Global InformationJoseph Stalin information
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Generalissimus Joseph Stalin | |
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 Stalin in 1943 | |
| General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union | |
| In office 3 April 1922 – 16 October 1952[a] | |
| Preceded by | Vyacheslav Molotov (as Responsible Secretary) |
| Succeeded by | Nikita Khrushchev (as First Secretary) |
| Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union[b] | |
| In office 6 May 1941 – 5 March 1953 | |
| First Deputy | Nikolai Voznesensky Vyacheslav Molotov Nikolai Bulganin |
| Preceded by | Vyacheslav Molotov |
| Succeeded by | Georgy Malenkov |
| Minister of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union[c] | |
| In office 19 July 1941 – 3 March 1947 | |
| Premier | Himself |
| Preceded by | Semyon Timoshenko |
| Succeeded by | Nikolai Bulganin |
| People's Commissar for Nationalities of the Russian SFSR | |
| In office 8 November 1917 – 7 July 1923 | |
| Premier | Vladimir Lenin |
| Preceded by | Office established |
| Succeeded by | Office abolished |
| Personal details | |
| Born | Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili[d] 18 December [O.S. 6 December] 1878 Gori, Tiflis Governorate, Russian Empire |
| Died | 5 March 1953 (aged 74) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
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| Political party | CPSU[e] (from 1912)
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| Spouses | Ekaterine Svanidze
(m. 1906; died 1907)Nadezhda Alliluyeva
(m. 1919; died 1932) |
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| Alma mater | Tbilisi Spiritual Seminary |
| Awards | Full list |
| Signature |  |
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| Rank | Generalissimus (from 1945) |
| Commands | Soviet Armed Forces (from 1941) |
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Central institution membership
Other offices held
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Leader of the Soviet Union
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Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin[g][h][i] (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili;[d] 18 December [O.S. 6 December] 1878 – 5 March 1953) was a Soviet revolutionary and politician who was the longest-serving leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922–1952) and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (1941–1953). Stalin initially governed the country as part of a collective leadership before consolidating power to become a dictator by the 1930s. Stalin coined the term Marxism–Leninism to outline his Leninist interpretation of Marxism, also known as Stalinism.
Born into a poor family in Gori in what was then the Russian Empire, Stalin attended the Tbilisi Spiritual Seminary before joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He edited the party's newspaper, Pravda, and raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction as a gangster[5] via robberies, kidnappings and protection rackets. Repeatedly arrested, he underwent several internal exiles to Siberia. After the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution and created a one-party state under the new Communist Party in 1917, Stalin joined its governing Politburo. Serving in the Russian Civil War before overseeing the Soviet Union's establishment in 1922, Stalin assumed leadership over the country following Lenin's death in 1924. Under Stalin, socialism in one country became a central tenet of the party's ideology. As a result of his Five-Year Plans, the country underwent agricultural collectivisation and rapid industrialisation, creating a centralised command economy. Severe disruptions to food production contributed to the famine of 1930–33, including the Asharshylyk in Kazakhstan and the Holodomor in Ukraine. To eradicate those deemed "enemies of the working class", Stalin instituted the Great Purge, in which over a million were imprisoned, largely in the Gulag system of forced labour camps, and at least 700,000 executed between 1934 and 1939. By 1937, he had absolute control over the party and government.
Stalin promoted Marxism–Leninism abroad through the Communist International and supported European anti-fascist movements during the 1930s, particularly in the Spanish Civil War. In 1939, his regime signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, resulting in the Soviet invasion of Poland. Germany ended the pact by invading the Soviet Union in 1941. Despite huge losses, the Soviet Red Army repelled the German invasion and captured Berlin in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. Amid the war, the Soviets annexed the Baltic states and Bessarabia and North Bukovina, subsequently establishing Soviet-aligned governments throughout Central and Eastern Europe and in parts of East Asia. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as global superpowers and entered a period of tension, the Cold War. Stalin presided over the Soviet post-war reconstruction and its development of an atomic bomb in 1949. During these years, the country experienced another major famine and an antisemitic campaign that culminated in the doctors' plot. After Stalin's death in 1953, he was eventually succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev, who subsequently denounced his rule and initiated the de-Stalinisation of Soviet society.
Widely considered to be one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Stalin was the subject of a pervasive personality cult within the international Marxist–Leninist movement, which revered him as a champion of the working class and socialism. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Stalin has retained popularity in Russia and Georgia as a victorious wartime leader who cemented the Soviet Union's status as a leading world power. Conversely, his totalitarian regime has been widely condemned for overseeing mass repression, ethnic cleansing, pervasive censorship, wide-scale deportation, hundreds of thousands of executions, and famines that killed millions.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).
- ^ Montefiore 2007, pp. 365–366.
- ^ Montefiore 2007, p. 366.
- ^ Khlevniuk 2015, p. 189.
- ^ Service 2004, p. 587.
- ^ Sebag Montefiore, Simon (2007). Young Stalin. New York : Alfred A. Knopf. pp. 15, 166. ISBN 978-1-4000-4465-8.