This was an era of great upheaval, violence and transformation in Russia.   In this topic we will analyse the reasons for the collapse of the Tsarist regime and key events that enabled Lenin and the Bolsheviks to establish the first Communist state in the world.  We then examine how the Bolsheviks consolidated single-party control in the USSR and how Stalin won the power struggle following the death of Lenin in 1924. Stalin's radical economic polices are explored and his use of coercion in purging the Party, the military and in creating a state of Terror.  Stalin's regime led to vast human suffering, but his policies transformed the Soviet Union into an industrialised nation capable of defeating Nazi Germany in the Great Patriotic War.