Roosevelt & Stalin: The Contentious Relationship of the Two Most Powerful Men in the World (1998)
Franklin Delano Roosevelt (/ˈroʊzəvəlt/, his own pronunciation,[1] or /ˈroʊzəvɛlt/) (
January 30,
1882 – April 12,
1945), commonly known by his initials
FDR, was an
American statesman and political leader who served as the
32nd President of the United States.[2] A
Democrat, he won a record four elections and served from
March 1933 to his death in
April 1945. He was a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the
United States during a time of worldwide economic depression and total war. His program for relief, recovery and reform, known as the New
Deal, involved the great expansion of the role of the federal government in the economy. A dominant leader of the
Democratic Party, he built the
New Deal Coalition that united labor unions, big city machines, white ethnics,
African Americans, and rural white
Southerners.
The Coalition realigned
American politics after 1932, creating the
Fifth Party System and defining
American liberalism for the middle third of the
20th century.
Roosevelt was born in 1882 to an old, prominent
Dutch family from upstate
New York. He attended the elite institutions of
Groton School and
Harvard College. In
1905, he married
Eleanor Roosevelt, with whom he had six children. He entered politics in 1910, serving in the
New York State Senate, and then as
Assistant Secretary of the Navy under
President Woodrow Wilson. In
1920, Roosevelt ran for vice president alongside presidential candidate
James M. Cox but the Cox/Roosevelt ticket lost to the
Republican ticket of
Warren Harding and
Calvin Coolidge. Roosevelt was stricken with polio in
1921, which cost him the use of his legs and put his political career on hold for several years. Roosevelt attempted to recover from this illness, and founded a treatment center for people with polio in
Warm Springs, Georgia. After returning to political life by placing
Alfred E. Smith's name into nomination at the
1924 Democratic National Convention, Roosevelt was asked by
Smith to run for
Governor of New York in the
1928 election. Roosevelt served as a reform governor from 1929 to 1932, and promoted the enactment of programs to combat the
Great Depression that occurred during his governorship.
Roosevelt defeated incumbent Republican president
Herbert Hoover in
November 1932, at the depth of the Great Depression.
Energized by his personal victory over polio, FDR used his persistent optimism and activism to renew the national spirit.[3] In his first hundred days in office, which began March 4, 1933, Roosevelt spearheaded major legislation and issued a profusion of executive orders that instituted the New Deal—a variety of programs designed to produce relief (government jobs for the unemployed), recovery (economic growth), and reform (through regulation of
Wall Street, banks and transportation). He created numerous programs to support the unemployed and farmers, and to encourage labor union growth while more closely regulating business and high finance. The repeal of
Prohibition added to his popularity, helping him win reelection by a landslide in 1936. The economy improved rapidly from 1933 to
1937, but then relapsed into a deep recession in 1937–38. The bipartisan
Conservative Coalition that formed in 1937 prevented his packing the
Supreme Court, blocked all proposals for major liberal legislation (apart from a minimum wage law), and abolished many of the relief programs when unemployment practically vanished during
World War II. Most of the regulations on business continued in effect until they ended about
1975–85, except for the regulation of Wall Street by the still existing
Securities and Exchange Commission. Along with several smaller programs, major surviving programs include the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation and
Social Security.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_D._Roosevelt
Joseph Stalin (birth surname: Jughashvili;
18 December 1878[1] – 5
March 1953) was the leader of the
Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in
1953.
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 was one of the seven members of the first Politburo, founded in
1917 in order to manage the
Bolshevik Revolution, alongside
Lenin, Zinoviev,
Kamenev,
Trotsky,
Sokolnikov and Bubnov.[2] Among the
Bolshevik revolutionaries who took part in the
Russian Revolution of 1917, Stalin was appointed General Secretary of the party's Central Committee in
1922. He subsequently managed to consolidate power following the 1924 death of
Vladimir Lenin by suppressing Lenin's criticisms (in the postscript of his testament) and expanding the functions of his role, all the while eliminating any opposition. He remained general secretary until the post was abolished in
1952, concurrently serving as the
Premier of the Soviet Union from
1941 onward.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin