7 The 100 Most Influential World Leaders of All Time 7number of people in the arts, academic, and legal worlds,
and foreign communists on Soviet soil.
Role in World War II
In August 1939, Stalin concluded a pact with Adolf Hitler,
which encouraged the German dictator to attack Poland
and begin World War II. Stalin annexed eastern Poland,
Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and parts of Romania; he also
attacked Finland and extorted territorial concessions. In
May 1941 Stalin recognized the growing danger of a German
attack on the Soviet Union by appointing himself chair-
man of the Council of People’s Commissars or head of the
government, his first governmental office since 1923.
Stalin’s prewar measures were exposed as incompetent
by the German blitzkrieg that surged deep into Soviet ter-
ritory after Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union of June 22,
- Stalin allied with the United States and the United
Kingdom and took control of military operations, direct-
ing the Soviet armies as they repulsed the German invaders
and occupied the eastern European lands. When the
Germans threatened Moscow in the winter of 1941, he
remained in the capital, helping to organize a great counter-
offensive. The Battle of Stalingrad, in the following winter,
and the Battle of Kursk, in the summer of 1943, were also
won by the Soviet army under Stalin’s direction, turning
the tide of invasion against the Germans, who capitulated
in May 1945.
Stalin participated in high-level Allied meetings,
including those of the Big Three with British prime min-
ister Winston Churchill and U.S. president Franklin D.
Roosevelt at Tehrān (1943) and Yalta (1945). A formidable
negotiator, he outwitted these statesmen, extracting great
concessions for the Soviet Union. After the war, Stalin
imposed on eastern Europe a new kind of colonial control