Socialism's spread was inevitable and necessary in this new world due to the exploitation of the working class. With the new machines such as the threshing machine. Workers had to work more and in worse conditions than ever before shown in a quote from Franz Rehbein, The Life of a Farmworker (1911) "The work goes as fast as the thresher's "sweat box" can swallow the grain. The worker must keep up with the machine, he is a slave and becomes part of the machine. Imagine the nonstop howling and groaning of the thresher, and the impenetrable dust that surrounds you, and then you can understand what the threshing machine means for the worker." -Joshua Cole and Carol Symes, Western Civilizations, 667. This increase of work and worsening treatment of the working class made socialism a much more appealing option. Later a branch of socialism would be created by Karl Marx called Marxism. This was a much more radical form in which they believed that the working class needed to revolt out of necessity and that the working class should rule. This ideology would later play a pivotal role in the Russian Revolutions and Bolshevism.

In 1953, Stalin died and in 1956 a new leader named Nikita Khrushchev would replace him. Khrushchev was responsible for the start of "the thaw" of the Soviet Union. He acknowledged how horrific Stalin's era was and began making change in how the government was run. During the thaw many countries in the eastern bloc experienced dramatic changes in government and in some cases revolt and revolutions. Without "the thaw" and Khrushchev I don't think many of the revolts in the 60s like the "Prague Spring" would have happened. Under Stalin's tyranny people were generally too scared to stand against him.

The French Revolution and the secular ideologies that it created would also effect the future Russia. Napoleons conquests in the early 1800s in Europe also would lay out seeds for future ideologies that would eventually include socialism and, by extension, Marxism. Without the French Revolution giving Napoleon a power vacuum that he could take advantage of I don't think that the Russian Revolution in 1917 would have ever happened.

In 1924 Stalin came to power. Stalin was one of the worst dictators of all time, and responsible for millions of deaths. Due to the lack of industrialization in the the 19th century the USSR had fallen behind the western world, and they needed to catch up quickly. In Stalin's own words, "We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or we shall be crushed..." -Joshua Cole and Carol Symes, Western Civilizations, 892. The Five-Year Plan was Stalin's answer, by using forced prison labor from 3.6 million prisoners to rapidly industrialize, many of which were political opponents, petty criminals, and sometimes just the children of bourgeois. This did however work, and the USSR would become rapidly industrialized at the cost of human life. The final stage of Stalin's reign was the "Great Terror" where he would eliminate anyone he perceived as a threat whether that be politically or culturally and would lead to the deaths of an estimated 1 million people. By proclaiming people "enemies of the people" he was able to do whatever he wanted to whoever he wanted. Stalin's era would be a permanent stain on the USSR and future leaders would make attempts to rectify this. On a more controversial note though, without the Five-Year Plan I don't think they would have ever become the superpower that they became after WWII.

Some of the consequences of the USSR were immediate. Wars erupted areas with different ethnicities and religions like Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan. Arguably one of the worst consequences of the USSR was the genocide of Bosnian Muslims in the area that was once Yugoslavia, "Stability was restored, but three years of war had killed more than 200,000 people." -Joshua Cole and Carol Symes, Western Civilizations, 1035. Some of the consequences were less immediate. To this day tensions between the US and Russia are still tense. In the US a fear of communism is still used to this day, despite there being an entire generation of voters that were born after the fall of the USSR. I can only assume that this is due to today's politicians come from the Cold War era. Russia still fights wars with local nations that were once part of the Soviet Union like Georgia in the Russo-Georgian War and most recently in Ukraine. This most recent war in Ukraine and the unified sanctions against Russia by European countries and the US seems to be the start of another Cold War or maybe just a continuation of it.