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Stalin's response to Hitler's invasion was slow and disorganized, especially in the first days of the war. Stalin's response was ineffective because he trusted Hitler. However, Stalin took charge of the situation and changed his military and diplomatic policy that at first slowed the German advance and then stopped it before it reached Moscow in December 1941.

[[How Joseph Stalin became the leader of the Soviet Union|Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin]] ruled over the Soviet Union between 1920 and 1953, acting as the supreme leader of the USSR. Holding the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of the state. Stalin introduced his own highly centralized command economy, launching a period of industrialization and collectivization that resulted in the USSR's rapid transformation from an agrarian society into an industrial global power. Between 1934 and 1939, Stalin mercilessly carried out a series of massive political extra-judicial executions, known as the Great Purge, of major Communist Party and government rival figures as well as many Red Army high commanders without any proper trials - all convicted of alleged treason or considered a threat. These “enemies of the working class” were imprisoned, exiled, sent to forced labor camps or executed, without due process.