Joseph Stalin was a Russian political leader, who was the acknowledged leader of the USSR from 1929 until his death in 1953. Stalin helped to covert communism in the USSR from a free revolutionary movement into a severe, bureaucratic governmental system. He helped to turn Russia into a great industrial nation, to defeat Hitler in World War II. After the war he also established communist regimes through Eastern Europe. However he reigned terror and was responsible for the death and deprivation of millions of people.