The ideas of Marx and Engels spread through Europe. In Russia, a man named Vladimir Lenin said workers needed a small, organized group to lead a revolution on their behalf. To do this, he formed the Bolshevik Party (later called the Communist Party).
In 1917, a revolution overthrew the emperor of Russia. In the fighting that followed, Lenin’s party took over. Soon, his communist government owned all the land, factories, stores, and businesses in Russia.
The communists in Russia conquered some neighboring countries, too. They called their new empire the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), or Soviet Union for short.
After Lenin died, Joseph Stalin took power in the USSR. He used brutal force to make the Soviet Union into a communist country. Stalin killed, imprisoned, and tortured millions of people. He built a country in which everyone worked for the government. The government made almost all decisions for the people.
HOW DID COMMUNISM SPREAD?
In World War II, the Soviet Union fought on the side that won. When the war ended in 1945, the Soviet Union gained control over most of the countries in Eastern Europe.
In China, meanwhile, a communist leader named Mao Zedong was rising in power. He seized control of his country in 1949. China, with its huge population, became the biggest communist country of all.
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