As one of the most vicious eras in the Soviet Union, the rule of Joseph Stalin negatively impacted his people and radically changed the country's economy. Today's lesson focused on Stalin's rule, including his rise, five-year plans, purges and policies, and his death. With his forced industrialization of Russia, Stalin looked to expand Soviet influence outward into territory the Russian Empire had lost after WWI. Soon after Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler, he annexed Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia and invaded Eastern Poland and parts of Romania. He also invaded Finland. However, when Hitler broke the pact and invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, Stalin allied with the British and French, and later the Americans. As a result, Stalin had a seat at the negotiating table with American President Franklin D. Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in deciding the makeup of post-war Europe. Through keen negotiating skills, Stalin expanded the Soviet Union when the Western countries recognized Soviet possession of the states Stalin had annexed and invaded during the chaos of WWII. Additionally, the Soviet Union gained control of several Eastern European states which Stalin claimed it needed as a buffer from future central European aggression. After WWII, Stalin continued to hold an iron grip on power in the Soviet Union and encouraged the growth of communism elsewhere, especially in the Korean peninsula. Imprisonment and exile in the Soviet Union became even more common than it had been before the war, as Stalin became more and more paranoid of Western invasion. He died in 1953; he was 74 years old.