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December 6, 1878
March 5, 1953 (aged 74)
Prime minister (1941-1953), Soviet Union
Russian Social-Democratic Workers’ Party
Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili was born in the Russian peasant village of Gori, Georgia on December 18, 1879. Stalin's mother, a devout Russian Orthodox Christian, wanted him to become a priest. In October 1899, Stalin began work as a meteorologist at the Tiflis observatory. In 1901, he joined the Social Democratic Labor Party.
Between April 1902 and March 1913, Dzhugashvili was seven times arrested for revolutionary activity. In February 1917, the Russian Revolution began and the revolution was complete and the Bolsheviks were in control. The Soviet Union was founded in 1922, with Lenin as its first leader. In 1922 Stalin became secretary general of the Central Committee of the Communist Party. Lenin died in 1924, and by the late 1920s, Stalin had become dictator of the Soviet Union.
Joseph Stalin launched industrialization under a succession of five-year plans. His development plan included the forced collectivization of Soviet agriculture. Collectivization caused a great famine in Ukraine. During these years, about 10 million peasants may have perished through Stalin’s policies.
The Great Purge, or the “Great Terror,” was Stalin' brutal political campaign, in purpose to eliminate dissenting members of the Communist Party. Between 1936 and 1938, at least 750,000 people were executed during the Great Purge.
In June 1941, Germany invaded the USSR, making significant early inroads. As Stalin had ignored warnings about potential invasion, the Soviets were not prepared for war. The Battle of Stalingrad and the Battle of Kursk were won by the Soviet Army under Stalin’s supreme direction. Soon, the Soviet Army was liberating countries in Eastern Europe.
Stalin strengthened and stabilised the Soviet Union. He transformed the Soviet Union into a major industrial world power,
On 1 March 1953, Stalin had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage. He died on March 5, 1953, at age 74, and his body was embalmed and preserved in Lenin’s mausoleum in Moscow’s Red Square until 1961.
"A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic."
"Those who vote decide nothing. Those who count the vote decide everything."
"Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed."