d.)Stalin was a ruthless dictator who led the Soviet Union after Lenin’s death.
Explanation:
Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, better known as Joseph Stalin was a Soviet dictator, general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union between 1922 and 1952 and president of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union between 1941 and 1953.
He was among the revolutionary Bolsheviks who promoted the October Revolution in Russia in 1917 and later held the position of general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 until the office was formally abolished in 1952. In May 1924 , after the XII Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Stalin asked to be allowed to leave office. This request was unanimously rejected, including its detractors. He again formulated this request three more times, in 1926, 1927 and 1952; All three were rejected and he had to remain in office. While the position of general secretary was officially elective and was not considered as the highest position within the Soviet state, Stalin managed to use it to monopolize more and more power in his hands after the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924 and to gradually suffocate all the opposition groups within the Communist Party.
