1893 class table of Gori Religious School including a photo of Stalin. [605], Churchill observed that an "Iron Curtain" had been drawn across Europe, separating the east from the west. The widely covered 1943 Tehran summit saw Allied leaders Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill assemble for the first time. Stalin ruled up until his own death in 1953. [461] On 28 September, Germany and the Soviet Union exchanged some of their newly conquered territories; Germany gained the linguistically Polish-dominated areas of Lublin Province and part of Warsaw Province while the Soviets gained Lithuania. [528] Roosevelt and Churchill also agreed to Stalin's demand that the German city of Knigsberg be declared Soviet territory. According to Montefiore, theirs was "a true love match";[843] Volkogonov suggested that she was "probably the one human being he had really loved". [237] Stalin felt disgraced and increased his antipathy toward Trotsky. Ideologically adhering to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism, he formalised these ideas as MarxismLeninism, while his own policies are called Stalinism. [292] At the 14th Party Congress in December, they launched an attack against Stalin's faction, but it was unsuccessful. Furthermore, Hitler, in contrast to Stalin, was able to add the authority of "spiritual founder" of national socialism to that of party leader. [542], In April 1945, the Red Army seized Berlin, Hitler committed suicide, and Germany surrendered in May. He was good at coercing people. Best known for: Fighting the Germans in WW2 and starting the Cold War. [274] Favouring new Communist Party members from proletarian backgrounds, to the "Old Bolsheviks" who tended to be middle class university graduates,[275] he ensured he had loyalists dispersed across the country's regions. [168] In Lenin's absence, Stalin continued editing Pravda and served as acting leader of the Bolsheviks, overseeing the party's Sixth Congress, which was held covertly. [209] In Tsaritsyn, Stalin commanded the local Cheka branch to execute suspected counter-revolutionaries, sometimes without trial[210] and in contravention of government orders purged the military and food collection agencies of middle-class specialists, some of whom he also executed. [758] After 1932, he favoured holidays in Abkhazia, being a friend of its leader, Nestor Lakoba. He attracted a group of supporters through his classes in socialist theory[46] and co-organised a secret workers' mass meeting for May Day 1900,[47] at which he successfully encouraged many of the men to take strike action. [596] Stalin also tried to maximise Soviet influence on the world stage, unsuccessfully pushing for Libyarecently liberated from Italian occupationto become a Soviet protectorate. [719], Ethnically Georgian,[720] Stalin grew up speaking the Georgian language,[721] and did not begin learning Russian until the age of eight or nine. [24] Stalin faced several severe health problems: An 1884 smallpox infection left him with facial scars;[25] and at age 12 he was seriously injured when he was hit by a phaeton, probably the cause of a lifelong disability in his left arm. [59] Held first in Batumi Prison[60] and then Kutaisi Prison,[61] in mid-1903 he was sentenced to three years of exile in eastern Siberia. [610] At the second Cominform conference, held in Bucharest in June 1948, East European communist leaders all denounced Tito's government, accusing them of being fascists and agents of Western capitalism. He was captured by the German Army and then committed suicide. [372] His relationship with Nadezhda was also strained amid their arguments and her mental health problems. [610] In Czechoslovakia, where the communists did have a level of popular support, they were elected the largest party in 1946. [942], "Stalin" redirects here. [76] He publicly lambasted the "pogroms against Jews and Armenians" as being part of Tsar Nicholas II's attempts to "buttress his despicable throne". "[838] Montefiore described Stalin's favoured types as "young, malleable teenagers or buxom peasant women,"[839] who would be supportive and unchallenging toward him. Stalin promoted MarxismLeninism abroad through the Communist International and supported European anti-fascist movements during the 1930s, particularly in the Spanish Civil War. [413] In May 1933, he released from prison many convicted of minor offences, ordering the security services not to enact further mass arrests and deportations. [668] The Central Committee met on the day of his death, after which Malenkov, Beria, and Khrushchev emerged as the party's dominant figures. [97] There, Mensheviks confronted Stalin about the robbery and voted to expel him from the RSDLP, but he took no notice of them. [424] By late 1937, all remnants of collective leadership were gone from the Politburo, which was controlled entirely by Stalin. [625] The U.S. went to the UN Security Councilwhich the Soviets were boycotting over its refusal to recognise Mao's governmentand secured military support for the South Koreans. [659], Stalin's death was announced on 6 March. Instead, the KMT repressed the Communists and a civil war broke out between the two sides.[308]. [922] In recent years, the government and general public of Russia has been accused of rehabilitating Stalin. Lenin was selected as the leader of the country and the party. [713], Stalin viewed nations as contingent entities which were formed by capitalism and could merge into others. [117], In January 1912, while Stalin was in exile, the first Bolshevik Central Committee was elected at the Prague Conference. [163] This reflected his senior standing in the party at the time.[164]. "[884] In both the Soviet Union and elsewhere he came to be portrayed as an "Oriental despot". Stalin was clever in his tactics to become leader. Stalin's choices of policies (NEP and socialism in one country) During the beginning of the struggle for power after Lenin died Stalin formed an alliance with Zinoviev and Kamenev in 1923, this was purely to keep Trotsky out of power. Biography: Joseph Stalin became leader of the Soviet Union after the founder of the Soviet Union, Vladimir Lenin, died in 1924. [139] According to Montefiore, this was "Stalin's most famous work". [282] Stalin saw Trotsky whom he personally despised[283] as the main obstacle to his dominance within the party. [367] Through the Communist International, Stalin's government exerted a strong influence over Marxist parties elsewhere in the world;[368] initially, Stalin left the running of the organisation largely to Bukharin. [276] Stalin had much contact with young party functionaries,[277] and the desire for promotion led many provincial figures to seek to impress Stalin and gain his favour. [689] He also believed that this proletarian state would need to introduce repressive measures against foreign and domestic "enemies" to ensure the full crushing of the propertied classes,[690] and thus the class war would intensify with the advance of socialism. [660] His body was embalmed,[661] and then placed on display in Moscow's House of Unions for three days. Stalin, under the rules of the Party, was now the de-facto successor of Lenin. [330] Famine broke out in many areas,[331] with the Politburo frequently ordering distribution of emergency food relief to these regions. [534] The Gulag system of forced labour camps was expanded further. 6 December] 1878 [1] - 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. [110] In June, he escaped the village and made it to Kotlas disguised as a woman and from there to Saint Petersburg. [574] Capital punishment was abolished in 1947 but re-instituted in 1950. [528] Stalin was impatient for the UK and U.S. to open up a Western Front to take the pressure off of the East; they eventually did so in mid-1944. [200] Lenin eventually convinced the other senior Bolsheviks of his viewpoint, resulting in signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. [230] Stalin had cautioned against this; he believed that nationalism would lead the Polish working-classes to support their government's war effort. [852] Stalin regarded Vasily as spoiled and often chastised his behaviour; as Stalin's son, Vasily nevertheless was swiftly promoted through the ranks of the Red Army and allowed a lavish lifestyle. [170] Lenin returned to Petrograd and secured a majority in favour of a coup at a meeting of the Central Committee on 10 October. [773] Several historians have seen it as appropriate to follow Lazar Kaganovich's description of there being "several Stalins" as a means of understanding his multi-faceted personality. Stalin in fact respected and liked when this happened. [646] [427], Repressions further intensified in December 1936 and remained at a high level until November 1938, a period known as the Great Purge. [525], In November 1943, Stalin met with Churchill and Roosevelt in Tehran, a location of Stalin's choosing. The first step in Stalin's rise to power was to eliminate his opponent. [262] Lenin accused Stalin of "Great Russian chauvinism"; Stalin accused Lenin of "national liberalism". Fair warning: if the title isn't enough of a clue, there's a lot in this game . [425] There were mass expulsions from the party,[426] with Stalin commanding foreign communist parties to also purge anti-Stalinist elements. [818], Stalin publicly condemned anti-Semitism,[819] although he was repeatedly accused of it. [378] In May 1932, he introduced a system of kolkhoz markets where peasants could trade their surplus produce. [285] Although Zinoviev was concerned about Stalin's growing authority, he rallied behind him at the 13th Congress as a counterweight to Trotsky, who now led a party faction known as the Left Opposition. [458] In August 1939, the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Germany, a non-aggression pact negotiated by Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. [585] While agricultural production stagnated, Stalin focused on a series of major infrastructure projects, including the construction of hydroelectric plants, canals, and railway lines running to the polar north. December 21, 1878 - March 5, 1953. [147] In March 1914, concerned over a potential escape attempt, the authorities moved Stalin to the hamlet of Kureika on the edge of the Arctic Circle. [136] The article was published under the pseudonym "K. Stalin",[139] a name he had used since 1912. [848] They had two biological childrena son, Vasily, and a daughter, Svetlana, and adopted another son, Artyom Sergeev, in 1921. [906] Historian and archival researcher Stephen G. Wheatcroft and Michael Ellman attribute roughly 3million deaths to the Stalinist regime, including executions and deaths from criminal negligence. [375] Stalin's friends noted that he underwent a significant change following her suicide, becoming emotionally harder. [846] Yakov had a daughter, Galina, before fighting for the Red Army in the Second World War. [808] Lenin was his favourite author but he also read, and sometimes appreciated, a great deal of writing by Leon Trotsky and other arch-enemies. Although probably a hoax, the story of "Rosa Kaganovich" was spread by notable Soviet defectors, including Trotsky, who alleged that "Stalin married the sister of Kaganovich, thereby presenting the latter with hopes for a promising future. [737][738] His mustached face was pock-marked from smallpox during childhood; this was airbrushed from published photographs. Stalin promotes an image of himself as a great benevolent leader and hero of the Soviet Union. [593], The U.S. began pushing its interests on every continent, acquiring air force bases in Africa and Asia and ensuring pro-U.S. regimes took power across Latin America. 1922 (29th December) The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was created. [638] He took increasingly long holidays; in 1950 and again in 1951 he spent almost five months on holiday at his Abkhazian dacha. [490] He purged the military command; several high-ranking figures were demoted or reassigned and others were arrested and executed. Stalin's chief ideological hatchet man, Andrey Zhdanov, a secretary of the Central Committee, began a reign of terror in the Soviet artistic and intellectual world; foreign achievements were derided, and the primacy of Russians as inventors and pioneers in practically every field was asserted. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (19221952) and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (19411953). [325] Stalin barred kulaks from joining these collectives. [693] According to Sandle, Stalin was "committed to the creation of a society that was industrialised, collectivised, centrally planned and technologically advanced. [381] In 1936, Nikolai Yezhov became head of the NKVD. [258] Lenin and Stalin argued on the issue of foreign trade; Lenin believed that the Soviet state should have a monopoly on foreign trade, but Stalin supported Grigori Sokolnikov's view that doing so was impractical at that stage. [109] He was eventually sentenced to two years exile in the village of Solvychegodsk, Vologda Province, arriving there in February 1909. [218] The Polish-Soviet War ended on 18 March 1921, when a peace treaty was signed in Riga. [662] The crowds of people coming to view the body were so large and disorganized that about 100 people were killed in the crush. [199] Stalin thought it necessary because unlike Lenin he was unconvinced that Europe was on the verge of proletarian revolution. [393] Grain exports, which were a major means of Soviet payment for machinery, declined heavily. [559] At a banquet held for army commanders, he described the Russian people as "the outstanding nation" and "leading force" within the Soviet Union, the first time that he had unequivocally endorsed the Russians over other Soviet nationalities. [36] Another influential text was Alexander Kazbegi's The Patricide, with Stalin adopting the nickname "Koba" from that of the book's bandit protagonist. [336] In November 1929 Stalin removed him from the Politburo. It sought to provide a guide to leading the country after his death. [287] Stalin built up a retinue of his supporters in the Central Committee,[288] while the Left Opposition were gradually removed from their positions of influence. [124] In July, he arrived at the Siberian village of Narym,[125] where he shared a room with a fellow Bolshevik Yakov Sverdlov. [507] While Red Army generals saw evidence that Hitler would shift efforts south, Stalin considered this to be a flanking move in a renewed effort to take Moscow. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as global superpowers and entered a period of tension, the Cold War. [419] In 1935, he ordered the NKVD to expel suspected counter-revolutionaries from urban areas;[381] in early 1935, over 11,000 were expelled from Leningrad. [937] In December 2010, unknown persons decapitated it and it was destroyed in a bomb attack in 2011. [714] Ultimately he believed that all nations would merge into a single, global human community,[714] and regarded all nations as inherently equal. [386] The 1931 and 1932 harvests had been poor ones because of weather conditions[387] and had followed several years in which lower productivity had resulted in a gradual decline in output. [515] Germany attempted an encirclement attack at Kursk, which was successfully repulsed by the Soviets. [44], In October 1899, Stalin began work as a meteorologist at the Tiflis observatory. [647] In October 1952, Stalin gave an hour and a half speech at the Central Committee plenum. [521] There remained mutual suspicions between Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who were together known as the "Big Three". 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