Stalin's Soviet Union
Joseph Stalin was fortunate enough to inherit a government that had already made firearms illegal for most citizens. On April 1, 1918 (before Stalin come to power) firearm registration was introduced. In October that same year, the government ordered the surrender of all firearms, except for members of the Communist Party.
After Lenin died in 1924, Stalin solidified his power and began his reign of terror. He promoted class warfare between farmers, demonized the most successful ones (labeling them Kulaks as a pejorative) if they resisted his confiscation of their land and livestock. Some rebelled, but because all their firearms had been confiscated in years past, they could only fight back with farm tools or similar ineffective weapons. Eventually, the farmers were killed or sent to work on government-run collective farms.
In 1932, Stalin used his control of farms and travel restrictions to manufacture a severe famine that killed millions, while badly-needed food rotted in silos that were guarded by soldiers. Anyone caught hiding food was executed. In spite of the millions dying from starvation, Stalin (with the help of cooperative journalists) was able to convince the rest of the world that the Soviet people were prospering.
Stalin is recognized as one of the most blood-thirsty dictators in history, having killed (officially) 20 million of his own people. Other estimates range much higher, but the population records from that time are incomplete. To give you an idea of how many that is, there are about 20 million people living in the state of Florida today.
