Joseph Stalin - Head of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1929 to 1953. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was 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 Josib Besarionis dz Dzhugashvili (Russian version: Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili) December 18 (December 6), 1878 in Gori, a small town in the province of Tiflis.
His parents Besarion "Beso" Dzhugashvili and Ekaterina "Keke" (nee Geladze) came from families of Orthodox Christian serfs. Beso was a shoemaker who eventually opened his shoe store, but quickly went broke and had to go to work at a shoe factory. He drank very much and made drunken fights.
Josib was the third child of his parents. His older brothers Michael 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 study and get a good education.
Joseph was a weak child. At the age of 7 he suffered from smallpox, which left scars on his face for life
When Keke enrolled him in the Gori Theological School in 1888, the angry Beso made a drunken brawl in which not only his wife and son, but also the chief of the city police got, as a result, he was forced to leave Gori.
In 1894, the fifteen-year-old Joseph graduated from high 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, especially he was interested in the work of Karl Marx.
In 1898, he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party, which was formed to unite 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 in the capital's observatory. A sufficiently 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 the mass arrests of revolutionaries took place on the night of April 3, 1901, and many of his comrades were detained and sent to prison, Joseph went underground. From that day on, his whole subsequent 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, which killed several people. This led to his first arrest on April 8, 1902.
After the court verdict, he was sent into exile in the Siberian village of New Uda, where he arrived at 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 becoming the head of the Bolsheviks, and Julius Martov the Mensheviks. Joseph Vissarionych joined the Bolsheviks and, using fake documents, he escapes from exile.
Having reached Tiflis on January 27, he plunged headlong into party work, organizing strikes, and also writing 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 the ability to convince 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 several times exiled to the Urals. In February 1917 in Achinsk, he was drafted into the army, but was commissioned for medical reasons.
October Revolution
On his return from another exile to Petrograd on March 12, 1917, Stalin again became 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 All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks 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. And meanwhile in 1922, he was appointed Secretary General of the Central Committee of the party.
Stalin skillfully used his post of Secretary General, weaving intrigues against his rivals and placing his supporters in the most important posts. By the time the old party members understood 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 erupted 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 to exile, where they were later killed, while others were executed without trial. By the end of the 1920s, Stalin took control of the party.
In 1928, Stalin abolished the New Economic Policy, announced a course towards 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 showed tremendous economic growth to the whole world.
But in agriculture, the Stalinist policy has failed completely. Soviet power nationalized farmland and forced peasants to unite into collective farms. Those who resisted were either shot or sent to concentration camps. Agricultural production began to fall, which led to hunger in many regions of the country.
On December 1, 1934, the people's favorite and head of Leningrad, Sergei Kirov, was killed. This murder was a formal occasion for the start of a large party purge. Stalin systematically cleansed the opposition forces and in the end was left alone in the political Olympus of the USSR.
Fearing a military coup, Joseph Vissarionych initiated a purge in the ranks of Soviet military leaders. And in order to silence the voice of dissidentism, he created a reign of terror in the Soviet Union.
From 1937 to 1938, he was executed by 700, 000 people, many of whom were ordinary workers, peasants, housewives, teachers, priests, musicians and soldiers. And the exact number of deaths 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 unleashed the hands of Germany and allowed her to attack Poland, thereby starting the Second World War.
June 22, 1941, German troops treacherously violated the border of the USSR.
The attack shocked Stalin, but very quickly he pulled himself together and appointed himself Supreme Commander-in-Chief and headed the GKO.
By December 1941, the Soviet army was organized enough to stop German troops near Moscow and prevent Leningrad from being captured. The battle of Stalingrad and Kursk, won in 1943, turned the tide of the war and on May 9, 1945, the Second World War ended in the defeat of Nazi Germany.
Post-war years
When September 2, 1941, Japan signed the act of surrender and 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 Eastern Europe, thereby creating a buffer zone between the USSR and the West.
Despite his strong international position, Stalin was cautious about internal dissent and the desire for change among the population. He was very concerned about the return of the soldiers, who saw a wide range of consumer goods in Germany, a large part of which they had taken and brought with them. On his orders, returning Soviet prisoners of war went through the "filtration" camps in which 2775, 700 people were questioned to determine if they were traitors. About half of them were then imprisoned in 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 was deteriorating, and heart problems forced him to take a two-month vacation in the second half of 1945. He was increasingly worried that high-ranking political and military figures might try to get rid of him.
In recent years, Stalin became paranoid, and in January 1953 he decided to conduct another purge. But before he could realize his plan, he suddenly died.
Death
On March 1, 1953, security officers found Stalin in a semi-unconscious state on the floor of his dacha's bedroom. Doctors diagnosed a stroke. Children, Svetlana and Vasily were called to the cottage on March 2; the latter was drunk and yelled angrily at the doctors.
Stalin died on March 5, 1953. An autopsy revealed that he died of a brain hemorrhage. It is possible that Stalin was killed, although no solid evidence has yet been found.
The death of Stalin 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 were going to say goodbye to the Leader and Teacher were such that about 100 people died in a stampede.
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.
