Stalin’s iron grip on power becomes increasingly extreme. 

In sum, we have come full circle this week. The Russian Revolution began in February 1917 as a popular movement to overthrow an authoritarian monarch. It came to an end in the late 1920s with the concentration of power around a totalitarian dictator. What happens in Soviet Russia, as we will see, deeply influenced the rest of the world. The Soviet Union, some 20% of the world’s inhabitable landmass, spanned two continents and bordered Europe and China, the Middle East, the Balkans, the Pacific Ocean, the Black and Baltic Seas. When there is a political earthquake in Russia, as we will see, it is felt throughout the world.