"History of Russia in 100 Minutes" is a crash course for beginners. Here you will find the complete history summarized and retold in simple language with accurate dates, the most relevant names and essential concepts. After finishing the course, you will know:

- The basic characteristics of Russian history in different epochs
- The 54 most important rulers and 106 historical persons in Russian history
- 126 key dates and events in Russian history
- The basic terms and concepts of Russian history

The text is accompanied by numerous online resources:
- 20,000 pictures
- 700 videos
- 3,500 songs
- 100 podcast episodes

All that is available via the smarthistories.com website.


[ Ссылка ]


Narrated by: Sammi Bold
Written by: Tanel Vahisalu
Edited by: Madis Maasing and Kerry Kubilius
Proofread by: Tony Burnett
Graphic Art by: Mehak Zaib Suddle

Video:
"Why We Fight: The Battle of Russia" by Frank Capra, Anatole Litvak (1943)
Footage of Lenin’s Funeral (1924)
“Communism” Coronet Instructional Films (1952)
“Answer to Stalin” by US Information Agency (1948)

Music:
"Tchaikovsky (Part II)" and "Crocodile Ghena's Song" (1995) by J.M.K.E.
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JOSEPH STALIN

Stalin’s reign was a time of great terror, collectivization, and industrialization. It was practically a war against his own people. For two decades the whole society was paralyzed by fear on many levels.

BACKGROUND
After Lenin’s death in 1924, Joseph Stalin used clever conspiracies, as well as murder, to eliminate his rivals one by one. After forcing his main rival, Trotsky, into exile, Stalin finally became the unquestionable ruler of Soviet Union in 1929.

INDUSTRIALIZATION
The massive leap of industrialization was all about making up for Russia’s backwardness, and turning it into an industrial power at the expense of agriculture. The first Five Year Plan (1928-32), was about meeting this objective in only four years. In order to achieve the demands of the government, quotas were introduced, and statistics were often faked.

COLLECTIVIZATION
In the countryside, new state-run collective farms, named kolkhozes, were introduced. People were made to work by force. More prosperous farmers were named kulaks and repressed. The result was the great famine of 1932-33. It was especially harsh in Ukraine, known as the Holodomor. The total death toll was about seven million.

GREAT TERROR
The Great Terror (also known as the Great Purge), campaign was unleashed in 1934, after the assassination of Stalin’s political rival, Sergey Kirov.

The new terror system was organized and carried out by the secret police, OGPU, later NKVD. Under their leaders, Genrikh Yagoda, Nikolay Yezhov, and Lavrenty Beria, people were sent to the Gulag concentration camps.

Stalin’s political rivals, former comrades, and allies, also intelligentsia, doctors and army officers, and some national minorities were prosecuted in the purge trials from 1936. All in all, between six and eight million people were arrested, and around one million of them executed.

RESULTS
Industrialization, at the expense of inexhaustible human resources, may have turned out to be quite successful in terms of industrial development, but it definitely was not a sustainable model in the long run. The total death toll, of Stalin’s reign, is estimated to be at least fifteen million.

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