Stalin
Nickname/Alias: born: Josif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili
Achievements: Created Soviet Union
Born: December 21, 1879; Gori, Georgia, the Caucasus (colony of Imperial Russia)
Died: March 5, 1953; Kuntsevo, (Moscow), Soviet Union. Aged 73
Field & Discipline: Government & Politics; Politician
Language: Georgian; Russian
Father: Vissarion Dzhugashvili
Mother: Yekaterina Dzhugashvili
Siblings: None survived infancy
Spouse: 1) Ekaterina Svanidze; 2) Nadezhda Alliluyeva
Children: Jacob (by Ekaterina Svanidze); Vasily (by Nadezhda Alliluyeva); Svetlana (by Nadezhda Alliluyeva)
Education: Church school; Gori Theological Seminary, Tiflis
Life & Times:
Stalin was brought up in poverty. His father was a cobbler, his mother a washerwoman. He went to the local church school, where he was taught Russian, and then, at nine to a theological college, where he read forbidden revolutionary texts by [influenced by] Karl Marx* and others.
In 1899, at 20, he was expelled for revolutionary activity. In 1900, he became part of the political underground and traveled to industrial centers in the Caucasus, encouraging workers to protest their conditions. In 1903, he joined the Bolsheviks, the most militant Marxist faction, led by [worked with] Lenin*.
In 1912, Lenin, who was forced to flee the country, chose him to serve on the first Central Committee of the Bolshevik party, which had now broken from the Social Democrats. In 1913, Stalin briefly edited the Bolshevik paper "Pravda" before being arrested and banished to Siberia.
On his return to Petrograd (St. Petersburg) in 1917, Stalin again edited "Pravda" and in November, 1917, took a prominent role in the Bolshevik overthrow of the moderate provisional government that had replaced the Tsar. During the Civil War of 1918-20, he was active in the political and military wings of the Bolshevik party.
As a member of the Politburo (the policy-making group) and of many other committees, he slowly strengthened his influence. In 1922, he was made secretary-general of the party's Central Committee, a position that allowed him to create the power base that eventually gave him control.
As time went by, Stalin developed a contempt for Lenin that he did not disguise, and he began to refuse to carry out Lenin's orders. Before he died in 1924, Lenin called for Stalin's removal as secretary-general, but Stalin was so well entrenched that Lenin's orders were ignored. It had been assumed that [ousted] Trotsky* would take over from Lenin, but he was ousted by an alliance between Stalin, Grigory Zinoviev and Lev Kamenev.
Zinoviev and Kamenev had little regard for Stalin, but they did not reckon with Stalin's ambition. In time, they were replaced by Nikolay Bukharin and Aleksey Rykovnt, and before too long, all four were in prison awaiting execution.
Stalin discarded Lenin's economic policy, which still retained elements of capitalism, and in 1928 introduced a succession of radical five-year plans to implement state-owned industrialization and agricultural production.
The agricultural program was disastrous. With little warning, the owners of about 25 million peasant holdings were forced into collectives or state farms. Those who protested were shot, exiled, or sent to concentration camps. The collectivization caused a decimating famine, particularly in the Ukraine. As many as 10 million peasants are estimated to have died.
Forced industrialization worked better. Within a decade the output of the Soviet Union was surpassed only by that of the United States. This gained Stalin much admiration abroad. English writers [a fan was] H.G. Wells* and [a fan was] Shaw* were impressed, as was [a fan was] Hitler*.
In 1934, Stalin began a campaign of terror that resulted in the deaths of millions more people. The campaign began after the assassination of Sergey Kirov, a colleague of Stalin who was also a potential rival. Stalin used Kirov's death as a reason to start his purges, but it is widely believed he was the one to order Kirov's death.
At their trial in 1936, Zinoviev and Kamenev, demoralized from years of imprisonment, confessed to crimes and were shot. Communist party bosses, veteran Bolsheviks, and foreign Communists on Soviet territory were "liquidated", as were thousands of ordinary party members, government officers, members of the military and political police. Victims included academics, lawyers, doctors, diplomats, writers, musicians and artists. Censorship was rigidly imposed on all activities and a climate of suspicion and fear prevailed.
In August, 1939, Stalin entered an alliance with Germany, giving Hitler the confidence to send his forces into Poland, the act that began the Second World War. Stalin distrusted Hitler but saw an opportunity to extend Russia's borders while Hitler's troops were occupied in western Europe.
He annexed eastern Poland, the republics of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, and parts of Romania. He attacked Finland and took over parts of the country. In June, 1941, despite his pact with Stalin, Hitler attacked the Soviet Union without warning.
Stalin now turned his formidable energy and organizing powers towards the defense of his country. Making himself commander in chief, he stayed in Moscow through the winter of 1941 when the Germans were threatening to take the city, and organized the successful counter-defensive. He directed the famous battle of Stalingrad in the winter of 1942, in which the Germans were again beaten, and, in 1943, the Battle of Kursk, when the retreating Germans were further humiliated.
Stalin was a hands-on commander. As the war went on, he learned to delegate and trust his officers. In the domestic sphere, his control of the war economy, together with his strong leadership and tenacity, led to the final Russian victory.
As a diplomat, he proved to be more than the equal of [outmaneuvered] Churchill* and President [outmaneuvered] Franklin D. Roosevelt*. When the three leaders met for summit meetings at Tehran, Yalta, and Potsdam, Stalin successfully argued for a strong Soviet presence in Eastern Europe.
In 1949, the Soviet Union exploded an atomic bomb, the second country to do so after the United States, and proving the huge military industrial strength of the Soviet Union. Stalin set the stage for the Cold War of the 1950’s by treating Western powers as the implacable enemies of the Soviet Union and imposing the Marxist ideology with absolute control within the Union.
A new reign of terror swept through the arts and academic worlds. Writers and teachers were forced to re-tell history and portray Communism as the supreme ideology of which the Soviet Union was a perfect example.
In January, 1953, Stalin declared that a "Doctors' Plot" had been uncovered, and ordered the arrest of various Kremlin physicians, most of them Jewish, on the grounds that they had used medical methods to eliminate various Soviet leaders. This appeared to signal a purge of his immediate entourage, and when Stalin died suddenly two months later, there were suspicions he had been murdered.
Extra Connections: During the purges, [supported by] Krushchev* and [supported by] Molotov* condoned his actions.
At celebrations for Stalin's 70th birthday [a pal of] Mao Zedong* sat at Stalin's right hand.
Tried to have [tried to remove] Tito* removed from power.
US Sec. of State [studied by] Dulles* read his work.
Met film director [met] Eisenstein*
Influenced physicist [influenced] Oppenheimer*
Shostakovich* ?
[studied by] WA Harriman* observed his policies
Assessment: A brutal dictator responsible for the deaths of millions. Succeeded in industrializing one of the most backward nations in Europe and maintaining the economy throughout extreme privation during the Second World War.
Oneliner: Josef Stalin, Russian leader
Bibliography:
- Volkogonov, Dmitri, trans. Shurkman, Harold, Stalin, Triumph and Tragedy, Weidenfeld and Nicolson, London, 1991.