VCE History Area of Study 1: Ideology & Conflict: Leading to War: FDR vs Josef Stalin

Democrat Franklin Delano Roosevelt led the nation through the Second World War. Roosevelt built a powerful wartime coalition with Britain and the Soviet Union, and led the nation to victory against Nazi Germany. His wartime efforts prepared the path for his successor, Harry Truman, to win the war against Japan four months after his death. He was elected to the presidency four times, serving from March 1933 until his death in office in April 1945.

During the quarter of a century preceding his death, the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin probably exercised greater political power than any other figure in history. Stalin industrialized the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, forcibly collectivized its agriculture, consolidated his position by intensive police terror, helped to defeat Germany in 1941–45, and extended Soviet controls to include a belt of eastern European states.