As Joseph Stalin rose to prominence as the most important political leader in the

New Soviet Union, he carefully cultivated his image as Lenin's most ardent and supportive follower,

and therefore the one best suited to lead the USSR forward after Lenin himself was gone.

This claim was best summed up in a popular slogan of the time, one in which Stalin himself

took great delight. Stalin is the Lenin of today. Welcome to the history of the 20th century.

Thank you. Episode 275.

Stalin is the Lenin of today.

The last time we looked at the Soviet Union, all the way back in episode 235,

we saw how in the five years following Lenin's death,

Joseph Stalin gradually emerged as the most powerful figure in the new Soviet state.

Stalin positioned himself politically as Lenin's closest and most loyal supporter,

even as he undid Lenin's new economic policy,

and reimposed a more centralized command economy under the first five-year plan.

The first five-year plan, and its follow-up, the second five-year plan,

produced impressive gains in industrial production,

Stalin's highest priority,

though they also produced widespread famine and starvation in rural regions.

But the revolution was about more than politics and economics. The revolution also meant to reshape society

by purging it of the poisons of nationalism and religion

and replacing them with education and enlightenment.

One of the great successes of the era was in education.

The new Soviet state built and staffed large numbers of new schools, not only in the cities,

...