Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин; December 18, 1878 – March 5, 1953), formerly known as Joseph Bessarionisze Dzhugashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ბესარიონის ძე ჯუღაშვილი), a Soviet politician, proletarian revolutionist, Marxist-Leninist thinker, and supreme leader of the Soviet Union. He served successively as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Chairman of the People's Council of the Soviet Union (later renamed the Council of Ministers), and Chairman of the National Defense Committee. He was in power from 1924 until his death in 1953. Dzhugashvili was born in Gori, Russian Empire, and graduated from Tiflis Theological Seminary. After becoming a Marxist, he joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party. He supported the Bolshevik faction and organized the 1907 Tiflis bank robbery to raise funds for the revolution. In 1913, he began to use the pen name "Stalin" (Сталин, meaning "Man of Steel"). After the victory of the Russian October Revolution in 1917 and the Bolsheviks coming to power, Stalin became one of the seven members of the Politburo. After the founding of the Soviet Union, Stalin became the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Although Lenin objected to Stalin continuing to serve as general secretary, he was opposed by the party and failed. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin successfully took power and purged the opposition. He inherited socialism in one country, and Lenin's new economic policies were gradually replaced by planned economy and collectivist policies. Stalin successfully achieved large-scale industrialization, rapidly transforming the Soviet Union into a heavy industrial power, with industrial output second only to the United States. However, its implementation of agricultural collectivization triggered the Great Famine in the Soviet Union in 1932. In the 1930s, while establishing a cult of personality, he carried out large-scale arrests, exiles, or labor camps against party, government, and military leaders, ethnic minorities, and the general public, resulting in the deaths of millions of people. This period is therefore known as the Great Purge of the Soviet Union. In August 1939, Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany led by Hitler, divided Poland, and occupied Western Ukraine and Western Belarus west of the Curzon Line. After that, the Soviet Union marched and occupied the Baltic countries. However, the relationship between the two sides subsequently deteriorated, and Germany tore up the agreement and invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. Despite initial losses, the Soviet Red Army finally defeated Nazi Germany, won the Soviet-German War, and declared the end of the European battlefield of World War II. After World War II, the Soviet Union and the United States became two superpowers, and Stalin promoted socialism in Eastern Europe.