One of the merciless dictators of the 20th century, Joseph Stalin led the Soviet Union for a quarter of a century. While brutally suppressing all opposition to his rule, he transformed the Soviet Union into a major world power. Early lifeJoseph Stalin was born in Gori, a village in the country of Georgia, on December 21, 1879. His real name was Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. His father was a poor cobbler, and his mother was a washerwoman. Stalin entered a church school at the age of 9. His father died when he was 14. He was sent to the Orthodox Russian seminary at Tiflis to be educated for the priesthood. However, he was more interested in the ideas of Communism. A main idea of Communism is that there is no private property and all citizens should share in the common wealth. In 1899 he was expelled from the seminary. For a brief period he worked as a clerk. Socialist involvementStalin remained in Tiflis and later joined the Tiflis branch of the Russian Social Democratic party. The socialists were against the czar, the Russian emperor. Stalin made slow progress in the party hierarchy. He attended three policy-making meetings without making much of an impression. He organized strikes among the factory workers in Tiflis. His revolutionary activities brought his first arrest in 1902. Between 1902 and 1913 Stalin was arrested and exiled many times. In 1903 the Social Democratic party split into two groups. One group, headed by Lenin, called itself the Bolsheviks. The other group, opposed to Lenin's use of violence, was the Mensheviks. Stalin joined the Bolsheviks. In about 1904 Stalin married Ekaterina Svanidze. She died about three years later and left a son, Jacob. He married Nadezhda Alliluyeva in 1919. They had a son and a daughter. Political careerStalin's first big political promotion came in 1912. Lenin chose him to serve on the first Central Committee of the Bolshevik party. By 1913 he had adopted the name Stalin, derived from the Russian word stal, meaning “steel.” For a short time he was the editor of Pravda, the Bolshevik newspaper. Under Lenin's influence Stalin soon began to support the armed seizure of power. He remained active behind the scenes until the Russian Revolution of 1917 brought the Bolsheviks to power. During the civil war that followed the revolution, Stalin served as political commissar with Bolshevik armies on several fronts. A political commissar was a Communist party official who taught party principles to the military personnel. In 1918 Stalin directed the successful defense of Tsaritsyn against anti-Bolshevik forces. The city was renamed Stalingrad in his honor in 1925, though the name was later changed to Volgograd. In 1921 Stalin led the invasion that won his homeland, Georgia, for the Bolsheviks, now known as the Communists. The next year Stalin became general secretary of the Communist party. After Lenin's death in 1924 Stalin successfully overcame his rivals in power struggles within the party. He became the dominant figure in Soviet politics. One of his rivals was Leon Trotsky. Stalin forced him to resign as war minister and in 1927 expelled him from the party. In 1929 he exiled Trotsky from the Soviet Union. CollectivizationIn 1928 Stalin launched his effort to industrialize and modernize the Soviet Union. He ordered the collectivization of farms, forcing some 25 million peasants to merge their farms together. When they resisted, he seized their land and possessions. Those who did not cooperate were arrested, shot, exiled, or sent to concentration camps. About 10 million peasants may have died as a result of Stalin's policies during these years. PurgesIn 1934 Stalin conducted a series of purges in an attempt to strengthen his position. These purges were a terror tactic created to get rid of leaders in the party. Stalin accused party activists of plotting against the state and had them killed. Among these were men who had helped Stalin rise to power. Other sections of Soviet society were also affected. These included people in the arts, academics, and legal and diplomatic professions. Role in World War IIStalin became the premier of the Soviet Union in 1941. That same year the Germans invaded the country, and the Soviet Union became involved in World War II. Under Stalin, the Soviet armies pushed out the German invaders and occupied Eastern European lands. After the war Stalin built up the Soviet Union as a world military power. At home he continued his cruel measures to control opposition against him. He remained the Soviet Union's leader until his death in 1953. |