Stalin's

Joseph Stalin
Иосиф Сталин (Russian) იოსებ სტალინი (Georgian)
Stalin at the Potsdam Conference, 1945
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 Jughashvili (1878-12-18)18 December 1878 Gori, Tiflis Governorate, 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 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) Generalissimus of the Soviet Union (1945–53)
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 Georgian-born Soviet revolutionary and political leader. Governing the Soviet Union as its dictator 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 Premier of the Soviet Union from 1941 to 1953. 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, as a youth Stalin joined the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He edited the party 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 gained power in the October Revolution of 1917 and established the Soviet Russian Republic, Stalin sat on the governing Politburo during the Russian Civil War and helped form the Soviet Union in 1922. Despite Lenin's objections, Stalin consolidated power and a cult of personality developed around him. During Stalin's tenure, the concept of "Socialism in One Country" became a central tenet of Soviet society and Lenin's New Economic Policy was replaced with a centralised command economy, industrialisation and collectivisation. These rapidly transformed the country from an agrarian society into an industrial power, but disrupted food production and contributed to the famine of 1933–34, particularly affecting Ukraine. Between 1934 and 1939, Stalin organised the "Great Purge", in which millions of alleged "enemies of the working class"—including senior political and military figures—were interned in prison camps, exiled or executed.