Red October to Barbarossa

The Soviet Union was formed on 30th December 1922 after five years of civil war. Stalin’s iron fist and his Great Purge gave him unopposed murderous rule over the country, while heroically defeating Hitler’s onslaught on Kursk and Stalingrad between 1941-43 effectively won WWII for the allies, and helped mark out his geopolitical world and power until his death in 1953.