Joseph V. Stalin

Joseph Stalin
Иосиф Сталин (Russian) იოსებ სტალინი (Georgian)
Stalin in 1937
General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
In office 3 April 1922 – 16 October 1952
Preceded by	Vyacheslav Molotov (as Responsible Secretary)
Succeeded by	Nikita Khrushchev (as First Secretary)
Chairman of the Council of Ministers
In office 6 May 1941 – 5 March 1953
First Deputies	Nikolai Voznesensky Vyacheslav Molotov Nikolai Bulganin
Preceded by	Vyacheslav Molotov
Succeeded by	Georgy Malenkov
Personal details
Born	Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili (1878-12-18)18 December 1878 Gori, Tiflis Governorate, Caucasus Viceroyalty, Russian Empire
Died	5 March 1953(1953-03-05) (aged 74) Kuntsevo Dacha, Kuntsevo, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Resting place	Lenin's Mausoleum, Moscow (9 March 1953 – 31 October 1961) Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow (from 31 October 1961)
Nationality	Soviet
Political party	Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Spouse(s)	Ekaterine Svanidze (1906–07) Nadezhda Alliluyeva (1919–32)
Children	Yakov Dzhugashvili Konstantin Kuzakov Vasily Dzhugashvili Svetlana Alliluyeva
Parents	Besarion Jughashvili and Ekaterine Geladze
Signature
Military service
Nickname(s)	Koba
Allegiance	Soviet Union
Service/branch	Soviet Armed Forces
Years of service	1943–53
Rank	Marshal of the Soviet Union (1943–45)
Commands	All (supreme commander)
Battles/wars	World War II
Central institution membership 1917–53: Full member, 6th–19th Presidium 1922–43: 11th–19th Secretariat 1920–52: 9th–18th Orgburo 1912–53: Full member, 5th–19th Central Committee Other offices held 1941–47: Minister of Defense 1941–45: Chairman, State Defense Committee 1920–22: Chairman, Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate of the Russian SFSR 1917–22: People's Commissar, Nationalities of the Russian SFSR Leader of the Soviet Union ← Lenin Malenkov →

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was a Soviet revolutionary and politician of Georgian nationality. Governing the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953, he served as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 to 1952 and as the nation's Premier from 1941 to 1953. Initially the head of a collective party elite that governed by consensus, he ultimately removed his rivals and accumulated power to become the Soviet Union's de facto dictator by the late 1930s. Ideologically a Marxist and a Leninist, Stalin helped to formalise these ideas as Marxism–Leninism while his own policies became known as Stalinism.

Born to a poor family in Gori, Russian Empire, Stalin began his revolutionary career in his youth by joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. There, he edited the party's newspaper, Pravda, and raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction via robberies, kidnappings, and protection rackets. Repeatedly arrested, he underwent several internal exiles. After the Bolsheviks seized power in Russia during the 1917 October Revolution, Stalin joined the party's governing Politburo where he was instrumental in overseeing the Soviet Union's establishment in 1922. Despite Lenin's opposition, he assumed leadership over the country shortly after the former's death in 1924. During Stalin's rule, "Socialism in One Country" became a central tenet of the party's dogma, and Lenin's New Economic Policy was abandoned in favour of a centralized command economy. Under the Five-Year Plan system, the country underwent rapid industrialization but also experienced significant disruptions in food production that contributed to the famine of 1932–33. To eradicate those regarded as "enemies of the working class", Stalin instituted the "Great Purge" in which over a million were imprisoned and at least 700,000 were executed from 1934 to 1939.