Copyright 1998 ABC-CLIO, Inc.
Kaleidoscope
COUNTRY:
Russia
PERSON: Joseph Stalin
HEADLINE: Biographies
Joseph Stalin ruled the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He
presided over a program of national industrialization during the 1930s and the
development of the cold war following World War II. He was criticized as a
ruthless dictator who conducted violent purges within the government to
maintain his power.
Born Iosif Vissarionovitch Dzhugashvili on Dec 21, 1879 in Gori, Russia,
Stalin entered the Tiflis Theological Seminary in 1893 and by age 15 had joined
a Marxist group there. In 1898, he joined the Russian Social-Democratic
Workers' Party and
soon became a paid agitator. Between 1903 and 1917, he was arrested and sent
into exile six times by the czarist government, each time escaping and
returning. After the split of the Russian Social-Democratic Party, he became a
regional leader of the extremist Bolshevik faction. He became a
strong force and an aide to party leader Vladimir Lenin after the failed
revolution attempt in 1905. In 1912 he was elected to the Communist Party of
the Soviet Union's Central Committee. Stalin was arrested several more times
and exiled to the distant Turukhansk region where he was freed after the
successful
1917 October Revolution. In the following years of civil war, he served in a
variety of posts aiding the military effort. In 1922, he became general
secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party and in 1924 became
Lenin's successor as chairperson of the Politburo.
In the following years, the
communist government struggled to construct a new economic system. In 1928
Stalin launched the first of his Five-Year Plans of industrialization and
collectivization. This ambitious plan brought hardship and met resistance as he
purged the kulaks (wealthy peasant farmers). This was followed in 1932 by the
second, equally
ambitious Five-Year Plan. In 1936, Stalin developed a new Soviet constitution,
which was seen as a democratic document. However, the following elections were
marred by purge trials from 1934 to 1938 in which Stalin systematically
eliminated his opposition.
Stalin further hurt his international image when he signed
a nonaggression pact with Adolf Hitler in 1939. The Nazi leader soon broke this
agreement and invaded the Soviet Union in 1941. In Allied negotiations after
the war, Stalin succeeded in obtaining control of half of Europe, and the
following year the Iron Curtain descended over the
Soviet Union and its
"satellites" in Eastern Europe as Stalin consolidated his gains. This began the cold war,
which continued throughout Stalin's rule. He died in Moscow in 1953 and was
entombed in Red Square alongside Lenin. However, his character was later
attacked by Nikita Khrushchev and his body removed from the
Lenin mausoleum.
[Sources: Cambridge Biographical Dictionary; Current Biography Yearbook; The
Macmillan Dictionary of Biography]
LOAD-DATE: February 18, 1998
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1998 LEXIS-NEXIS, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc.
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