Joseph Stalin

From Metapedia

Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (December 18, 1878 – March 5, 1953), better known by his adopted name, Joseph Stalin (alternatively transliterated Josef Stalin), was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. Although Stalin's formal position originally had little significant influence, his office being nominally but one of several Central Committee Secretariats, Stalin's increasing control of the Party from 1928 onwards led to his becoming the de facto party leader and the dictator of his country, in full control of the Soviet Union and its people. His crash programs of industrialization and collectivization in the 1930s and his campaigns of political repression cost the lives of an estimated 20 million people leading many to regard him as the world's worst mass murderer.

Contents

1 Early life
2 Revolution and early wars
2.1 Role during the Russian Revolution of 1917
2.2 Role in the Russian Civil War, 1917–1919
2.3 Role in the Polish-Soviet War, 1919-1921
3 Rise to power
4 Changes to Soviet society, 1927–1939
4.1 Bolstering Soviet secret service and intelligence
4.2 Cult of personality
4.3 Purges and deportations
4.3.1 Purges
4.3.2 Deportations
4.4 Collectivization
4.5 Famines
4.6 Industrialization
4.7 Science
4.8 Social services
4.9 Culture
4.10 Religion
4.11 Theorist
5 Calculating the number of victims
6 World War II, 1939–1945
6.1 Pact with Hitler
6.2 Implementing the division of Eastern Europe and other invasions
6.3 Hitler breaks the pact
6.4 Soviets stop the Germans
6.5 Soviet push to Germany
6.6 Final victory
6.7 Questionable tactics
6.8 Allied conferences on post-war Europe
7 Post-war era, 1945–1953
7.1 The Iron Curtain and the Eastern Bloc
7.2 Sino-Soviet Relations
7.3 North Korea
7.4 Israel
7.5 Falsifiers of History
7.6 Domestic Support
7.7 The "Doctors' plot"
8 Death and aftermath
8.1 Later analyses of death
8.2 Reaction by successors
8.3 Views on Stalin in Russian Federation
9 Personal life
9.1 Origin of name, nicknames and pseudonyms
9.2 Appearance
9.3 Marriages and family
9.4 Religious beliefs and policies
10 Hypotheses, rumors and misconceptions about Stalin
11 Works
12 See also
13 Notes
14 References
15 Further reading
16 External links

Early life

Stalin was born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili on 18 December 1878^[1] to a cobbler in the town of Gori, Georgia. In the Georgian language "shvili" means son of, or son, as in Johnson. "Jugha" means Jew. Therefore Jughashvili means Jewison. At seven, he contracted smallpox, which permanently scarred his face. At ten, he began attending church school where the Georgian children were forced to speak Russian. By age twelve, two horse-drawn carriage accidents left his left arm permanently damaged. At sixteen, he received a scholarship to a Georgian Orthodox seminary, where he rebelled against the imperialist and religious order. Though he performed well, he was expelled in 1899 after missing his final exams. The seminary's records suggest he was unable to pay his tuition fees.

Shortly after leaving the seminary, Stalin discovered the writings of Vladimir Lenin and decided to become a Marxist revolutionary, eventually joining Lenin's Bolsheviks in 1903. After being marked by the Okhranka (the Tsar's secret police) for his activities, he became a full-time revolutionary and outlaw. He became one of the Bolsheviks' chief operatives in the Caucasus, organizing paramilitaries, inciting strikes, spreading propaganda and raising money through bank robberies, ransom kidnappings and extortion. In the summer of 1906, Stalin married Ekaterina Svanidze, who later gave birth to Stalin's first child, Yakov. Stalin temporarily resigned from the party over its ban on bank robberies, conducted a large raid on a bank shipment resulting in the death of 40 people and then fled to Baku, where Ekaterina died of typhus. In Baku, Stalin organized Muslim Azeris and Persians in partisan activities, including the murders of many "Black Hundreds" right-wing supporters of the Tsar, and conducted protection rackets, ransom kidnappings, counterfeiting operations and robberies.

Stalin was captured and sent to Siberia seven times, but escaped all but the last of these exiles. After release from one such capture, in April 1912 in Saint Petersburg, Stalin created the newspaper Pravda from an existing party newspaper. He eventually adopted the name "Stalin", from the Russian word for steel, which he used as an alias and nom de plume in his published works.

During his last exile, Stalin was conscripted by the Russian army to fight in World War I, but was deemed unfit for service due to his damaged left arm.