Page 131 - Olympism in Socialism

Bolsheviks take power, establishing soviets,
repressing their political opponents and
rebellious peasants through Red Terror. By 1922,
the Bolsheviks had emerged victorious, forming
the Soviet Union with the unification of the
Russian, Transcaucasian, Ukrainian and Byelor
ussian republics. The New Economic Policy
(NEP), which was introduced by Lenin, led to a
partial return of a free market and private
property; this resulted in a period of economic
recovery.
Following Lenin's death in 1924, Joseph
Stalin came to power. Stalin suppressed all
political opposition to his rule inside the
Communist Party and inaugurated a command
economy. As a result, the country underwent a
period of rapid industrialization and forced
collectivization, which led to significant economic
growth, but also led to a man-made famine in
1932–1933 and expanded the Gulag labour
camp system originally established in 1918.
Stalin also fomented political paranoia and
conducted the Great Purge to remove his actual
and perceived opponents from the Party through
mass arrests of military leaders, Communist
Party members, and ordinary citizens alike, who
were then sent to correctional labor camps or
sentenced to death.
On 23 August 1939, after unsuccessful
efforts to form an anti-fascist alliance with
Western powers, the Soviets signed the non-
aggression agreement with Nazi Germany. After
the start of World War II, the formally neutral
Soviets invaded and annexed territories of several
Eastern European states, including
eastern Poland and the Baltic states. In June
1941 the Germans invaded, opening the largest
and bloodiest theater of war in history. Soviet war

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