Facts about Stalin
Stalin's tactics and methodology or Stalinism, as it has come to be known, had long range effects on the features that characterized the Soviet state.
Solzhenitsyn alleges that Stalin drew inspiration from Lenin's regime with the presence of labor camps and the executions of political opponents that occurred during the Russian Civil War.
Stalin's rule was even more repressive and brutal than Lenin's.
Stalin's immediate successors, however, continued to follow the basic principles of Stalin's rule - the political monopoly of the Communist Party presiding over a command economy and a security service able to suppress dissent.
Stalin was duped by Adolf Hitler and saw the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of 1939 as a commitment in which Hitler and Stalin recognized that they shared common ideological views on a number of matters.
Many intellectuals, dissidents and even many allies were put to death under Stalin.
Stalin contributions to Communist (or, more specifically, Marxist-Leninist) theory included his emphasis on the need to establish a communist hegemony in one state prior to attempting to extend to other states.
Stalin had a special commitment to tightening control over and indeed decimating the most prosperous peasant class known as "kulaks."
Some consider the writings of Stalin's daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva to be the most reliable sources, since they were not censored.
Stalin's Collected Works (in 13 volumes) was released in 1949.
Only three members of the "Old Bolsheviks" (Lenin's Politburo) now remained—Stalin himself, "the all-Union Chieftain" Mikhail Kalinin, and Premier Vyacheslav Molotov.
After the failure of Soviet and Franco-British talks on a mutual defense pact in Moscow, Stalin realized that war with Germany was inevitable and negotiated a non-aggression pact with Germany.
Soviet women under Stalin were also the first generation in Russia to give birth in a hospital, with access to prenatal care.
Stalin also vastly increased the foreign espionage activities of Soviet secret police and foreign intelligence.
Shortly before, during and immediately after World War II, Stalin conducted a series of deportations on a huge scale which profoundly affected the ethnic map of the Soviet Union.
Stalin also attempted to refine the scientific and philosophical underpinnings of dialectical and historical materialism and those refinements continued to appear in Soviet writings on Marxism-Leninism until the demise of the Soviet State.
Stalin may have hesitated to seek a special arrangement to spare his son because he feared that it would have undermined support for his war efforts.
Another of his childhood friends, Ioseb Iremashvili, felt that the beatings by Stalin's father gave him a hatred of authority.
Stalin's three siblings died young; "Soso" (the Georgian pet name for Joseph), was effectively an only child.
In 1907 the same editor published “A Georgian Chrestomathy, or collection of the best examples of Georgian literature”; Volume 1 included a poem of Stalin’s dedicated to Rafael Eristavi, on page 43.
Stalin responded effectively by subjecting his army to galvanizing terror and unrevolutionary, nationalist appeals to patriotism.
Under Stalin's direction, this was replaced by a system of centrally ordained "Five-Year Plans" in the late 1920s.
One of the best early examples of Stalin's ability to integrate secret police and foreign espionage came in 1940, when he gave approval to the secret police to have Leon Trotsky assassinated in Mexico.
December 6) – March 5, 1953, usually transliterated Josef Stalin, consolidated power to become the absolute ruler of the Soviet Union between 1928 and his death in 1953.
Early researchers of the number killed by Stalin's regime were forced to rely largely upon anecdotal evidence, and their estimates range as high as 60 million.
During the Russian Civil War and Polish-Soviet War, Stalin was a political commissar in the Red Army at various fronts.
On November 6, 1941, Stalin addressed the whole nation of the Soviet Union for the second time (the first time was earlier that year on July 2).
Stalin's first government position was as People's Commissar for Nationality Affairs (1917–1923).
Stalin's involvement with the socialist movement (or, to be more exact, the branch of it that later became the communist movement) began at the seminary at the age of 15.
Stalin eventually recognized his lack of know-how and relied on his professional generals to conduct the war.
Stalin was responsible transforming the Soviet Union from an agricultural nation into a global superpower and did not see the elimination of millions of lives as an impediment to the achievement of this goal.
Born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, Stalin became General Secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1922.
No reference to Joseph Stalin can be made without reference to his unmatched ability to use his intelligence services and the secret police.
Stalin then decided to intervene, and on September 17 the Red Army entered eastern Poland and the Baltic states and annexed these territories.
In architecture, a Stalinist Empire Style (basically, updated neoclassicism on a very large scale, exemplified by the seven skyscrapers of Moscow) replaced the constructivism of the 1920s.
Education also improved as the economic development of the U.S.S.R. continued under Stalin.
Domestically, Stalin was presented as a great wartime leader who had led the Soviets to victory against the Nazis.
Stalin supported Vladimir Lenin's doctrine of a strong centralist party of professional revolutionaries versus the less disciplined views of Karl Kautsky.
Stalin surprised his colleagues by not only receiving the elderly man, but happily chatting with him in public places.
The Winter War between the Soviet Union and Finland proved to be more difficult than Stalin and the Red Army were prepared for, and the Soviets sustained high casualties.
Kirov was very close and loyal to Stalin and his assassination sent chills through the Bolshevik party.
According to certain accounts, Stalin only played a minor role in the Revolution of 1917.
Stalin soon turned against the "Right Opposition," represented by his erstwhile allies, Bukharin and Rykov.
Stalin's first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, died in 1907, only four years after their marriage.
The degree of Stalin's personal involvement in general and specific developments has been assessed variously.
Stalin formed a "troika" of himself, Zinoviev, and Kamenev against Trotsky.
Some insights into Stalin's political and aesthetic thinking might perhaps be gleaned by reading his favorite novel, Pharaoh, by the Polish writer Boles?aw Prus, a historical novel on mechanisms of political power.
Reliable sources about Stalin's youth are few; however even those sources were subjected to censorship, a common practice during Stalin's reign.
By 1928 (the first year of the institution of the Five-Year Plans for economic development) Stalin was supreme among the leadership, and the following year Trotsky was exiled because of his opposition to Stalin.
In 1901, the Georgian clergyman M. Kelendzheridze wrote an educational book on language arts and included one of Stalin’s poems, signed by 'Soselo'.
Once again, Stalin's pathological investment in foreign intelligence and espionage bore fruit.
Stalin's son Yakov is said to have shot himself because of the mistreatment he endured from his father.
Stalin's political, social and economic policies as well as his great negotiating skills and his intelligence network laid the foundations for the USSR's emergence as a superpower.
Stalin made great play of the fact that Trotsky had joined the Bolsheviks just before the revolution, and publicized Trotsky's pre-revolutionary disagreements with Lenin.
Hundreds of scientists were purged, mainly through the efforts of Trofim Lysenko, Stalin's favorite "scientist," who developed proof that Lamarck's evolutionary views (which supported Marxism's understanding of natural development) rather than Darwin's were most accurate.
When Trotsky had been eliminated Stalin then joined Bukharin and Rykov against Zinoviev and Kamenev, emphasizing their vote against the insurrection in 1917.
Some historians such as Amy Knight and Robert Conquest postulate that Stalin had Yezhov and his predecessor, Genrikh Yagoda, removed in order to deflect blame from himself.
The large-scale purges of Stalin's era were never repeated although political repression continued.
Stalin gained popular appeal through portraying himself as a 'man of the people,' with his roots in the humblest social class.
During this period, Stalin abandoned the traditional Bolshevik emphasis on international revolution in favor of a policy of building "Socialism in One Country," in contrast to Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution.
Stalin's mother died in 1937; he did not attend the funeral but instead sent a wreath.
Having also outmaneuvered Bukharin's Right Opposition and now advocating collectivization and industrialization, Stalin succeeded in exerting control over the party and the country.
Stalin had two children with his second wife: a son, Vassili, and a daughter, Svetlana.
Stalin had broken his arm several times in the course of his life.
Stalin's rule - reinforced by a cult of personality - fought real and alleged opponents mainly through the security apparatus, such as the NKVD.
In 1912 Stalin was assigned to the Bolshevik Central Committee at the Prague Party Conference.
Another of Stalin's contributions was his "Marxism and the National Question," a work praised by Lenin.
Stalin's principal work discussing linguistics is a small essay, "Marxism and Linguistic Questions.
The attempted unification of cultures in Stalin's later period was very harmful.
Joseph Stalin was born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili in Gori, Georgia, Russian Empire to Vissarion Dzhugashvili and Ekaterina Geladze.
Gradually, the history of revolution was transformed to a story about just two key characters: Lenin and Stalin.
Stalin saw no difference between espionage, communist political propaganda actions, and state-sanctioned violence, and he began to integrate all of these activities within the NKVD, which preceded the KGB.
At her funeral, Stalin allegedly said that with her death died also his last warm feelings for humankind.
During these school years, Stalin joined a Georgian Social-Democratic organization, and began propagating Marxism.
Official Soviet archive records, opened in 1990 when glasnost was still in vogue, show that Stalin had every intention of treating the Poles as political prisoners.
During Stalin's reign the official and long-lived style of Socialist Realism was established for painting, sculpture, music, drama and literature.
Under Stalin's rule the Soviet Union was transformed from an agricultural nation to a nuclear superpower but at the cost of millions of lives.
Unfortunately during his purge, Stalin had eliminated thousands of Soviet military officers.
In 1913, he adopted the name "Stalin," which is derived from the Russian (stal’) for "steel."
At some point Trotsky had to telegraph to Lenin requesting permission to remove Stalin from leadership because military efforts were going badly in spite of military superiority.
Stalin's Show Trials also saw the execution of key Soviet leaders who had been with Lenin from the start including Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin and Trotsky.
Stalin took advantage of the Kirov assassination to begin tightening security, (and in effect to remove those who might have threatened Stalin's leadership).
The pact was seen by Stalin as a guarantee against a Nazi attack on the Soviet Union.
The generation born during Stalin's rule was the first generation where almost was literate.
The Russian Orthodox Church Synod's recognition of the Soviet government and of Stalin personally led to a schism with the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia that remains not fully healed to the present day.
Stalin's expansionism at the conclusion of World War II resulted in the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) by the West.
One of Stalin's friends from childhood later wrote, "Those undeserved and fearful beatings made the boy as hard and heartless as his father."
The Soviet dissident writer, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, had mentioned a son being born to Stalin and his common-law wife, Lida, in 1918 during Stalin's exile in northern Siberia.
The repression of many high-ranking revolutionaries and party members led Leon Trotsky to claim that a "river of blood" separated Stalin's regime from that of Lenin.
Stalin's rule had a largely disruptive effect on the numerous indigenous cultures that made up the Soviet Union.
Stalin made considerable use of the Communist International movement in order to infiltrate agents and to ensure that foreign Communist parties remained pro-Soviet and pro-Stalin.
Similarities have been pointed out between this novel and Sergei Eisenstein's film, Ivan the Terrible, produced under Stalin's tutelage.
An important feature of Stalin’s rise to power was his skill in manipulating his opponents and playing them off against each other.
Stalin organized Lenin's funeral and made a speech professing undying loyalty to Lenin, in almost religious terms.
Stalin quit the seminary in 1899 just before his final examinations; official biographies preferred to state that he was expelled.
The political memoirs of Vyacheslav Molotov, published in 1993, claimed that Beria had boasted to Molotov that he poisoned Stalin: "I took him out."
The harshness with which he conducted Soviet affairs was subsequently repudiated by his successors in the Communist Party leadership, notably in the denunciation of Stalinism by Nikita Khrushchev in February 1956.
Stalin's policies granted the Soviet people universal access to health care and education, effectively creating the first generation free from the fear of typhus, cholera, and malaria.
Stalin's major contribution to the development of the Marxist theory was a treatise, written while he was briefly in exile in Vienna, Marxism and the National Question.
Stalin claimed his policies were based on Marxism-Leninism, but there can be no doubt that Stalin actively sought to establish his own special place in world history.
Stalinist development also contributed to advances in health care, which vastly increased the lifespan for the typical Soviet citizen and the quality of life.
Stalin blamed this unanticipated failure on kulaks (rich peasants), who resisted collectivization.
Khrushchev initiated the "de-Stalinization" and Mao used Khrushchev's handling of Stalin as one of the rationales for the Sino-Soviet Split, which took place in 1960.
In 1917 Stalin was editor of Pravda, the official Communist newspaper, while Lenin and much of the Bolshevik leadership were in exile.
After the war, the USSR established itself under Stalin as one of the two major superpowers in the world, a position it maintained for the next four and a half decades.
In 1888, Stalin's father left to live in Tiflis, leaving the family without support.
Trotsky's August 1940 assassination in Mexico, where he had lived in exile since January 1937, eliminated the last of Stalin's opponents among the former, pre-revolution seniority Party leadership.
Stalin met in several conferences with Churchill and/or Roosevelt in Moscow, Tehran, and Yalta, to plan military strategy; (Truman taking the place of the deceased Roosevelt).
During this period, Stalin abandoned the traditional Bolshevik emphasis on international revolution in favor of a policy of building "Socialism in One Country," in contrast to Trotsky's theory of Permanent Revolution.
Iosif Vissarionovi? Stalin, born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, December 18, 1878 (O.S.
Joseph Stalin was born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili in Gori, Georgia, Russian Empire to Vissarion Dzhugashvili and Ekaterina Geladze.
Right before his death in June 1953 Stalin was planning an anti-Zionist and anti-Jewish campaign in the USSR and another blood purge of the government.
Linguistics was one area of Soviet academic thought to which Stalin personally and directly contributed.
Word Origin and History for Stalin. Russian, literally "steel," assumed name of Soviet Communist Party and Soviet Union leader Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (1879-1953). Cf.
Joseph Stalin (1878-1953) was the dictator of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1929 to 1953. Under Stalin, the Soviet Union was transformed from a peasant society into an industrial and military superpower. However, he ruled by terror, and millions of his own citizens died during his brutal reign.
Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union from the 1920s until his death in 1953. This means that he was the center of power in the USSR during the years in which the Cold War was beginning. His attitudes towards the West and towards Eastern Europe helped to bring about the Cold War.
Born on December 18, 1879, in Gori, Georgia, Joseph Stalin rose to power as General Secretary of the Communist Party, becoming a Soviet dictator upon Vladimir Lenin's death.Jan 9, 2018