ng "forbidden books" such as Marx and Lenin (Lewis 8; Marrin 20). After his expulsion from Tiflis school, Joseph became a revolutionary. He organized strikes and demonstrations at factories and also found ways to gather money for Lenin and the Bolshevik party. He was banished to Siberia six times between the years 1903 and 1917. Each time, he escaped easily, except the last, when he was released because of the February revolution (Lewis 19; Marrin 24). After the death of his first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, Joseph became more cold and tough. He gave the child that his wife bore him to her parents and even chose a new name for himself, Stalin, the Man of Steel (Marrin 26). Then came the October Revolution and the rise of Lenin and the Bolsheviks. Stalin became general secretary of the Bolshevik party's Central Committee. He was also the commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate and the commissar of nationalities (McKay 927; Treadgold 205). After Lenin's, death Stalin gained power by allying himself with the moderates to fight off his rival, Leon Trotsky, who was a radical and another member of the Central Committee. Stalin expelled Trotsky and suppressed his radical followers. Then he turned against his own allies, the moderates. Stalin at last had gained complete control (McKay 927-928). One of the great achievements that Stalin made for the Soviet Union were the Five Year Plans in industry. Russia had not yet had their industrial revolution and were far behind the other powers of the world. Even Stalin said," We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall be crushed." So, that is what Stalin set out to do (Dmytryshyn 158). The First Five Year Plan was adopted in April 1929 by the Sixteenth Party Conference. It's purpose was to increase Russia's industrial production. On December 31, 1932, the First Five Year Plan was declar...
