Joseph Stalin was the leader of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1929 to 1953. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union transformed from a backward agrarian country into an industrial and military superpower. He created a kingdom of terror in his own country, but was able to defeat Nazism.
Childhood and youth
Joseph Stalin was born as Iosib Besarionis dze Dzhugashvili (Russian version: Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili) on December 18 (December 6), 1878 in Gori, a small town in the Tiflis province.
His parents Besarion "Beso" Dzhugashvili and Ekaterina "Keke" (née Geladze) came from families of Orthodox Christian serfs. Beso was a shoemaker who eventually opened his own shoe store, but quickly went broke and had to go to work in a shoe factory. He drank very heavily and made drunken fights.
Yosib was the third child of his parents. His older brothers, Mikhail and George, died in infancy. The father wanted him to follow in his footsteps, but the mother was sure that the son should go to school and get a good education.
Joseph was a weak child. At the age of 7, he contracted smallpox, which left scars on his face for life.
When in 1888 Keke enrolled him in the Gori Theological School, an angry Beso made a drunken brawl, in which not only his wife and son, but also the chief of the city police got it, as a result of which he was forced to leave Gori.
In 1894, fifteen-year-old Joseph graduated from school and entered the Tiflis Theological Seminary. But by the end of the first year, he became an atheist and began to read forbidden literature, he was especially interested in the works of Karl Marx.
In 1898, he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, which was formed to bring together various revolutionary groups. At this time, he read the works of Vladimir Lenin and was very inspired by them.
In 1899, just before the final exam, Joseph had to leave the seminary, ostensibly because he could not pay the fees. However, many believe that he was actually expelled due to his political views, which were directed against the tsarist regime.
Joseph Becomes Stalin
After leaving the seminary, Joseph began to work at the capital's observatory. A reasonably free schedule allowed him to devote enough time to his political activities, which at that time were mainly limited to speeches, demonstrations and the organization of strikes.
When on the night of April 3, 1901, there were mass arrests of the revolutionaries and many of his comrades were detained and sent to prison, Joseph went underground. From that day on, all his further life was devoted to politics.
In October 1901 he moved to Batumi, where he got a job at the Rothschild oil refinery. Here he continued his political activities, organizing a series of strikes, as a result of which several people died. This led to his first arrest on April 8, 1902.
After the verdict of the court, he was sent into exile in the Siberian village of Novaya Uda, where he arrived on the stage on December 9, 1903. It was here, in Siberia, that he chose his new surname - Stalin.
In August 1903, the Social Democratic Labor Party split into two factions, with Vladimir Lenin at the head of the Bolsheviks, and Julius Martov at the head of the Mensheviks. Joseph Vissarionich joined the Bolsheviks and, using false documents, he flees exile.
Reaching Tiflis on January 27, he plunged headlong into party work, organizing strikes, as well as composing and distributing campaign materials. At the same time, Stalin became famous after the robbery of a bank in Tiflis in 1907, as a result of which several people died and 250,000 rubles were stolen (about 3.4 million dollars in the United States)
His organizational skills and ability to persuade people helped him quickly climb the party ladder, and in January 1912 he became a member of the first Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party and was appointed editor-in-chief of Pravda. '
Stalin was arrested six more times and exiled to the Urals several times. In February 1917 in Achinsk, he was drafted into the army, but was discharged for medical reasons.
October Revolution
On his return from another exile to Petrograd on March 12, 1917, Stalin again became the editor-in-chief of Pravda. Initially, he advocated cooperation with the interim government, which came to power after the February Revolution. Later, under the influence of Lenin, Stalin took a more radical position, advocating the seizure of power by the Bolsheviks through an armed uprising.
In April 1917, Stalin was elected to the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) along with Zinoviev, Lenin and Kamenev. When the Bolsheviks came to power in October 1917, Stalin was appointed People's Commissar for Nationalities.
From 1919 to 1923 he served as Minister of State Control. Meanwhile, in 1922, he was appointed General Secretary of the Party Central Committee.
Stalin skillfully used his post of general secretary, weaving intrigues against his rivals and placing his supporters in the most important positions. By the time the old party members realized what had happened, it was already too late.
Stalin at the head of the USSR
When Lenin died of a stroke on January 21, 1924, a power struggle broke out between members of the Politburo. Stalin decided to destroy his potential rivals, accusing them of rapprochement with the capitalist countries and calling them "enemies of the people."
Some, like Trotsky, were sent into exile, where they were later killed, while others were executed without trial. By the late 1920s, Stalin had taken full control of the party.
In 1928, Stalin abolished the NEP and announced a course for the industrialization of the country. This policy led to a huge increase in the production of coal, oil and steel, and very soon the USSR demonstrated colossal economic growth to the whole world.
But in agriculture, Stalin's policy suffered a complete fiasco. The Soviet government nationalized agricultural land and forced the peasants to unite in collective farms. Those who resisted were either shot or sent to concentration camps. Agricultural production began to decline, leading to famine in many regions of the country.
On December 1, 1934, the people's favorite and the head of Leningrad, Sergei Kirov, was killed. This murder was the formal pretext for the start of a big party purge. Stalin systematically cleaned out the opposition forces and in the end was left alone on the political Olympus of the USSR.
Fearing a military coup, Joseph Vissarionich initiated a purge in the ranks of the Soviet military leaders. And to silence the voice of dissidence, he set up a reign of terror in the Soviet Union.
From 1937 to 1938, 700,000 people were executed, many of whom were ordinary workers, peasants, housewives, teachers, priests, musicians and soldiers. And the exact number of those killed in concentration camps is still unknown.
The Second World War
In 1939, before the outbreak of World War II, the Soviet leadership tried to form an alliance with France and England against Germany, but after the failure of negotiations, Molotov signed a non-aggression pact with Ribbentrop. This freed Germany's hands and allowed her to attack Poland, thus starting the Second World War.
On June 22, 1941, German troops treacherously violated the USSR border.
The attack shocked Stalin, but very quickly he pulled himself together and appointed himself Supreme Commander-in-Chief and headed the State Defense Committee.
By December 1941, the Soviet army was organized enough to stop the German forces near Moscow and prevent the capture of Leningrad. The battles of Stalingrad and Kursk, won in 1943, turned the tide of the war, and on May 9, 1945, the Second World War ended with the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Postwar years
When on September 2, 1941, Japan signed the act of surrender, both World War II and World War II ended. Stalin, Churchill and Roosevelt gathered in Yalta to divide zones of influence in the post-war world. From 1945 to 1948, communist governments came to power in the countries of Eastern Europe, thereby creating a buffer zone between the USSR and the West.
Despite his strong international position, Stalin was wary of internal dissent and the drive for change in the population. He was very concerned about the return of the soldiers, who had seen a wide range of consumer goods in Germany, much of which they had captured and brought with them. On his orders, returning Soviet prisoners of war passed through "filtration" camps, in which 2,775,700 people were interrogated to determine whether they were traitors. About half of them were then sent to labor camps. The GULAG labor camp system has been expanded. By January 1953, three percent of the Soviet population was in custody or deportation.
Stalin's health deteriorated, and heart problems forced him to take a two-month vacation in the second half of 1945. He became increasingly worried that senior political and military leaders might try to get rid of him.
In recent years, Stalin became paranoid, and in January 1953 he decided to carry out another purge. But before he could realize his plan, he suddenly died.
Death
On March 1, 1953, security officers found Stalin in a semi-conscious state on the floor in the bedroom of his country house. Doctors diagnosed a stroke. Children, Svetlana and Vasily were summoned to the dacha on March 2; the latter was drunk and yelling angrily at the doctors.
Stalin died on March 5, 1953. An autopsy revealed that he died of a cerebral hemorrhage. It is possible that Stalin was killed, although no hard evidence has yet been found.
Stalin's death was announced on March 6. The body was embalmed and put up for farewell at the Moscow House of Unions for three days. The crowds of people who went to say goodbye to the Leader and Teacher were such that about 100 people died in a crush.
On March 9, a funeral and a sarcophagus with the body of I. V. Stalin was placed in the mausoleum next to V. I. Lenin.
Personal life
On July 16, 1906, Joseph Stalin married Yekaterina Svanidze in St. David's Cathedral. The couple had one son, Yakov, born on March 18, 1907. Alas, shortly after the birth of her son, Catherine fell seriously ill with typhus and died on November 22, 1907.
In 1919, Stalin married a second time. His wife Nadezhda Sergeevna Alilueva bore him two children: Vasily (1921) and Svetlana (1926). On the night of November 9, 1932, Nadezhda shot herself after a quarrel with Stalin at a dinner at Voroshilov's. But it was officially announced that she died after a serious and prolonged illness.
After the death of Nadezhda, Joseph Vissarionich became very close to her sister Evgenia Alliluyeva, some historians believe that they were lovers. There are also unverified rumors that since 1934, he had a close relationship with his housekeeper Valentina Istomina.
Stalin had at least two illegitimate children, although he never admitted it. One of them, Konstantin Kuzakov, taught philosophy at the Leningrad Military Mechanical Institute, but never saw his father. Another, Alexander, was the son of Lydia Pereprigiya; he was brought up, and the family of a fisherman and the Soviet government forced him to sign nondisclosure papers that Stalin was his biological father.
