joseph stalin biography

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union for more than two decades, instituting a reign of death and terror while modernizing Russia and helping to defeat Nazism.

(1878-1953)

Who Was Joseph Stalin?

On December 18, 1879, in the Russian peasant village of Gori, Georgia, Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili - later known as Joseph Stalin - was born.

The son of Besarion Jughashvili, a cobbler, and Ketevan Geladze, a washerwoman, Stalin was a frail child. At age 7, he contracted smallpox, leaving his face scarred.

A few years later he was injured in a carriage accident which left arm slightly deformed (some accounts state his arm trouble was a result of blood poisoning from the injury).

The other village children treated him cruelly, instilling in him a sense of inferiority. Because of this, Stalin began a quest for greatness and respect. He also developed a cruel streak for those who crossed him.

Stalin's mother, a devout Russian Orthodox Christian , wanted him to become a priest. In 1888, she managed to enroll him in church school in Gori. Stalin did well in school, and his efforts gained him a scholarship to Tiflis Theological Seminary in 1894.

A year later, Stalin came in contact with Messame Dassy, a secret organization that supported Georgian independence from Russia. Some of the members were socialists who introduced him to the writings of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. Stalin joined the group in 1898.

Though he excelled in seminary school, Stalin left in 1899. Accounts differ as to the reason; official school records state he was unable to pay the tuition and withdrew. It's also speculated he was asked to leave due to his political views challenging the tsarist regime of Nicholas II .

Stalin chose not to return home, but stayed in Tiflis, devoting his time to the revolutionary movement. For a time, he found work as a tutor and later as a clerk at the Tiflis Observatory. In 1901, he joined the Social Democratic Labor Party and worked full-time for the revolutionary movement.

Russian Revolution

In 1902, he was arrested for coordinating a labor strike and exiled to Siberia, the first of his many arrests and exiles in the fledgling years of the Russian Revolution . It was during this time that he adopted the name Stalin, meaning "steel" in Russian.

Though never a strong orator like Vladimir Lenin or an intellectual like Leon Trotsky , Stalin excelled in the mundane operations of the revolution, calling meetings, publishing leaflets and organizing strikes and demonstrations.

After escaping from exile, he was marked by the Okhranka, (the tsar's secret police) as an outlaw and continued his work in hiding, raising money through robberies, kidnappings and extortion. Stalin gained infamy being associated with the 1907 Tiflis bank robbery, which resulted in several deaths and 250,000 rubles stolen (approximately $3.4 million in U.S. dollars).

In February 1917, the Russian Revolution began. By March, the tsar had abdicated the throne and was placed under house arrest. For a time, the revolutionaries supported a provisional government, believing a smooth transition of power was possible.

But in April 1917, Bolshevik leader Lenin denounced the provisional government, arguing that the people should rise up and take control by seizing land from the rich and factories from the industrialists. By October, the revolution was complete and the Bolsheviks were in control.

Communist Party Leader

The fledgling Soviet government went through a violent period after the revolution as various individuals vied for position and control.

In 1922, Stalin was appointed to the newly created office of general secretary of the Communist Party. Though not a significant post at the time, it gave Stalin control over all party member appointments, which allowed him to build his base.

He made shrewd appointments and consolidated his power so that eventually nearly all members of the central command owed their position to him. By the time anyone realized what he had done, it was too late. Even Lenin, who was gravely ill, was helpless to regain control from Stalin.

Great Purge

After Lenin's death, in 1924, Stalin set out to destroy the old party leadership and take total control. At first, he had people removed from power through bureaucratic shuffling and denunciations.

Many were exiled abroad to Europe and the Americas, including presumed Lenin successor Leon Trotsky. However, further paranoia set in and Stalin soon conducted a vast reign of terror, having people arrested in the night and put before spectacular show trials.

Potential rivals were accused of aligning with capitalist nations, convicted of being "enemies of the people" and summarily executed. The period known as the Great Purge eventually extended beyond the party elite to local officials suspected of counter-revolutionary activities.

Reform and Famine

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, Stalin reversed the Bolshevik agrarian policy by seizing land given earlier to the peasants and organizing collective farms. This essentially reduced the peasants back to serfs, as they had been during the monarchy.

Stalin believed that collectivism would accelerate food production, but the peasants resented losing their land and working for the state. Millions were killed in forced labor or starved during the ensuing famine.

Stalin also set in motion rapid industrialization that initially achieved huge successes, but over time cost millions of lives and vast damage to the environment. Any resistance was met with swift and lethal response; millions of people were exiled to the labor camps of the Gulag or were executed.

World War II

As war clouds gathered over Europe in 1939, Stalin made a seemingly brilliant move, signing a nonaggression pact with Germany's Adolf Hitler and his Nazi Party.

Stalin was convinced of Hitler's integrity and ignored warnings from his military commanders that Germany was mobilizing armies on its eastern front. When the Nazi blitzkrieg struck in June 1941, the Soviet Army was completely unprepared and immediately suffered massive losses.

Stalin was so distraught at Hitler's treachery that he hid in his office for several days. By the time Stalin regained his resolve, German armies occupied all of the Ukraine and Belarus, and its artillery surrounded Leningrad.

To make matters worse, the purges of the 1930s had depleted the Soviet Army and government leadership to the point where both were nearly dysfunctional. After heroic efforts on the part of the Soviet Army and the Russian people, the Germans were turned back at the Battle of Stalingrad in 1943.

By the next year, the Soviet Army was liberating countries in Eastern Europe, even before the Allies had mounted a serious challenge against Hitler at D-Day .

Stalin and the West

Stalin had been suspicious of the West since the inception of the Soviet Union , and once the Soviet Union had entered the war, Stalin had demanded the Allies open up a second front against Germany.

Both British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt argued that such an action would result in heavy casualties. This only deepened Stalin's suspicion of the West, as millions of Russians died.

As the tide of war slowly turned in the Allies' favor, Roosevelt and Churchill met with Stalin to discuss postwar arrangements. At the first of these meetings, in Tehran, Iran, in late 1943, the recent victory in Stalingrad put Stalin in a solid bargaining position. He demanded the Allies open a second front against Germany, which they agreed to in the spring of 1944.

In February 1945, the three leaders met again at the Yalta Conference in the Crimea. With Soviet troops liberating countries in Eastern Europe, Stalin was again in a strong position and negotiated virtually a free hand in reorganizing their governments. He also agreed to enter the war against Japan once Germany was defeated.

The situation changed at the Potsdam Conference in July 1945. Roosevelt died that April and was replaced by President Harry S. Truman . British parliamentary elections had replaced Prime Minister Churchill with Clement Attlee as Britain's chief negotiator.

By now, the British and Americans were suspicious of Stalin's intentions and wanted to avoid Soviet involvement in a postwar Japan. The dropping of two atomic bombs in August 1945 forced Japan's surrender before the Soviets could mobilize.

Stalin and Foreign Relations

Convinced of the Allies' hostility toward the Soviet Union, Stalin became obsessed with the threat of an invasion from the West. Between 1945 and 1948, he established Communist regimes in many Eastern European countries, creating a vast buffer zone between Western Europe and "Mother Russia."

Western powers interpreted these actions as proof of Stalin's desire to place Europe under Communist control, thus formed the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) to counter Soviet influence.

In 1948, Stalin ordered an economic blockade on the German city of Berlin, in hopes of gaining full control of the city. The Allies responded with the massive Berlin Airlift , supplying the city and eventually forcing Stalin to back down.

Stalin suffered another foreign policy defeat after he encouraged North Korean Communist leader Kim Il Sung to invade South Korea, believing the United States would not interfere.

Earlier, he had ordered the Soviet representative to the United Nations to boycott the Security Council because it refused to accept the newly formed Communist People's Republic of China into the United Nations. When the resolution to support South Korea came to a vote in the Security Council, the Soviet Union was unable to use its veto.

How Many People Did Joseph Stalin Kill?

It's estimated that Stalin killed as many as 20 million people, directly or indirectly, through famine, forced labor camps, collectivization and executions.

Some scholars have argued that Stalin's record of killings amount to genocide and make him one of history's most ruthless mass murderers.

Though his popularity from his successes during World War II was strong, Stalin's health began to deteriorate in the early 1950s. After an assassination plot was uncovered, he ordered the head of the secret police to instigate a new purge of the Communist Party.

Before it could be executed, however, Stalin died on March 5, 1953. He left a legacy of death and horror, even as he turned a backward Russia into a world superpower.

Stalin was eventually denounced by his successor, Nikita Khrushchev , in 1956. However, he has found a rekindled popularity among many of Russia's young people.

QUICK FACTS

• Name: Joseph Stalin
• Birth Year: 1878
• Birth date: December 18, 1878
• Birth City: Gori, Georgia
• Birth Country: Russia
• Gender: Male
• Best Known For: Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union for more than two decades, instituting a reign of death and terror while modernizing Russia and helping to defeat Nazism.
• War and Militaries
• World Politics
• Astrological Sign: Sagittarius
• Tiflis Theological Seminary
• Church school (Gori, Georgia, Russian Empire)
• Death Year: 1953
• Death date: March 5, 1953
• Death City: Moscow
• Death Country: Russia

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CITATION INFORMATION

• Article Title: Joseph Stalin Biography
• Author: Biography.com Editors
• Website Name: The Biography.com website
• Url: https://www.biography.com/political-figures/joseph-stalin
• Access Date:
• Publisher: A&E Television Networks
• Last Updated: September 4, 2019
• Original Published Date: April 3, 2014
• History shows that there are no invincible armies.
• I believe in one thing only, the power of human will.
• It is enough that the people know there was an election. The people who cast the votes decide nothing. The people who count the votes decide everything.
• In the Soviet army, it takes more courage to retreat than advance.

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Joseph Stalin

By: History.com Editors

Updated: April 25, 2023 | Original: November 12, 2009

Joseph Stalin was the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1929 to 1953. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower. However, he ruled by terror, and millions of his own citizens died during his brutal reign. Stalin became involved in revolutionary politics, as well as criminal activities, as a young man. After Bolshevik leader Vladimir Lenin died, Stalin outmaneuvered his rivals for control of the party. Stalin aligned with the United States and Britain in World War II but afterward engaged in an increasingly tense relationship with the West known as the Cold War . After his death, the Soviets initiated a de-Stalinization process.

Young Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin was born Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili on December 18, 1878, or December 6, 1878, according to the Old Style Julian calendar (although he later invented a new birth date for himself: December 21, 1879). He grew up in the small town of Gori, Georgia, then part of the Russian empire. When he was in his 30s, he took the name Stalin, from the Russian for “man of steel.”

Did you know? In 1925, the Russian city of Tsaritsyn was renamed Stalingrad. In 1961, as part of the de-Stalinization process, the city, located along Europe's longest river, the Volga, became known as Volgograd. Today, it is one of Russia's largest cities and a key industrial center.

Stalin grew up poor and an only child. His father was a shoemaker and an alcoholic who beat his son, and his mother was a laundress. As a boy, Stalin contracted smallpox , which left him with lifelong facial scars. As a teen, he earned a scholarship to attend a seminary in the nearby city of Tblisi and study for the priesthood in the Georgian Orthodox Church.

HISTORY Vault: Hitler and Stalin: Roots of Evil

An examination of the paranoia, cold-bloodedness, and sadism of two of the 20th century's most brutal dictators and mass murderers: Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin.

While there he began secretly reading the work of German social philosopher and Communist Manifesto author Karl Marx , becoming interested in the revolutionary movement against the Russian monarchy. In 1899, Stalin was expelled from the seminary for missing exams, although he claimed it was for Marxist propaganda.

After leaving school, Stalin became an underground political agitator, taking part in labor demonstrations and strikes. He adopted the name Koba, after a fictional Georgian outlaw-hero, and joined the more militant wing of the Marxist Social Democratic movement, the Bolsheviks, led by Vladimir Lenin.

Stalin also became involved in various criminal activities, including bank heists, the proceeds from which were used to help fund the Bolshevik Party. He was arrested multiple times between 1902 and 1913, and subjected to imprisonment and exile in Siberia.

In 1906, Stalin married Ekaterina “Kato” Svanidze, a seamstress. The couple had one son, Yakov, who died as a prisoner in Germany during World War II. Ekaterina perished from typhus when her son was an infant.

In 1918 (some sources cite 1919), Stalin married his second wife, Nadezhda “Nadya” Alliluyeva, the daughter of a Russian revolutionary. They had two children, a boy and a girl (Stalin’s only daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva , caused an international scandal when she defected to the United States in 1967). Nadezhda committed suicide in her early 30s. Stalin also fathered several children out of wedlock.

Rise to Power

In 1912, Lenin, who was then in exile in Switzerland, appointed Stalin to serve on the first Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party. Three years later, in November 1917, the Bolsheviks seized power during the Russian Revolution . The Soviet Union was founded in 1922, with Lenin as its first leader.

During these years, Stalin had continued to move up the party ladder, and in 1922 he became secretary general of the Central Committee of the Communist Party , a role that enabled him to appoint his allies to government jobs and grow a base of political support.

After Lenin died in 1924, Stalin eventually outmaneuvered his rivals and won the power struggle for control of the Communist Party. By the late 1920s, he had become dictator of the Soviet Union.

The Soviet Union Under Stalin

Starting in the late 1920s, Joseph Stalin launched a series of five-year plans intended to transform the Soviet Union from a peasant society into an industrial superpower. His development plan was centered on government control of the economy and included the forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture, in which the government took control of farms.

Millions of farmers refused to cooperate with Stalin’s orders and were shot or exiled as punishment, particularly the kulaks, the more-prosperous farmers who owned land and hired paid workers. The forced collectivization soon led to widespread famine across the Soviet Union that killed millions.

Stalin ruled by terror, with a totalitarian grip in order to eliminate anyone who might oppose him. He expanded the powers of the secret police, encouraged citizens to spy on one another and had millions of people killed or sent to the Gulag system of forced labor camps.

During the second half of the 1930s, Stalin instituted the Great Purge , a series of campaigns designed to rid the Communist Party, the military and other parts of Soviet society from those he considered a threat.

Additionally, Stalin built a cult of personality around himself in the Soviet Union. Cities were renamed in his honor. Soviet history books were rewritten to give him a more prominent role in the revolution and mythologize other aspects of his life.

Stalin was the subject of flattering artwork, literature and music, and his name became part of the Soviet national anthem. He censored photographs in an attempt to rewrite history, removing former associates executed during his many purges. His government also controlled the Soviet media.

Joseph Stalin and World War II

In 1939, on the eve of World War II, Joseph Stalin and Germany’s Nazi Party dictator Adolf Hitler signed the German-Soviet Nonaggression Pact . Stalin then proceeded to annex parts of Poland and Romania, as well as the Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. He also launched an invasion of Finland.

Then, in June 1941, Germany broke the Nazi-Soviet pact and invaded the USSR, making significant early inroads. (Stalin had ignored warnings from the Americans and the British, as well as his own intelligence agents, about a potential invasion, and the Soviets were not prepared for war.)

As German troops approached the Soviet capital of Moscow, Stalin remained there and directed a scorched earth defensive policy, destroying any supplies or infrastructure that might benefit the enemy. The tide turned for the Soviets with the Battle of Stalingrad from August 1942 to February 1943, during which the Red Army defeated the Germans and eventually drove them from Russia.

As the war progressed, Stalin participated in the major Allied conferences, including the Tehran Conference (1943) and the Yalta Conference (1945). His iron will and deft political skills enabled him to play the loyal ally while never abandoning his vision of an expanded postwar Soviet empire.

Later Years

Joseph Stalin did not mellow with age: He initiated a reign of terror, purges, executions, exiles to labor camps and persecution in the postwar USSR, suppressing all dissent and anything that smacked of foreign–especially Western–influence.

He established communist governments throughout Eastern Europe, and in 1949 led the Soviets into the nuclear age by exploding an atomic bomb . In 1950, he gave North Korea’s communist leader Kim Il Sung permission to invade United States-supported South Korea , an event that triggered the Korean War .

How Did Joseph Stalin Die?

Stalin, who grew increasingly paranoid in his later years, died on March 5, 1953, at age 74, after suffering a stroke. His body was embalmed and preserved in Lenin’s mausoleum in Moscow’s Red Square until 1961, when it was removed and buried near the Kremlin walls as part of the de-Stalinization process initiated by Stalin’s successor Nikita Khrushchev (1894-1971).

How Many People Did Joseph Stalin Kill?

By some estimates, Joseph Stalin was responsible for the deaths of 6 million to 20 million people during his brutal rule, either though political executions or indirectly as a result of Stalin’s policies. The killings first began in the 1930s, as a wave of executions swept the Soviet Union during Stalin’s Great Purge.

“In some cases, a quota was established for the number to be executed, the number to be arrested,” said Stanford University history professor Norman Naimark in a 2010 interview. “Some officials overfulfilled as a way of showing their exuberance.”

Millions more were killed in the horrific famine that struck Ukraine in 1932-1933 and the Kazakh region from 1930 to 1933, as a of Stalin's cruel efforts to impose collectivism of agriculture and tamp down Ukrainian nationalism. Estimates vary, but about 4 million men, women and children are believed to have starved to death during the Holodomor (a combination of the Ukrainian words for “starvation” and “to inflict death”).

Joseph Stalin (1879-1953). PBS . Joseph Stalin: National hero or cold-blooded murderer? BBC . Stalin killed millions. A Stanford historian answers the question, was it genocide? Stanford News . 

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International Edition

Biography Online

Joseph Stalin Biography

Short Bio – Joseph Stalin

Stalin was born, Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili, on 18 December 1878 but later adopted the name of Stalin – which in Russia means man of steel.

In his early life, he only gained a rudimentary education and was drawn towards Communist ideology and became involved in robberies and violence against Tsarist sympathisers. Stalin was captured and sent to Siberia, but he managed to escape.

In 1917, Stalin played a key role in the Russian revolution; he gained control over the party newspaper Pravda and helped Lenin to escape to Finland. Stalin was one of the five-member politburos whom Lenin appointed in the Russian civil war against anti-Bolshevik forces.

During the early days of the Russian Revolution, Stalin frequently clashed with Leon Trotsky and Stalin advocated harsh measures to ensure discipline and loyalty.

In 1922, Lenin fell ill and Stalin became one of the main links between Lenin and the outside world. Lenin became increasingly distrustful of Stalin, disliking his arrogance and love of power. In Lenin’s testimony, he wanted Stalin removed from power. However, with great skill Stalin formed an alliance’s with other key Communist party members, He outmanoeuvred Trotsky and had him expelled from the Soviet Union.

On the death of Lenin, Stalin was able to assume the position as leader of the Soviet Union. He quickly strove to consolidate his power removing anyone he suspected of being disloyal.

In the 1930s, he unleashed a great wave of purges which led to the capture, torture and execution of many prominent members of the party, army and society. These purges went far beyond suspected disloyal members but became increasingly random – as if to strike fear into the heart of anyone in society.  In light of revelations from the Soviet archives, historians now estimate that nearly 700,000 people (353,074 in 1937 and 328,612 in 1938) died during these purges.

In 1939, Stalin shocked the world with the signing of the Nazi-Soviet pact which agreed on non-aggression with Germany, and also in secret agreed to carve up Poland. When Germany attacked Poland on 1st September 1939, the Soviet Union also attacked in the East.

When Stalin was warned of an impending invasion by Nazi Germany in 1941, Stalin couldn’t believe that Adolf Hitler would attack the Soviet Union. When German forces streamed over the border, the Soviet Union was almost defenceless and German forces swept through the country reaching almost the outskirts of Moscow by 1942. However, at Stalingrad, the tide of battle was turned and slowly Russian forces pushed back the Germans beginning the long push back into Germany.

Stalin took close command of the war and went to great lengths to portray himself as the heroic war leader. He was ruthless as Supreme military commander, often having Generals shot if they lost a battle. He also made armies dig in and refuse to retreat. However, with great loss of life, the Soviet Union were finally able to prevail. When the German army was at the gates of Moscow in 1942, Stalin refused to leave, and his presence in the city helped to maintain hope.

The Germany occupation of Western Soviet Union was brutal with millions being killed by the occupying forces. As the Russian army liberated their own country and saw numerous accounts of atrocities, they, in turn, committed atrocities in their conquest of Germany. Even Soviet citizens who survived the German occupation were often arrested and deported on Stalin’s orders. He believed that many in the occupied zone had collaborated with the Germans.

After the end of the Second World War, Stalin became desperate to get the nuclear bomb, after seeing its devastating effects in Japan. This became more important as the end of the Second World War gave way to the Cold War between the US and Soviet Block. Stalin was instrumental in creating the Eastern Block and Warsaw Pact – denying Eastern European countries the opportunity to pursue democratic self-government.

Stalin died in 1953 after suffering a stroke.

Commentary on Stalin

Perhaps no other person has been so committed and so successful in achieving total power and control. Stalin was paranoid and power hungry – ruthlessly ordering the murder of millions of his own subjects on the slightest pretext of disloyalty or even threat of disloyalty.

“Ideas are more powerful than guns. We would not let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas? “

– Joseph Stalin

Yet, despite being utterly ruthless and vindictive against his own population, Stalin was viewed as a great war leader, who heroically stood up to the advancing Nazi war machine – Stalin is credited with overseeing the successful defence of the Soviet Union and later the advance into Germany and complete defeat of Hitler’s Germany.

His death in 1953 was mourned by millions who saw Stalin as a champion of Communism and hero of the Second World War. But, even the next Russian Premier – Nikita Khrushchev, later went onto denounce the ‘cult of personality’ that surrounded Joesph Stalin.

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “ Biography of Stalin” , Oxford, UK.  www.biographyonline.net 23rd May 2010. Last updated 8 February 2018.

Stalin – A biography

Stalin – A biography  by Robert Service.  “A complex and fascinating story behind this notorious twentieth-century figure.” – at Amazon. ‘

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