Joseph Stalin
Leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 to 1953 / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin[lower-alpha 8] (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili;[lower-alpha 4] 18 December [O.S. 6 December] 1878[1] – 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician, political theorist and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953, ruling as a dictator after consolidating power in the late 1920s. He served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1952, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1941 to 1953. Ideologically adhering to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism, Stalin formalised the state ideology of Marxism–Leninism, while his policies are called Stalinism.
Joseph Stalin | |
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.jpg) Official portrait, 1950 | |
| General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union | |
| In office 3 April 1922 – 16 October 1952[lower-alpha 1] | |
| Preceded by | Vyacheslav Molotov (as Responsible Secretary) |
| Succeeded by | Nikita Khrushchev (as First Secretary) |
| Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union[lower-alpha 2] | |
| In office 6 May 1941 – 5 March 1953 | |
| Preceded by | Vyacheslav Molotov |
| Succeeded by | Georgy Malenkov |
| Minister of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union[lower-alpha 3] | |
| 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[lower-alpha 4] 18 December [O.S. 6 December] 1878[lower-alpha 5] Gori, Tiflis Governorate, Russian Empire (now Georgia) |
| Died | 5 March 1953(1953-03-05) (aged 74) Moscow, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union |
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| Political party | CPSU[lower-alpha 6] (from 1912)
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| Education | Tbilisi Spiritual Seminary |
| Awards | List of awards and honours |
| 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 | |
Born to a poor ethnic Georgian family in Gori in the Russian Empire (now Georgia), Stalin initially trained to become a Russian Orthodox priest before abandoning his studies in 1899 and joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction via robberies, ransom kidnappings, and extortion, and edited its newspaper, Pravda. Repeatedly arrested, he underwent several internal exiles to Siberia. After the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution of 1917 and created a one-party state under the renamed Communist Party, Stalin joined its governing Politburo. He served in the Russian Civil War and the Polish–Soviet War before overseeing the Soviet Union's establishment in 1922 as general secretary, a position which he used to appoint loyalists from the party's growing bureaucracy. During Lenin's illness and after his death in 1924, Stalin formed a ruling triumvirate with Lev Kamenev and Grigory Zinoviev, which broke apart in 1925. Under Stalin, "socialism in one country" became central to the party's ideology, and his rivals (including Leon Trotsky) were expelled or capitulated. In 1928, Stalin broke with the New Economic Policy and launched the first five-year plan, which saw rapid industrialisation and created a highly-centralised command economy. Forced agricultural collectivisation and dekulakisation contributed to severe disruptions in grain production and a famine in 1930–1933 which killed millions. In 1936–1938, Stalin orchestrated the Great Purge, in which more than a million were imprisoned, largely in the Gulag system of forced labour camps, and at least 700,000 executed, including many Old Bolsheviks and Red Army officers.
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, enabling the Soviet invasion of Poland. Germany ended the pact by invading the Soviet Union in 1941, after which Stalin joined the Allies of World War II as one of the Big Three. Despite initial catastrophes, the Soviet military repelled the German invasion and captured Berlin in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. The Soviet Union, which had annexed the Baltic states and gained territories from Finland and Romania during the war, established Soviet-aligned governments in Central and Eastern Europe, emerging as a global superpower and entering the Cold War with the United States. Stalin presided over post-war reconstruction, another major famine in 1946–1947, the first test of a Soviet atomic bomb in 1949, and an antisemitic campaign culminating in the "doctors' plot" in 1952. After Stalin's death in 1953, he was succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev, who denounced his rule and began de-Stalinisation of Soviet society.
Widely considered 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 some popularity (particularly in Russia and his native Georgia) as an economic moderniser and wartime leader who cemented the Soviet Union's status as a superpower. Nevertheless, his regime has been widely described as totalitarian and is condemned by many for overseeing mass political repression, forced labour, resettlements and deportations of ethnic minorities, hundreds of thousands of executions, and famines which killed millions.