He first adopted the pseudonym Lenin in December 1901, possibly based on the Siberian River Lena; he often used the fuller pseudonym of N. Lenin, and while the N did not stand for anything, a popular misconception later arose that it represented Nikolai.

When Stalin was twelve, he was seriously injured after having been hit by a phaeton. He was hospitalised in Tiflis for several months, and sustained a lifelong disability to his left arm.

It included the creation of a one-party totalitarian police state; rapid industrialization; the theory of socialism in one country; collectivization of agriculture; intensification of the class struggle under socialism; a cult of personality and subordination of the interests of foreign communist parties to those of …

Socialism in one country (Russian: социализм в отдельно взятой стране, tr. The theory held that given the defeat of all the communist revolutions in Europe in 1917–1923 except for the one in Russia, the Soviet Union should begin to strengthen itself internally.

A communist ideologically committed to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism, Stalin formalised these ideas as Marxism–Leninism while his own policies are known as Stalinism.

In return, Stalin pledged that the Soviet Union would enter the Pacific War three months after the defeat of Germany. Later, at Potsdam, Stalin promised Truman to respect the national unity of Korea, which would be partly occupied by Soviet troops.

German POWs in the USSR The German 6th Army surrendered in the Battle of Stalingrad, 91,000 of the survivors became prisoners of war raising the number to 170,000 in early 1943. As the desperate economic situation in the Soviet Union eased in 1943, the mortality rate in the POW camps sank drastically.

One of the most important reasons for this was poor strategic planning. The Germans had no satisfactory long-term plan for the invasion. They mistakenly assumed that the campaign would be a short one, and that the Soviets would give in after suffering the shock of massive initial defeats.

The German armies eventually captured some five million Soviet Red Army troops….

In May 1945, the Red Army barreled into Berlin and captured the city, the final step in defeating the Third Reich and ending World War II in Europe.