Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin; ; , ''Ioseb Besarionis dze Stalini''}} (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili;), the Russified equivalent of which was Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (). He adopted the alias "Stalin" during his years as a revolutionary, and made it his legal name after the October Revolution.}} – 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who was the second leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 and the fourth premier of the Soviet Union until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 to 1952 and Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1941 until his death. Initially governing as part of a collective leadership, Stalin consolidated power to become dictator by the 1930s; he formalized his Leninist interpretation of Marxism as Marxism–Leninism, while the totalitarian political system he established became known as Stalinism.

Born into a poor Georgian family in Gori, Russian Empire, Stalin attended the Tiflis Spiritual Seminary before joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He edited the party's newspaper, ''Pravda'' and raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction through robberies, kidnappings and protection rackets. Repeatedly arrested, he underwent internal exiles to Siberia. After the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution, Stalin joined the governing Politburo. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin assumed leadership of the country. Under Stalin, the doctrine of socialism in one country became central to the party's ideology. His Five-Year Plans led to agricultural collectivisation and rapid industrialisation, creating a centralised command economy. Severe disruptions to food production contributed to the famine of 1930–33. Stalin's Great Purge used the Gulag system of forced labour camps to eliminate those deemed "enemies of the working class".

Stalin promoted Marxism–Leninism abroad through the Communist International and supported European anti-fascist movements. In 1939, his regime signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Nazi Germany, enabling the Soviet invasion of Poland. Germany broke the pact by invading the Soviet Union in 1941, leading Stalin to join the Allies. Despite huge losses, the Soviet Red Army repelled the German invasion and captured Berlin in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. The Soviet Union, which had annexed the Baltic states and territories from Finland and Romania amid the war, established Soviet-aligned governments in Central and Eastern Europe. Following the war, the Soviet Union and the United States emerged as global superpowers and entered a period of tension known as the Cold War. Stalin presided over post-war reconstruction and the first Soviet atomic bomb test in 1949. During these years, the country experienced another famine and a state-sponsored antisemitic campaign, culminating in the "doctors' plot". Stalin's rule was marked by forced transfers of entire populations. Before, during, and after World War II, various social classes and ethnic groups were accused of being anti-Soviet and deported to remote parts of the country as collective punishment. After Stalin's death in 1953, he was succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev, who in 1956 denounced his rule and initiated the "de-Stalinisation" of Soviet society.

Widely considered one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Stalin was the subject of a pervasive personality cult within the international Marxist–Leninist movement, for whom Stalin was a champion of socialism and the working class. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Stalin has notably retained popularity in Russia and Georgia as a victorious wartime leader who established the Soviet Union as a major world power. Conversely, his totalitarian government has been widely condemned for overseeing mass repressions, ethnic cleansing, executions, and famines which caused the deaths of millions.

Provided by Wikipedia