How did it happen that an ordinary teenager from the provincial Georgian village of Gori became the “head of the people”? We decided to look at what factors contributed to the fact that Koba, who lived in robbery, became Joseph Stalin.
Father factor
Father's upbringing plays a big role in a man's maturation. Joseph Dzhugashvili was actually deprived of it. Koba's official father, shoemaker Vissarion Dzhugashvili, drank a lot. Ekaterina Geladze divorced him when her son was 12 years old.
The paternity of Vissarion Dzhugashvili is still disputed by historians. Simon Montefiori, in his book “Young Stalin,” writes about three “contenders” for this role: wine merchant Yakov Ignatashvili, Gori police chief Damian Davrichui and priest Christopher Charkviani.
Childhood trauma
Stalin's character as a child was seriously affected by the injury he received at the age of twelve: in a road accident, Joseph injured his left arm, and over time it became shorter and weaker than his right. Due to his withered hands, Koba could not fully participate in youthful fights; he could only win them with the help of cunning. A hand injury prevented Kobe from learning to swim. Joseph also suffered from smallpox at the age of five and barely survived, after which he developed his first “special mark”: “a pockmarked face with smallpox marks.”
The feeling of physical inferiority affected Stalin's character. Biographers note the vindictiveness of young Koba, his temper, secrecy and penchant for conspiracy.
Relationship with mother
Stalin's relationship with his mother was difficult. They wrote letters to each other, but met rarely. When the mother visited her son for the last time, this happened a year before her death, in 1936, she expressed regret that he never became a priest. Stalin was only amused by this. When his mother died, Stalin did not go to the funeral, only sent a wreath with the inscription “To my dear and beloved mother from her son Joseph Dzhugashvili.”
Such a cool relationship between Stalin and his mother can be explained by the fact that Ekaterina Georgievna was an independent person and was never shy in her assessments. For the sake of her son, when Joseph was neither Koba nor Stalin, she learned to cut and sew, mastered the profession of a milliner, but she did not have enough time to raise her son. Joseph grew up on the street.
Birth of Koba
The future Stalin had many party nicknames. He was called “Osip”, “Ivanovich”, “Vasiliev”, “Vasily”, but the most famous nickname of young Joseph Dzhugashvili was Koba. It is significant that Mikoyan and Molotov addressed Stalin this way even in the 1930s. Why Koba?
Literature influenced. One of the young revolutionary’s favorite books was the novel “The Patricide” by the Georgian writer Alexander Kazbegi. This is a book about the struggle of mountain peasants for their independence. One of the heroes of the novel - the intrepid Koba - also became a hero for the young Stalin, who, after reading the book, began to call himself Koba.
Women
In the book “Young Stalin” by British historian Simon Montefiore, the author claims that Koba was very loving in his youth. Montefiore, however, does not consider this to be anything special; this way of life, the historian writes, was characteristic of revolutionaries.
Montefiore claims that Koba’s mistresses included peasant women, noblewomen, and party comrades (Vera Schweitzer, Valentina Lobova, Lyudmila Stal).
The British historian also claims that two peasant women from Siberian villages (Maria Kuzakova, Lidiya Pereprygina), where Koba was serving his exile, gave birth to sons from him, whom Stalin never recognized.
Despite such turbulent relationships with women, Koba’s main business was, of course, the revolution. In his interview with Ogonyok magazine, Simon Montefiore commented on the information he obtained: “Only party comrades were considered worthy of respect. Love and family were expelled from life, which should have been devoted only to the revolution. What seems immoral and criminal in their behavior to us did not matter to them.”
"Exes"
Today it is already well known that Koba in his youth did not disdain illegal activities. Koba showed particular zeal during expropriations. At the Bolshevik congress in Stockholm in 1906, the so-called “exes” were banned; a year later, at the London congress, this decision was confirmed. It is significant that the congress in London ended on June 1, 1907, and the most sensational robbery of two State Bank carriages, organized by Koba Ivanovich, occurred later - on June 13. Koba did not comply with the demands of the congress for the reason that he considered them Menshevik; on the issue of “ex”, he took the position of Lenin, who approved them.
During the mentioned robbery, Koba’s group managed to get 250 thousand rubles. 80 percent of this money was sent to Lenin, the rest went to the needs of the cell.
Stalin's not-so-clean reputation could become an obstacle to his advancement in the future. In 1918, the head of the Mensheviks, Yuli Martov, published an article in which he gave three examples of Koba’s illegal activities: the robbery of State Bank carriages in Tiflis, the murder of a worker in Baku, and the seizure of the steamship “Nicholas I” in Baku.
Moreover, Martov even wrote that Stalin had no right to hold government positions, since he was expelled from the party in 1907. Stalin was furious at this article; he claimed that this exclusion was illegal, since it was carried out by the Tiflis cell, controlled by the Mensheviks. That is, Stalin still did not deny the fact of his exclusion. But he threatened Martov with a revolutionary tribunal.
Why "Stalin"?
Throughout his life, Stalin had three dozen pseudonyms. At the same time, it is significant that Joseph Vissarionovich did not make a secret of his surname. Who now remembers Apfelbaum, Rosenfeld and Wallach (Zinoviev, Kamenev, Litvinov)? But Ulyanov-Lenin and Dzhugashvili-Stalin are well known. Stalin chose the pseudonym quite deliberately. According to William Pokhlebkin, who devoted his work “The Great Pseudonym” to this issue, several factors coincided when choosing a pseudonym. The real source when choosing a pseudonym was the surname of a liberal journalist, first close to the populists and then to the Socialist Revolutionaries, Evgeniy Stefanovich Stalinsky, one of the prominent Russian professional publishers of periodicals in the province and translator into Russian of Sh. Rustaveli’s poem “The Knight in the Skin of the Tiger.” Stalin loved this poem very much. There is also a version that Stalin took a pseudonym based on the name of one of his mistresses, party comrades Lyudmila Stal.
This life was born hopelessly. An illegitimate son assigned to a seedy drunkard shoemaker. Uneducated mother. Little Coco didn't get out of the puddles near Queen Tamara's hill. [Cm. article Stalin's Parents and Family.] Not just to become the ruler of the world, but how can this child get out of the lowest, most humiliated position?
Nevertheless, the culprit of his life bothered him, and, bypassing church regulations, they accepted the boy from a non-clerical family - first to a theological school, then even to a seminary.
From the heights of the darkened iconostasis, the God of Hosts sternly called to the new novice, spread out on the cold stone slabs. Oh, with what zeal the boy began to serve God! how I trusted him! During his six years of study, he hammered home the Old and New Testaments, the Lives of Saints and church history, and diligently served at liturgies.
Here, in the “Biography”, there is this photograph: a graduate of the theological school Dzhugashvili in a gray cassock with a round closed collar; matte, as if exhausted by prayers, the adolescent oval of the face; his long hair, prepared for the priestly service, is strictly combed, humbly anointed with lamp oil and let down over his ears - and only his eyes and tense eyebrows betray that this novice will probably go to the metropolitan.
Stalin while studying at the theological seminary
And God deceived... The sleepy, hateful town among the round green hills, in the windings of Medjuda and Liakhvi, fell behind: in noisy Tiflis, smart people had long been laughing at God. And the ladder that Coco tenaciously climbed led, it turns out, not to heaven, but to the attic.
But the seething bully age demanded action! Time was running out - nothing was done! There was no money for a university, for civil service, for starting a trade - but there was socialism that accepted everyone, socialism that was accustomed to seminarians. There was no inclination towards the sciences or the arts, there was no skill in crafts or theft, there was no luck in becoming the lover of a rich lady - but she called everyone with open arms, accepted and promised everyone a place - the Revolution.
Joseph Dzhugashvili. Photo from 1896
Here, in the “Biography,” he advised including a photo from this time, his favorite shot. Here he is, almost in profile. He doesn’t have a beard, a mustache, or sideburns (he hasn’t decided what yet), but simply hasn’t shaved for a long time, and everything is picturesquely overgrown with lush male growth. He is all ready to rush, but does not know where. What a sweet young man! An open, intelligent, energetic face, not a trace of that fanatical novice. Freed from oil, the hair perked up, adorned the head in thick waves and, swaying, covered what may have been somewhat unsuccessful in it: the forehead was low and sloping back. The young man is poor, his jacket was bought second-hand, a cheap checkered scarf fits his neck with artistic license and covers his narrow, painful chest, where there is no shirt. Isn’t this Tiflis plebeian already doomed to tuberculosis?
Every time Stalin looks at this photograph, his heart is filled with pity (for there are no hearts that are completely incapable of it).
How difficult everything is, how everything is against this glorious young man, huddled in a free cold closet at the observatory and already expelled from the seminary!
(He wanted to combine both for insurance; he went to Social Democratic circles for four years and continued to pray and interpret the catechism for four years - but they still expelled him.) For eleven years he bowed and prayed - in vain, he cried for lost time... The more decisively he shifted his youth to the Revolution!
And the Revolution also deceived... And what kind of revolution was that - the Tiflis one, a game of boastful self-conceit in cellars over wine? Here you will disappear, in this anthill of nonentities: no proper promotion through the steps, no seniority, but who will talk to whom. The former seminarian hates these talkers more bitterly than governors and policemen. (Why be angry with those? They serve honestly for a salary and naturally must defend themselves, but there can be no excuse for these upstarts!) Revolution? among Georgian shopkeepers? - will never! And he lost the seminary, lost the right path of life.
And to hell with this revolution, in some kind of poverty, in workers drinking away their pay, in some sick old women, in someone’s underpaid pennies? - why should he love them, and not himself, young, smart, beautiful and - bypassed?
Only in Batum, for the first time leading along the street about two hundred people, counting onlookers, Koba (that was his nickname now) felt the germination of grains and the power of power. People followed him! – Koba tried it, and he could never forget the taste. This was the only thing that suited him in life, this was the one life he could understand: you say - and people should do it, you indicate - and people should go. There is nothing better than this, higher than this. This is beyond wealth.
A month later, the police changed their minds and arrested him. Nobody was afraid of arrests then: what a deal! They’ll keep you for two months, then you’ll be released, and you’ll be a sufferer. Koba handled himself well in the common cell and encouraged others to despise their jailers.
But they grabbed him. All his cellmates were replaced, and he sat. What did he do? No one was punished like that for trivial demonstrations.
Passed year! - and he was transferred to the Kutaisi prison, to a dark, damp cell. Here he lost heart: life went on, but he not only did not rise, but descended lower and lower. He coughed painfully from the prison dampness. And even more justly he hated these professional loudmouths, the darlings of life: why is the revolution so easy for them, why are they not kept for so long?
Meanwhile, a gendarmerie officer, already familiar from Batum, arrived at the Kutaisi prison. Well, have you thought enough, Dzhugashvili? This is just the beginning, Dzhugashvili. We will keep you here until you rot from consumption or correct your behavior. We want to save you and your soul. You were there five minutes before, priest, Father Joseph! Why did you join this pack? You are a random person among them. Say you're sorry.
He really was sorry, how sorry he was! His second spring in prison was ending, his second prison summer was dragging on. Oh, why did he give up his modest spiritual service?
How in a hurry he was!.. The most unbridled imagination could not imagine a revolution in Russia earlier than in fifty years, when Joseph would be seventy-three years old... Why would he need a revolution then?
Yes, not only for this reason. But Joseph had already studied himself and recognized his unhurried character, his solid character, his love for strength and order. So it was precisely on solidity, on slowness, on strength and order that the Russian Empire stood, and why was it necessary to shake it?
And the officer with the wheat mustache came and came. (Joseph really liked his clean gendarme uniform with beautiful shoulder straps, neat buttons, piping, and buckles.) In the end, what I am offering you is public service. (Iosif would have been irrevocably ready to go into government service, but he spoiled things for himself in Tiflis and Batum.) You will receive support from us. At first you will help us among the revolutionaries. Choose the most extreme direction. Among them – move forward. We will treat you with care wherever we go. You will give us your messages in such a way that it does not cast a shadow on you. What nickname will we choose?.. And now, in order not to expose you, we are transporting you to a distant exile, and you leave from there right away, that’s what everyone does.
And Dzhugashvili decided! And he placed the third bet of his youth on the secret police!
In November he was deported to the Irkutsk province. There, among the exiles, he read a letter from a certain Lenin, known from Iskra. Lenin had broken away to the very edge, now he was looking for supporters, sending out letters. Obviously, he should have joined him.
Joseph left the terrible Irkutsk cold for Christmas, and even before the start Japanese war I was in the sunny Caucasus.
Now a long period of impunity began for him: he met with underground members, wrote leaflets, called to rallies - others were arrested (especially those he did not like), but he was not recognized, he was not caught. And they didn’t take me to war.
And suddenly! - no one expected it so quickly, no one prepared it, organized it - but She came! Crowds went around St. Petersburg with a political petition, great princes and nobles were killed, Ivano-Voznesensk went on strike, Lodz rebelled, “ Potemkin“- and the manifesto was quickly squeezed out of the Tsar’s throat, and still the machine guns on Presnya were still knocking and the railways froze.
Koba was amazed and stunned. Was he wrong again? Why can't he see anything ahead?
The secret police deceived him!.. His third bet was beaten! Oh, if only we could give him back his free revolutionary soul! What kind of hopeless ring is this? - to shake the revolution out of Russia, so that on its second day your reports will be shaken out of the secret police archives?
Not only was his will not steel then, but it completely split in two, he lost himself and saw no way out.
Young Joseph Stalin. Photo from 1908
However, they shot, made some noise, hung themselves up, looked around - where is that revolution? She's gone!
At this time, the Bolsheviks adopted a good revolutionary method of expropriation. Any Armenian moneybag was given a letter asking him to bring ten, fifteen, twenty-five thousand. And the moneybags brought it so that they wouldn’t blow up his shop or kill his children. It was a method of struggle - such a method of struggle! - not scholasticism, not leaflets and demonstrations, but real revolutionary action. The clean-cut Mensheviks grumbled that robbery and terror were contrary to Marxism. Oh, how Koba mocked them, oh, he drove them away like cockroaches, that’s why Lenin called him “a wonderful Georgian”! - exes are robbery, but revolution is not robbery? ah, varnished purists! Where does the money come from for the party, and where does it come from for the revolutionaries themselves? A bird in the hands is better than a pie in the sky.
Of the entire revolution, Koba especially fell in love with the exes. And here no one except Koba knew how to find those only faithful people, like Camo who will obey him, who will shake his revolver, who will take away the bag of gold and bring it to Koba on a completely different street, without coercion. And when they raked out 340 thousand in gold from the forwarders of the Tiflis bank - so this was still a proletarian revolution on a small scale, and fools are waiting for another, big revolution.
And the police did not know this about Kobe, and such a pleasant average line between the revolution and the police still remained. He always had money.
And the revolution already took him on European trains, sea ships, showed him islands, canals, medieval castles. It was no longer a stinking Kutaisi cell! In Tammerfors, Stockholm, London, Koba looked closely at the Bolsheviks, at the obsessed Lenin. Then in Baku I breathed in the vapors of this underground liquid, boiling black anger.
Vladimir Lenin. Pre-revolutionary photo
And they took care of him. The older and more famous he became in the party, the closer he was exiled, no longer to Baikal, but to Solvychegodsk, and not for three years, but for two. Between the links they did not interfere with the revolution. Finally, after three Siberian and Ural exiles, he, an implacable, tireless rebel, was driven... to the city of Vologda, where he settled in a policeman’s apartment and could travel by train to St. Petersburg in one night.
But on a February evening in nine hundred and twelve, his younger Baku comrade Ordzhonikidze came to him in Vologda from Prague, shook him by the shoulders and shouted:
"Coco! Coco! You have been co-opted into the Central Committee!”
On that moonlit night, swirling with frosty fog, thirty-two-year-old Koba, wrapped in a doha, walked for a long time around the yard. Again he hesitated. Member of the Central Committee!
After all, here Malinovsky- member of the Bolshevik Central Committee - and deputy of the State Duma. Well, let Lenin especially love Malinovsky. But this is under the Tsar! And after the revolution, today’s member of the Central Committee is a faithful minister. True, don’t expect any revolution now, not in our lifetime. But even without a revolution, a member of the Central Committee is some kind of power. What will he do in the secret police service? Not a member of the Central Committee, but a small spy. No, we must part with the gendarmerie.
Fate Azef like a giant ghost swayed over his every day, over his every night.
In the morning they went to the station and went to St. Petersburg. They were captured there.
Joseph Stalin. Photo from 1912
The young, inexperienced Ordzhonikidze was given three years in the Shlisselburg fortress and then additional exile. Stalin, as usual, was given only exile, three years. True, it’s a bit far away - Narym region, this is like a warning. But communication routes in the Russian Empire were well established, and at the end of the summer Stalin returned safely to St. Petersburg.
Now he has shifted the pressure to party work. I went to see Lenin in Krakow (it was not difficult for an exile). There's a printing house, there's a May rally, there's a leaflet - and at the Kalashnikov Exchange, at a party, they busted him (Malinovsky, but this was learned much later). The Okhrana got angry - and now they drove him into real exile - under the Arctic Circle, in Kureyka's pen. And they gave him a sentence - the tsarist government knew how to create merciless sentences! – four years, it’s scary to say.
And again Stalin hesitated: for what, for whom, did he refuse a moderate, prosperous life, from the protection of the authorities, and allow himself to be sent to this damn hole? “Member of the Central Committee” is a word for a fool. There were several hundred exiles from all the parties, but Stalin looked at them and was horrified: what a vile breed these professional revolutionaries are - firebrands, wheezes, dependent, insolvent. It wasn’t even the Arctic Circle that Caucasian Stalin was afraid of, but being in the company of these lightweight, unstable, irresponsible, negative people. And in order to immediately separate himself from them, disconnect him - yes, it would be easier for him among the bears! - he married a Cheldonian woman with a body like a mammoth, and a squeaky voice - but it’s better to have her “hee-hee-hee” and a kitchen with stinking fat than go to those meetings, disputes, scrapes and comradely courts. Stalin made it clear to them that they were strangers, cut himself off from them all and from the revolution too. Enough! It’s not too late to start an honest life even at thirty-five; at some point you have to stop running around in the wind, pockets like sails. (He despised himself for having spent so many years messing around with these clickers.) So he lived, completely separately, did not touch either the Bolsheviks or the anarchists, they moved on. Now he was not going to run away, he was going to honestly serve his exile to the end. Yes and war began, and only here, in exile, could he save his life. He sat with his chick, hiding; they had a son. But the war never ended. Use your fingernails or teeth to stretch out an extra year of exile—this weak king couldn’t even give real deadlines!
No, the war did not end! And from the police department, with which he had become so accustomed, his card and his soul were handed over to the military commander, and he, knowing nothing about Social Democrats or members of the Central Committee, called up Joseph Dzhugashvili, born in 1879, who had not previously served military service , – into the Russian Imperial Army as a private. This is how the future great marshal began his military career. He had already tried three services, the fourth was about to begin.
He was taken on a sleepy sled along the Yenisei to Krasnoyarsk, from there to the barracks in Achinsk. He was thirty-eight years old, and he was nothing, a Georgian soldier, huddled in an overcoat from the Siberian frosts and being carried as cannon fodder to the front. And his whole great life was to end near some Belarusian farm or Jewish town.
But he had not yet learned how to roll up an overcoat roll and load a rifle (later he did not know either a commissar or a marshal, and it was inconvenient to ask), when telegraph tapes arrived from Petrograd, from which strangers hugged each other in the streets and shouted in the frosty breath: “Christ risen!" The king - abdicated! The Empire was no more!
How? Where? And they forgot to hope and gave up counting. Joseph was taught correctly in his childhood: “Thy ways are mysterious, O Lord!”
I can’t remember when Russian society, all its party shades, had such unanimous fun. But for Stalin to rejoice, another telegram was needed, without it the ghost of Azef, like a hanged man, kept swinging overhead.
And a day later that dispatch came: The security department was burned and destroyed, all documents were destroyed!
The revolutionaries knew that they had to burn them quickly. There, probably, as Stalin realized, there were many like him, many like him...
(The security guard burned down, but for the rest of his life Stalin looked askance and looked around. With his own hands he leafed through tens of thousands of archival sheets and threw entire folders into the fire without looking through. And yet he missed it, it almost opened in the thirty-seventh. And every fellow party member who was later given up brought to trial, Stalin certainly accused him of being an informer: he learned how easy it is to fall, and it was difficult for him to imagine that others would not be insured too.) February Revolution Stalin later refused the title of great, but he forgot how he himself rejoiced and sang, and flew on wings from Achinsk (now he could desert!), and did stupid things and through some provincial window sent a telegram to Lenin in Switzerland.
He arrived in Petrograd and immediately agreed with Kamenev: this is what we dreamed about in the underground. The revolution has been accomplished, now we need to strengthen what has been achieved. The time has come for positive people (especially if you are already a member of the Central Committee). All forces to support the provisional government!
So everything was clear to them until this adventurer arrived, not knowing Russia, deprived of any positive uniform experience, and, choking, twitching and burbling, he climbed with his April theses, completely confused everything! And finally he spoke to the party, dragged it to July coup!
This adventure failed, as Stalin correctly predicted, and the entire party almost died. And where has the rooster courage of this hero gone now?
He fled to Razliv, saving his skin, and the Bolsheviks were being smeared with the latest curses. Was his freedom really more valuable than the authority of the party? Stalin openly expressed this to them at Sixth Congress, but did not gather the majority.
In general, the seventeenth year was an unpleasant year: there were too many rallies, the one who lies the best is carried around, Trotsky never left the circus. And where did they come from, the talkative talkers, like flies to honey? We didn’t see them in exile, we didn’t see them on exiles, we hung around abroad, and then they came to rip people’s throats and get into the front seat. And they judge everything like fast fleas. The question hasn’t even arisen in life, hasn’t been posed – they already know how to answer! They laughed offensively at Stalin and didn’t even hide it. Okay, Stalin didn’t get involved in their disputes, and he didn’t get into the stands, he kept quiet for now. Stalin didn’t like this, he didn’t know how to throw out words in a race to see who was bigger and louder. This is not how he imagined the revolution. He envisioned the revolution: taking leadership positions and getting things done.
These pointy beards laughed at him, but why did they decide to blame everything difficult, everything thankless, on Stalin? They laughed at him, but why did everyone in the Kshesinskaya palace get sick with their stomachs and send no one else to Petropavlovka, namely Stalin, when it was necessary to convince the sailors to give up the fortress to Kerensky without a fight, and leave for Kronstadt again? Because the sailors would have thrown stones at Grishka Zinoviev. Because you need to be able to talk with the Russian people.
It was an adventure October revolution, but it was a success, okay. It was a success.
Fine. For this we can give Lenin an A. What will happen next is unknown, but for now it’s good. People's Commissariat? Okay, let it be. Draw up a constitution?
OK. Stalin took a closer look.
Surprisingly, it seemed that the revolution was completely successful in one year. It was impossible to expect this - but it was a success! This clown, Trotsky, also believed in world revolution, Treaty of Brest-Litovsk didn’t want to, and Lenin believed it, ah, book dreamers! You have to be an ass - to believe in the European revolution, how long they lived there themselves - they did not understand anything, Stalin drove through once - he understood everything. Here you need to cross yourself, that yours was a success. And sit quietly.
Think.
Stalin looked around with sober, unbiased eyes. And I thought about it. And I clearly understood that these phrase-mongers would ruin such an important revolution. And only he alone, Stalin, can guide it correctly. By honor, by conscience, he was the only real leader here. He impartially compared himself with these playwrights, jumpers, and clearly saw his superiority in life, their fragility, his stability. He differed from all of them in that understood people. He understood them there, where they connect with the earth, where basis, in that place I understood them, without which they do not stand, will not stand, and what is higher, what they pretend to do, what they show off - this is superstructure, doesn't solve anything.
It’s true, Lenin had an eagle flight, he could simply surprise: in one night he turned - “the land to the peasants!” (and then we’ll see), one day he came up with the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk (after all, it’s not like it hurts a Russian, even a Georgian, to give up half of Russia to the Germans, but it doesn’t hurt him!). Oh NEP don’t say it at all, this is the trickiest thing of all, it’s not a shame to learn such maneuvers.
What was above all in Lenin, super-remarkable: he held real power very tightly only in his own hands. Slogans changed, topics of discussion changed, allies and opponents changed, but complete power remained only in one’s own hands!
But there was no real reliability in this man; he faced a lot of grief with his household, getting entangled in it. Stalin correctly sensed in Lenin flimsiness, flamboyance, and finally a poor understanding of people, no understanding at all. (He checked this on his own: whichever side he wanted, he turned, and from this side only Lenin saw him.) For the dark hand-to-hand combat that is true politics, this man was not suitable. Stalin felt himself more stable and firmer than Lenin, as much as sixty-six degrees of Turukhansk latitude is stronger than fifty-four degrees of Shushenskaya latitude. And what did this book theorist experience in life? He did not go through low rank, humiliation, poverty, direct hunger: even though he was a poor man, he was a landowner.
He never left exile, he was so exemplary! He hasn’t seen real prisons, he hasn’t even seen Russia itself, he spent fourteen years hanging around in exile. What he wrote, Stalin didn’t read more than half of it, he didn’t expect to become smart. (Well, he also had wonderful formulations. For example: “What is a dictatorship? Unlimited government, not restrained by laws.” Stalin wrote in the margins: “Good!”) Yes, if Lenin had a real sober mind, he would have been from the first days Stalin came closest, he would have said: “Help! I understand politics, I understand classes, I don’t understand living people!” But he couldn’t think of a better way to send Stalin as some kind of grain commissioner, somewhere in a corner of Russia. The person he needed most in Moscow was Stalin, and he Tsaritsyn sent...
And for the whole Civil Lenin settled down to sit in the Kremlin, he took care of himself. And Stalin had to wander for three years, driving around the whole country, sometimes shaking on horseback, sometimes in a cart, and freezing, and warming himself by the fire. Well, it’s true that Stalin loved himself during these years: like a young general without a rank, all fit and slender; leather cap with an asterisk; The officer's overcoat is double-breasted, soft, with a cavalry cut - and not buttoned; chrome boots, tailored to fit the foot; the face is smart, young, clean-shaven, and only a molded mustache, not a single woman can resist (and his third wife is a beauty).
Of course, he didn’t pick up a saber and didn’t get in front of bullets, he was more valuable to the Revolution, he’s not a man Budyonny. And when you come to a new place - to Tsaritsyn, to Perm, to Petrograd - you will be silent, ask questions, straighten your mustache. On one list you write “shoot”, on another list you write “shoot” - then people really start to respect you.
And to tell the truth, he showed himself to be a great military man, as the creator of victory.
This whole gang that climbed to the top, surrounded Lenin, fought for power, they all presented themselves as very smart, and very subtle, and very complex. It was their complexity that they boasted about. Where two and two made four, they muttered in unison that there was one more tenth and two hundredths. But the worst of all, but the nastiest of all, was Trotsky. It’s just that Stalin had never met such a vile person in his entire life. With such mad conceit, with such pretensions to eloquence, but never honestly argued, he never had “yes” - so “yes”, “no” - so “no”, necessarily: and so - and so, neither so - no way! No peace to be made, no war to wage - what reasonable person can understand this? What about arrogance? Like the Tsar himself, he bounced around in the salon carriage. But where do you get into the leadership if you don’t have a strategic streak?
This Trotsky burned and baked so much that at first, in the fight against him, Stalin lost his temper and betrayed the main rule of all politics: do not show at all that you are his enemy, do not show irritation at all. Stalin openly disobeyed him, scolded him in letters, and verbally, and complained to Lenin, and did not miss an opportunity. And as soon as he found out Trotsky’s opinion, decision on any issue, he immediately put forward why it should be quite the opposite. But you can't win like that. And Trotsky kicked him out like a city stick: he kicked him out of Tsaritsyn, kicked him out of Ukraine. And one day Stalin received a harsh lesson that not all means in the struggle are good, that there are forbidden methods: together with Zinoviev, they complained to the Politburo about the arbitrary executions of Trotsky. And then Lenin took several blank forms and signed along the bottom, “I will continue to approve!” - and immediately handed it over to Trotsky in front of them to fill out.
The science! Ashamed! What were you complaining about?! You cannot appeal to complacency even in the most intense struggle. Lenin was right, and as an exception, Trotsky was also right: if you don’t shoot without a trial, nothing at all can be done in history.
We are all human, and feelings push us ahead of reason. Every person has a smell, and you act by smell even before your head. Of course, Stalin was mistaken in opening up against Trotsky ahead of time (he never made such a mistake again). But the same feelings led him in the most correct way to Lenin. If you think with your head, you had to please Lenin, say “oh, how right! I’m for it too!” However, with an unerring heart, Stalin found a completely different way: to be rude to him as harshly as possible, to push him like an ass - they say, he is an uneducated, uncouth, wild person, accept it or not. It wasn’t that he was rude - he was rude to him (“I can still be at the front for two weeks, then let’s rest” - who could Lenin forgive for this?), but it was precisely this way - unbreakable, unyielding - that won Lenin’s respect. Lenin felt that this wonderful Georgian was a strong figure, such people were very needed, and then they would be needed more. Lenin listened to Trotsky a lot, but he also listened to Stalin. If he displaces Stalin, he will also displace Trotsky. He is to blame for Tsaritsyn, and he is to blame for Astrakhan. “You will learn to cooperate,” he persuaded them, but he also accepted that they did not get along. Trotsky came running to complain that there was prohibition throughout the republic, and Stalin was drinking the royal cellar in the Kremlin, that if they found out at the front... - Stalin laughed it off, Lenin laughed, Trotsky turned away his little beard, and left with nothing. They removed Stalin from Ukraine - this is how they gave the second People's Commissariat, the RKI.
It was March 1919. Stalin was in his forties. Who else would have had a shabby RKI inspection, but with Stalin it rose to the main People's Commissariat! (Lenin wanted it that way. He knew Stalin’s firmness, steadfastness, incorruptibility.) It was Stalin who was entrusted by Lenin to monitor justice in the Republic, the purity of party workers, down to the most important ones. By the nature of the work, if we understand it correctly, if we give our soul to it and do not spare our health, Stalin now had to secretly (but quite legally) collect incriminating materials on all responsible workers, send inspectors and collect reports, and then lead the purges. And for this it was necessary to create an apparatus, to select throughout the country the same selfless, the same steadfast, similar to themselves, ready to work secretly, without obvious reward.
Painstaking work, patient work, long work, but Stalin was ready for it.
It is rightly said that forty years is our maturity. Only here do you finally understand how to live, how to behave. Only here did Stalin feel his main strength: the power of an unspoken decision. Inside, you have already made a decision, but whose head it concerns does not need to know it ahead of time. (When his head rolls, then let him know.) The second force: never believe other people’s words, and do not attach importance to your own. You need to say not what you will do (you yourself may not know, it will be clear what it is), but what calms your interlocutor now. The third force: if someone cheated on you, don’t forgive him, if you grabbed someone with your teeth, don’t let him go, don’t let him go under any circumstances, even if the sun goes back and the heavenly phenomena are different. And the fourth strength: not to direct your head on theory, this has never helped anyone (you’ll come up with some kind of theory later), but to constantly think about who you’re on the path with now and to what milestone.
So the situation with Trotsky gradually improved - first with the support of Zinoviev, then with Kamenev. (Emotional relationships were created with both of them.) Stalin realized that with Trotsky he was worrying in vain: a person like Trotsky should never be pushed into a hole, he himself will jump and fall. Stalin knew his stuff, he worked quietly: he slowly selected personnel, checked people, remembered everyone who would be reliable, waited for an opportunity to raise them, move them.
The time has come - and sure enough! Trotsky himself fell on trade union discussion- he made a fool of himself, he was rude, he angered Lenin - he doesn’t respect the party! - and Stalin is just ready with whom to replace Trotsky’s people: Krestinsky- Zinoviev, Preobrazhensky – Molotov, Serebryakova – Yaroslavsky. We joined the Central Committee and Voroshilov, and Ordzhonikidze, all their own. And the famous commander-in-chief staggered on his crane legs. And Lenin realized that Stalin alone stood for the unity of the party like a rock, but he didn’t want anything for himself, didn’t ask for anything.
A simple-minded, handsome Georgian, this is what touched all the presenters, that he did not climb onto the podium, did not strive for popularity, for publicity, like all of them, did not boast of his knowledge of Marx, did not quote loudly, but worked modestly, selected the apparatus - a solitary comrade, very firm , very honest, selfless, diligent, a little ill-mannered, rude, a little narrow-minded. And when Ilyich began to get sick, Stalin was elected general secretary, just as Misha Romanov had once been elected to the throne, because no one was afraid of him.
It was May 1922. And another would have calmed down, sat and rejoiced. But not Stalin. Another person would have read Capital and taken notes. But Stalin only stretched his nostrils and realized: the time is desperate, the gains of the revolution are in danger, not a minute can be lost: Lenin will not retain power and he himself will not transfer it into reliable hands. Lenin's health has deteriorated, and maybe this is for the better. If he stays with the management, you can’t vouch for anything, nothing is reliable: twitchy, hot-tempered, and now still sick, he became more and more unnerving and simply interfered with work. It interfered with everyone's work! He could scold a person for no reason, put him under siege, or remove him from an elected post.
The first idea was to send Lenin, for example, to the Caucasus, for treatment, the air there is good, the places are remote, there is no telephone with Moscow, telegrams take a long time, there his nerves will calm down without government work. And assign to him to monitor his health a trusted comrade, a former expropriator, the Kamo raider. And Lenin agreed, negotiations were already underway with Tiflis, but somehow it was delayed. And then Kamo was crushed by a car (he chatted a lot about exes).
Then, worried about the life of the leader, Stalin, through the People's Commissariat of Health and through professor-surgeons, raised the question: after all, a bullet that is not removed - it poisons the body, it is necessary to do another operation, to remove it. And he convinced the doctors. And everyone repeated what was necessary, and Lenin agreed - but again it dragged on. And he just left for Gorki.
“We need firmness towards Lenin!” – Stalin wrote to Kamenev. Both Kamenev and Zinoviev, his best friends at that time, completely agreed.
Firmness in treatment, firmness in the regime, firmness in removal from business - in the interests of his own precious life. And in removal from Trotsky. AND Krupskaya also curb, she is an ordinary party comrade. Stalin was appointed “responsible for the health of Comrade Lenin” and did not consider this a menial task for himself: to deal directly with the attending doctors and even nurses, to tell them which regime would be most useful for Lenin: the most useful thing for him would be to prohibit and prohibit, even if he got worried. The same is true in political matters. He doesn’t like the bill regarding the Red Army - pass it, he doesn’t like the bill about the All-Russian Central Executive Committee - pass it, and not give in for anything, because he is sick, he cannot know what is best. If something insists on doing it quickly, on the contrary, do it more slowly and put it aside. And it may even be rude, very rude to answer him - this is how the Secretary General is out of directness, you can’t break your character.
However, despite all the efforts of Stalin, Lenin recovered poorly, his illness dragged on until the fall, and then the dispute escalated over the Central Executive Committee-All-Russian Central Executive Committee, and it did not take long for dear Ilyich to get to his feet. He only stood up in order to restore a cordial alliance with Trotsky in December 22 - against Stalin, of course. So there was no need to get up for this, it was better to lie down again. Now the doctor’s supervision is even stricter: don’t read, don’t write, don’t know about matters, eat semolina. Dear Ilyich came up with the idea to write secretly from the Secretary General political testament– again against Stalin. He dictated for five minutes a day, he was not allowed more (Stalin did not allow it). But the general secretary laughed in his mustache: the stenographer tapped-tap-tap with his heels, and brought him the obligatory copy. Here Krupskaya had to be punished as she deserved, - dear Ilyich fumed - and the third blow! All efforts to save his life were of no avail.
He died at a good time: Trotsky was just in the Caucasus, and Stalin announced the wrong day of the funeral there, because there was no need for him to come: it was much more decent, and very important, for the general secretary to pronounce the oath of allegiance.
But Lenin left a will. From him, the comrades could have created discord and misunderstanding, they even wanted to remove Stalin from the General Secretary. Then even closer Stalin became friends with Zinoviev, he proved to him that obviously he would now be the leader of the party, and let him XIII Congress makes a report from the Central Committee, as a future leader, and Stalin will be a modest general secretary, he doesn’t need anything. And Zinoviev showed off on the podium, made a report (that’s all there was to it, where to choose him and who to choose, there is no such post - “party leader”), and for that report he persuaded the Central Committee not to even read the will at the congress, not to remove Stalin, he already corrected.
All of them in the Politburo were very friendly at that time, and all were against Trotsky. And they refuted his proposals well and removed his supporters from their posts. And another general secretary would have calmed down. But the tireless, vigilant Stalin knew that peace was still far away.
Was it good for Kamenev to remain in place of Lenin as the head of the Council of People's Commissars? (Even when Kamenev and he visited the sick Lenin, Stalin reported to Pravda that he went without Kamenev, alone. Just in case. He foresaw that Kamenev would not last forever either.) Isn’t it better - Rykova? And Kamenev himself agreed, and Zinoviev too, that’s how they lived together!
But soon a big blow came to their friendship: it was discovered that Zinoviev-Kamenev were hypocrites, double-dealers, that they only strive for power and do not value Lenin’s ideas. I had to tighten them up. They became the “new opposition” (and the chatterbox Krupskaya got into it too), and Trotsky, beaten and beaten, calmed down for now. This was a very convenient situation. Here, by the way, Stalin developed a great cordial friendship with his dear Bukharchik, the first party theorist. Bukharchik spoke, Bukharchik provided the basis and justifications (they give - “an attack on the kulak!”, And Bukharin and I give - “a bond between the city and the countryside!”). Stalin himself had no claim to fame or leadership, he only monitored the voting and who was in what position. Many of the right comrades have already been in the right positions and voted correctly.
Zinoviev was removed from Comintern, Leningrad was taken away from them.
And it would seem that they would reconcile themselves, but no: they have now united with Trotsky, and that crook came to his senses for the last time and gave the slogan: “industrialization.”
And Bukharchik and I give - party unity! In the name of unity, everyone must submit! They exiled Trotsky, silenced Zinoviev and Kamenev.
This was also very helpful Lenin set : Now the majority of the party consisted of people who were not infected by the intelligentsia, not infected by the previous squabbles of the underground and emigration, people for whom the former height of the party leaders no longer meant anything, but only their current face. Healthy people, loyal people, rose from the ranks of the party and occupied important positions.
Stalin never doubted that he would find such people, and in this way they would save the gains of the revolution.
But what a fatal surprise: Bukharin, Tomsk and Rykov also turned out to be hypocrites, they were not for party unity! And Bukharin turned out to be the first confusion, not the theorist. And his cunning slogan of “a link between the city and the countryside” concealed a restorationist meaning, surrender to the fist and the breakdown of industrialization!.. So here they were, finally, the right slogans were found, only Stalin was able to formulate them: attack on the fist And accelerated industrialization! And – party unity, of course! And this vile company of “rightists” was also swept away from the leadership.
Bukharin once boasted that a certain sage concluded: “lower minds are more capable of governing.” You made a mistake, Nikolai Ivanovich, together with your sage: not inferior - healthy. Sound minds.
What kind of minds were you? processes showed. Stalin sat on the gallery in a closed room, looked at them through the mesh, chuckled: what kind of talkers they once were! what a power it once seemed! and what have we come to? got so wet.
It was knowledge of human nature, it was sobriety that always helped Stalin. He understood the people he saw with his eyes. But he also understood those whom he did not see with his eyes. When there were difficulties in 1931-32, there was nothing in the country to wear or eat - it seemed that if you just come and push from the outside, we will fall. And the party gave the command - to sound the alarm, there is a danger of intervention! But Stalin himself never believed the slightest bit: because he also imagined those Western chatterboxes in advance.
It is impossible to count how much strength, how much health, how much endurance it took to cleanse the party, the country from enemies and purify Leninism - this is an infallible teaching that Stalin never betrayed: he did exactly what Lenin had outlined, only a little softer and without fuss.
So much effort! - but still it was never calm, it was never like no one interfered. Then that crooked-lipped sucker Tukhachevsky jumped in, saying that because of Stalin he Didn't take Warsaw. Either with Frunze it didn’t work out very well, the censor blinked, then in the trashy story they presented Stalin on the mountain as a standing dead man, and they also clapped, idiots. Then Ukraine's bread rotted, Kuban fired sawn-off shotguns, even Ivanovo went on strike.
But Stalin never lost his temper, after the mistake with Trotsky - never again. He knew that the millstones of history were grinding slowly, but they were turning.
And without any formal fuss, all the ill-wishers, all the envious people will leave, die, and be ground into manure. (No matter how those writers offended Stalin, he did not take revenge on them, he did not take revenge for this, it would not have been instructive. He was waiting for another opportunity, the opportunity will always come.) And the truth is: whoever in the civil war commanded even a battalion, even a company in units, those who were not loyal to Stalin - everyone went somewhere, disappeared. And the delegates of the Twelfth, and the Thirteenth, and the Fourteenth, and the Fifteenth, and the Sixteenth, and the Seventeenth Congresses, as if simply according to the lists, went to places where you couldn’t vote or speak. And they cleaned out the troublemaker Leningrad twice, a dangerous place. And even friends, like Sergo, had to be sacrificed. And even diligent assistants, like Berry, How Yezhov, I had to clean it up later. Finally, they reached Trotsky and cracked his skull.
The main enemy on earth is gone and, it seems, a respite has been deserved?
But Finland poisoned her. For that shameful trampling on the isthmus I was just ashamed in front of Hitler - he walked around France with a cane! Ah, an indelible stain on the genius of a commander! These Finns, a thoroughly bourgeois hostile nation, should be sent in trains to Kara-Kum, including small children, he would sit by the telephone, writing down reports: how many have already been shot and buried, how many are still left.
And troubles kept coming and going just in bulk. Hitler deceived, attacked, such a good alliance was destroyed due to bewilderment! And the lips trembled in front of the microphone, “brothers and sisters” burst out, now you can’t erase them from history. But these brothers and sisters ran like sheep, and no one wanted to stand to the death, although they were clearly ordered to stand to the death. Why didn't they stand? why didn’t they stand right away?!.. It’s a shame.
And then this departure to Kuibyshev, to empty bomb shelters... What positions I mastered, I never bent, the only time I succumbed to panic - and in vain. I walked from room to room and called for a week: have you already rented out Moscow? have you already passed it? – no, we didn’t pass!! It was impossible to believe that they would stop - stopped!
Well done, of course. Well done. But many had to be removed: it would not be a victory if rumors spread that the Commander-in-Chief was temporarily leaving. (Because of this, I had to photograph a small parade on November 7.) And Berlin radio rinsed dirty sheets about the murder of Lenin, Frunze, Dzerzhinsky, Kuibysheva, Gorky - cities higher! Old enemy, fat Churchill, a pig for Chokhokhbil, flew in to gloat and smoke a couple of cigars in the Kremlin. The Ukrainians changed it (there was such a dream in 1944: to evict all of Ukraine to Siberia, but there was no one to replace it, it was too much); changed Lithuanians, Estonians, Tatars, Cossacks, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Latvians - even the support of the revolution, Latvians! And even native Georgians, protected from mobilizations, seemed not to be waiting for Hitler! And only the Russians and the Jews remained faithful to their Father.
So even the national question laughed at him in those difficult years...
But, thank God, these misfortunes also passed. Stalin corrected many things by outplaying Churchill and Roosevelt-holy. Since the 1920s, Stalin has not had such success as with these two bunglers. When he answered their letters or went to his room in Yalta, he simply laughed at them.
State people, how smart they think they are, but they are dumber than babies. Everyone asks: what will we do after the war, and how? Yes, you send planes, send canned food, and then we’ll see how. You give them the floor, well, the first pass, they are already happy, they are already writing it down on a piece of paper. You pretend to be softened by love, but they are already twice as soft. I got from them for nothing, not for a sniff: Poland, Saxony, Thuringia, Vlasovites, Krasnovtsy, Kuril Islands, Sakhalin, Port Arthur, half of Korea, and entangled them on the Danube and the Balkans. The leaders of the “village owners” won elections and immediately went to prison. And they quickly turned Mikolajczyk down, Benes and Masaryk’s hearts gave out, Cardinal Mindszenty confessed to the atrocities, Dimitrov in the Kremlin heart clinic he renounced the absurd Balkan Federation.
And all the Soviets who returned from European life were put in camps. And - there for the second ten years all those who served only one sentence each.
Well, it seems everything is finally starting to get better!
And when even in the rustle of the taiga it was impossible to hear about any other version of socialism - a black dragon crawled out Tito and blocked all prospects.
Like a fairy-tale hero, Stalin was exhausted in cutting off more and more growing heads of the hydra!..
How could one go wrong with this Scorpio soul?! - to him! connoisseur of human souls! After all, in 1936 they already held me by the throat and let me go!.. Ay-ya-ya-ya-ay!
With a groan, Stalin lowered his feet from the ottoman and grabbed his already bald head. An irreparable annoyance stung him. I was rolling around mountains, but I stumbled on a stinking hillock.
Joseph tripped over Joseph...
Kerensky, who was living somewhere somewhere, did not interfere with Stalin at all. Let Nicholas II return from the grave or Kolchak- Stalin had no personal grudge against all of them: open enemies, they did not shy away from offering some kind of their own, new, better socialism.
The best socialism! Different from Stalin! Brat! Socialism without Stalin is ready-made fascism!
It’s not that Tito will succeed in anything – nothing can work out for him. Like an old farrier, who had ripped open a lot of these bellies, cut off countless of these limbs in chicken huts, along the roads, looks at the little white medical trainee - that’s how Stalin looked at Tito.
But Tito stirred up long-forgotten trinkets for fools: “workers’ control”, “land to the peasants”, all these soap bubbles of the first years of the revolution.
The collected works of Lenin have already been replaced three times, and the Founders’ works twice. Everyone who argued, who was mentioned in the old notes, fell asleep long ago - everyone who thought about building socialism differently. And now, when it is clear that there is no other way, and not only socialism, but even communism would have been built long ago if not for the arrogant nobles; not false reports; not soulless bureaucrats; not indifference to public affairs; not the weakness of organizational and explanatory work among the masses; not left to chance in party education; not slow pace of construction; no downtime, no absenteeism in production, no production of low-quality products, no poor planning, no indifference to the introduction of new technology, no inactivity of research institutes, no poor training of young specialists, no avoidance of young people from being sent to the wilderness, no sabotage of prisoners, no loss of grain in the field, no waste of accountants, no theft at bases, no cheating of supply managers and store managers, no greed by drivers, no complacency of local authorities! ne liberalism and bribes in the police! ne abuse of housing stock! nah impudent speculators! no greedy housewives! nah spoiled children! no tram talkers! no criticism in literature! no dislocations in cinematography! - when it is already clear to everyone that kamunism is on the right road and is not far from completion, - this cretin Tito sticks out with his Talmudist Kardel and declares that kamunism must be built differently!!!...
Who ruled for 29 years.
Stalin carried out many reforms, boosted the economy and transformed the country in record time after the total devastation of World War II.
Under his rule, the Soviet Union emerged as a nuclear-armed superpower.
So, we present to your attention a biography of Joseph Stalin.
Biography of Stalin
During Soviet times, tons of books were written about Stalin. Today, interest in it still has not cooled down, since it plays one of the most important roles for the world of the 20th century.
In this article we will tell you about the key events in Stalin's biography that made him one of the most famous politicians in the history of mankind.
Childhood
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (real name Dzhugashvili) was born on December 9, 1879 in the Georgian city of Gori. He grew up in a poor, lower-class family.
15-year-old Joseph Dzhugashvili, 1894 His father, Vissarion, worked as a shoemaker and was a very despotic man.
Drunk to the point of unconsciousness, he brutally beat his wife, and sometimes even Joseph himself.
There was an episode in Stalin’s biography when he had to throw a knife at his father in order to protect himself and his mother from beatings.
According to local residents, one day his father beat little Joseph so badly that he almost broke his head.
Stalin's mother, Ekaterina Georgievna, came from a serf family and was poorly educated.
From a young age she had to earn a living through hard work.
Despite the fact that she also often beat her son, she, at the same time, loved him to death and protected him from all everyday worries.
Stalin's appearance
Joseph Dzhugashvili had various physical defects. He had fused second and third toes on his left foot, and his face was covered in pockmarks.
When he was 6 years old, he was hit by the wheels of a phaeton (an open-body car), as a result of which he seriously injured his arms and legs.
Throughout his life, Stalin's left arm was not fully extended. In the future, due to these injuries, he will be declared unfit for military service.
Education
An interesting fact is that until the age of 8, Stalin did not know at all. Years of biography 1886-1888, Joseph, at the request of his mother, was taught Russian by the children of a local priest.
After that, he studied at the Gori Theological School, which he graduated in 1894. Then his mother sent him to the Tiflis Theological Seminary, because she really wanted her son to become a priest.
However, this never happened. It is interesting that it was in the seminary that Joseph first heard about Marxism.
The 15-year-old teenager was so captivated by the new political movement that he began to seriously engage in revolutionary activities. On May 29, 1899, in his fifth year of study, Stalin was expelled from the seminary “for failure to appear for exams for an unknown reason.”
In 1931, in an interview with the German writer Emil Ludwig, when asked “What prompted you to be an oppositionist?” Possibly mistreatment from parents? Stalin replied:
"No. My parents treated me quite well. Another thing is the theological seminary where I studied then. Out of protest against the mocking regime and the Jesuit methods that existed in the seminary, I was ready to become and actually became a revolutionary, a supporter of Marxism...”
Literally immediately after being expelled from the seminary, the young man decides to join the social democratic movement “Mesame Dasi”.
This led to him becoming a professional revolutionary in 1901.
Stalin's name
In the same year, Dzhugashvili took the pseudonym “Stalin”, under which he would go down in history. Why he took this particular pseudonym for himself is not known for certain.
Stalin Koba
Stalin's party friends gave him the nickname "Koba", which greatly flattered the young revolutionary.
Koba is a famous character in the adventure story of the Georgian writer Alexander Kazbegi. Koba was an honest robber fighting for justice.
Stalin at the age of 23, 1901 Revolutionary activities
The period of Stalin's biography of 1902-1913 was full of various events. He was arrested 6 times and sent into exile, from which he made successful escapes several times.
After a split occurred in the party into “Mensheviks” and “Bolsheviks” in 1903, Stalin supported the latter. This choice was made largely because Stalin, whom Stalin admired, was on the side of the Bolsheviks.
At the direction of Lenin, Koba managed to create quite a lot of underground Marxist circles in the Caucasus.
Since 1906, Stalin was a participant and organizer of various expropriations (deprivation of property). All the stolen money was intended for the needs of the party and to finance the underground activities of the revolutionaries.
In 1907, Stalin became one of the leaders of the Baku Committee of the RSDLP. Since he was a very literate and well-read person, he also participated in the creation of the newspapers Zvezda and Pravda.
Photo of Stalin after his arrest in March 1908 In 1913, Dzhugashvili wrote an article “Marxism and the National Question,” which received good reviews from his comrades.
In the same year, he was arrested and sent into famous exile in the Turukhansk region.
October Revolution of 1917
In the spring of 1917, Stalin was a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RSDR, and was also part of the Military Revolutionary Center for the leadership of the armed uprising.
In this regard, he took an active part in the preparation of the coup d'etat.
The party was pleased with his actions, since he coped with any tasks that were entrusted to him, and was absolutely devoted to the ideas of the Bolsheviks.
From the beginning of the Civil War until its end, Stalin held many responsible positions.
According to the recollections of his contemporaries, no matter what he did, he managed to do his job perfectly.
Party work
In 1922, a most important event took place in Stalin’s biography. He becomes the first Secretary General of the Central Committee. It should be noted that initially this position implied only the leadership of the party apparatus.
However, over time, it was turned by Stalin into a post with greater powers. The uniqueness of the position was that it was the Secretary General who had the right to appoint grassroots party leaders.
Thanks to this, the insightful and cautious Stalin selected the most devoted people for himself. In the future, this will help him create and lead a vertical of power.
Power struggle
In 1924, after Lenin's death, many communists from the Central Committee wanted to take his place. Dzhugashvili was among them. Wanting to become the new leader, he proclaimed a course toward “building socialism.”
In order for fellow party members to support this idea, he often quoted Lenin, emphasizing his commitment to socialism.
Stalin's main opponent in the struggle for power was Trotsky. However, he managed to beat him. The majority of party members voted for Stalin's candidacy.
As a result of this, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin became the first person in the country, and almost single-handedly ruled it from 1924 to 1953, until his death.
First of all, he focused his attention on the industrialization of the country and forced collectivization, which was canceled only in the spring of 1930.
In addition, he did everything possible to get rid of the kulaks. During the years of Stalin's rule, millions of people were evicted or sent into exile.
In the future, collectivization led to a wave of protests among peasants. Riots broke out in one place after another, many of which were suppressed by force of arms.
Father of Nations
In the mid-30s, Joseph Stalin became the sole leader of the Soviet people. Former party leaders such as Trotsky, Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev and others were subject to repression because they took an anti-Stalinist position.
Researchers claim that the biographical period of 1937-1938 was the bloodiest in the entire history of Stalin's reign.
In a short period of time, millions of Soviet citizens of very different social status were repressed. Even more people ended up in labor camps.
At the same time, the cult of the leader’s personality began to actively develop. Stalin was called nothing less than the “father of nations.”
The Great Patriotic War
Joseph Stalin represented his country at negotiations with allied countries in Tehran (1943), Yalta (1945) and Potsdam (1945).
As a result of the bloodiest war in history, the losses of military personnel and civilians amounted to more than 26 million Soviet people.
The Soviet army made the greatest contribution to the victory over the Nazis, becoming the main victorious country. It was the soldiers of the USSR who liberated most of the European countries.
It is important to note that immediately after the war this fact could not be denied or disputed, so the Allies, at least verbally, expressed gratitude to the USSR.
However, today, unfortunately, the history of the Second World War is being actively rewritten.
Post-war years
In the post-war years, much changed in Stalin's biography. After all, he was the main country that defeated world evil.
In this regard, the “father of nations” wanted to create a world socialist system, which ran counter to the interests of Western countries.
As a result of this and other factors, the Cold War began, which affected politics, economics, military power of countries, etc. The main confrontation took place between the USSR and the USA.
On June 27, 1945, Joseph Stalin was awarded the title of Generalissimo of the Soviet Union. A year later, he was approved as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Minister of the Armed Forces of the USSR.
After the end of the war, totalitarianism resumed again in the Soviet Union. The autocratic regime did not allow people to have their own point of view, and freedom of speech was strictly controlled by official censorship.
By order of the leadership, constant purges were carried out affecting both the state apparatus and ordinary people. At the same time, anti-Semitic sentiments began to appear in society.
Achievements
At the same time, despite the fact that Stalin’s biography has many dark spots, it is fair to note his achievements.
During the reign of the “Father of Nations,” by the end of the 40s, industry developed so quickly that by 1950 it exceeded its indicators by 100% compared to 1940.
An interesting fact is that in 2009 he said that under Stalin’s leadership the country “transformed from agrarian to industrial,” which is simply impossible to argue with.
In addition, the leader attached great importance to increasing the military power of the USSR. He was also the initiator of the “atomic project”, thanks to which the Soviet Union became a superpower.
Personal life
Stalin's first wife was Ekaterina Svanidze, whom he married in 1906. In this marriage they had a son, Yakov.
However, the following year Catherine died of typhus. For Stalin, this was a real tragedy from which he could not recover for a long time.
Stalin's second wife is Nadezhda Alliluyeva. She gave birth to the leader two children: Vasily and Svetlana.
Stalin and his wife Nadezhda Sergeevna Alliluyeva 
Stalin with his children Death of Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin died on March 5, 1953 at the age of 74. There are still heated discussions regarding the causes of his death.
According to the official version, he died as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage. After his death, the leader’s body was exhibited in the Moscow House of Unions so that people could say goodbye to him.
After this, his body was embalmed and placed in the Mausoleum next to Lenin.
However, in 1961, at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, party members decided that Stalin’s coffin could not be in the Mausoleum, since he “seriously violated Lenin’s covenants.”
Stalin's biography has caused a lot of controversy over the years. Some consider him “the devil in the flesh,” while others say that he was one of the best rulers of Russia, and even the world.
Today, many documents have been declassified that allow us to better understand the character and actions of the Soviet leader.
Based on this, everyone is able to independently draw conclusions about who Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili-Stalin really was.
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Disputes over the life of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin still do not subside. This is a man who was 2 generations ahead of all other people in his understanding of not only the state apparatus, but also global sociology. Stalin’s nationality even now evokes many opinions; as a result, a lot of versions have been put forward, several of which will now be considered.
Mystery of origin
By exploring a large number of archives, you can come across various references and facts that may speak in favor of one theory or another. Thus, the Armenian version says that Stalin’s nationality is directly connected with his mother, who, due to her poverty, was forced to work as an ordinary laundress for a rich merchant. After she became pregnant, she was quickly married off to But this version still does not provide enough facts to understand what nationality Stalin was.
Georgian theory says that its roots go back to one prince named Egnatoshvili. By the way, already at the time when Stalin came to power, he maintained contacts with his brothers.
Russian version
According to Russian theory (if it can be considered such), Stalin's father was a nobleman from Smolensk, and his name was Nikolai Przhevalsky. He traveled a lot and was a fairly famous scientist. In 1878, he became very ill, for which he was treated in Gori, in the Caucasus. Here Przhevalsky meets a distant relative of the prince, her name is Ekaterina, who went bankrupt and was supposed to marry an ordinary shoemaker Vissarion Dzhugashvili. He, in turn, was a fairly respected man, but there was grief in his family, which slightly overshadowed the entire existence of their couple. The fact is that their three very young children died. Against this background, Vissarion began to drink a lot and often raised his hand to his wife. But even despite all the hardships of her life, Catherine was still able to charm the scientist, who was so imbued with her beauty that he continued to send her money.
It is worth noting that this version, which should shed light on Stalin’s nationality, is in fact quite vulnerable. I would also like to add that she is not as Russian as it might seem at first glance, since Przhevalsky has roots from Belarus.
It seemed that Stalin understood perfectly well that the entire society was convinced of his illegal origin. Then my father's drunkenness explains a lot. Most likely, he knew, but he just couldn't accept it. So, in one of the drunken fights he was killed, but 11-year-old Soso did not experience any feelings about this.
Life
Of course, Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich was and remains a cult personality. Despite the fact that there are constantly various debates about his life, more and more questions appear in his biography than answers. His personality continues to give rise to many myths, which biographers and researchers are trying to understand. You can even start with the birthplace of the dictator. According to some sources, the first entry speaks of the city of Gori, although it is possible that Stalin could well have been born not far from Batumi. Next is this famous blood connection with his father and resemblance to the traveler Przhevalsky.
The date of birth also causes a lot of controversy. Historians managed to find the accounting book of the Gori Assumption Cathedral Church, in which the birth record differed from the date that is considered official. According to the old style, it was December 6, 1878, and the exact same number is on the certificate of graduation from theological school.
Initially, all official documents contained Stalin’s true date of birth, but in 1921, by his personal order, these numbers were changed in all documents, and they began to indicate not 1878, but 1879. As political scientists say, this was a necessary measure in order to hide not only his noble origin, but also his illegitimacy.
Every year it becomes more and more difficult to explain why the biography indicates two dates of birth, what nationality Stalin was, and a large number of different nuances from his life. Despite the fact that he independently surrounded himself with a certain aura of obscurity, there was a small circle of people especially close to him who knew a lot about him. This is probably why they did not die a natural death and under rather mysterious circumstances.
Stalin's life is replete with many pseudonyms, of which there are a total of up to 30.
Governing body
The period of his tenure as the first person of the state was marked by a huge number of executions, collectivization and one of the most terrible wars, which claimed a lot of human lives all over the world. Naturally, the USSR should have appeared to everyone as a country in which progress, harmony and devotion to its leader were developed.
Portraits of Stalin were hung everywhere, and his era became a time of rapid economic development. Thanks to propaganda, absolutely all the undertakings of the “father of nations” were praised, this was especially true regarding the great infrastructure projects that were built very quickly, turning an agricultural country that was at its peak of backwardness into an industrial state. This was the main goal, but in order to achieve it, it was necessary to expand the volume of agricultural production to meet the needs of the working class. So collectivization was a great solution for this. Private farmers were literally taken away from their lands and forced to work in large state-type agricultural enterprises.
The whole truth about the period of the leader’s reign is still impossible to find. This is due to the fact that in fact, neither in the modern world, much less during his lifetime, this was discussed publicly. The entire period of Stalin (while he was head of state) was determined not only by repression and harsh dictatorship. We can confidently note a large number of positive nuances that have largely influenced the current development of the Russian people:
- Work conscientiously in order to benefit society first of all.
- Victory of 1945.
- The dignity of an engineer and an officer.
- Independent country.
- The innocence of high school girls.
- Moral.
- Heroine mothers.
- Chastity media.
- Prohibited abortions.
- Open churches.
- Prohibitions on: Russophobia, pornography, corruption, prostitution, drug addiction and homosexuality.
- Patriotism.
The name of Stalin is associated with his desire not only to unite, but subsequently to strengthen the country in the shortest possible time, and thanks to his energy and will to win, no one had the impression that he was unable to translate his plans into reality.
Family
Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich very carefully hid all information about himself, and his personal life was no exception. He very carefully destroyed all kinds of documents that in one way or another spoke about his family and love affairs. Thus, the modern generation can present a far from complete picture, which consists of a small number of verified facts and testimonies of several eyewitnesses, whose stories are replete with errors and inaccuracies.
The first, when he was only 26 years old, was Ekaterina (Kato) Svanidze. At that time, he did not yet have his own significant party nickname, nor any special “political weight” in society, but, despite this, he was already famous for his reputation as an inveterate revolutionary who strove for the universal idea of equality. But at the same time, I would like to add that even those bloody methods and means by which goals were achieved gave the Bolsheviks a certain flair of romanticism. This is how the famous pseudonym Koba appeared. He was a literary hero similar to Robin Hood, who robbed the rich and gave everything to the poor.
Kato was only 16 years old when they got married and began to live in a shabby room, having practically no means of subsistence. Her father was as much a revolutionary as Soso himself, so he was even happy about their marriage, since Koba already had sufficient authority among the Caucasian freedom fighters. Despite the fact that huge amounts of money passed through his hands almost every day, not a penny of it went towards improving family life and hearth.
Due to his busy revolutionary life, he practically did not appear at home, so his wife spent most of her time alone. In 1907, their common son was born, who was given the name Yakov. Thus, the life of the poor woman becomes much more difficult, and she falls ill with typhus. Since they did not have any extra money (due to the fact that everything went to the needs of the party), she dies. As eyewitnesses say, Soso was very upset by the death of his beloved woman and even began to fight his enemies with redoubled fury. Yakov, meanwhile, began to live with Kato’s parents, where he stayed until he was 14 years old.
The very young Nadya Alliluyeva became Soso’s second lover. They sincerely loved each other, despite the fact that the manifestation of tender feelings in those years, especially for such a fierce fighter for the revolution, was considered weakness. So, already in 1921, Stalin’s second son was born, who was named Vasily. At the same time, he takes Yakov too. Thus, Koba finally finds a full-fledged family. But the old story repeats itself again, when he has absolutely no time for any ordinary human joys on the path to revolution. In 1925, little Svetlana appeared in the family.
Very little is known about the relationship between the spouses; a large number of mysteries remain to this day, not only about their life together, but also about death.
It is worth noting that life with a man who has one like Stalin was inexplicably difficult. It is known that he could remain silent for three days, being in deep thought. It was difficult for Nadezhda not only because her husband was a tyrant - she had no way of communicating. She had no friends, and men were simply afraid to start even friendly relations with her, as they feared the wrath of her husband, who might think that his woman was being stalked and be “shot.” Hope needed ordinary, human, homely, warm relationships.
Suspicious death of wife
On November 8, 1932, Nadezhda Aliluyeva, Stalin’s wife, died under strange circumstances, whose nationality cannot be established unambiguously, since her mother was a true German and her father was half Gypsy. The official version was that it was a suicide; she allegedly took the fatal shot to the head on her own. As for the media reports about the death of Nadezhda, Stalin only allowed it to be said that she suddenly left this world, but what was the cause of death was not indicated.
Another point that deserves attention is Koba’s attempts to attribute everything to the fact that his wife died due to appendicitis, but two (and according to some sources - three) experts who arrived at the scene were supposed to give an opinion on death, but refused to give your signature on such a document. Her death still causes a lot of controversy, and therefore at the moment there are several options for this incident.
Several versions of the death of Stalin's wife
At the time of her death, Nadezhda was only 31 years old, and there are a lot of rumors about this. As for some conspiracy theory of what is happening, it is worth noting such a figure as Trotsky. At one time he was disliked by the government and Stalin personally, so through a certain Bukharin he tried to put emotional pressure on the leader’s wife. They tried to convince her that her husband was pursuing too aggressive a policy, organizing a deliberate famine in Ukraine, collectivization and mass executions. Trotsky thought that thanks to the political scandal that Nadezhda was about to create, Stalin could be overthrown without resorting to violence. Thus, his wife could simply shoot herself from the information she received, which she could not accept.
According to another version, at the celebration of the 15th anniversary of the October Revolution, during a banquet in the Kremlin, Stalin said something insulting to his wife, after which she defiantly left the table and went to her apartment, and then the servants heard a shot.
There is also a version that was confirmed by the head of Joseph Vissarionovich’s security. According to his story, after the banquet Stalin did not go home, but went to one of his dachas and took the general’s wife with him. Nadezhda, in turn, was very worried and called the house security phone. The officer on duty confirmed that her husband was indeed there, and not alone, but with a woman. Thus, the wife, having learned about this, could not survive the betrayal and committed suicide. Stalin never visited Nadezhda's grave.
Chief's Mother
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, whose nationality and origin are shrouded in mystery, as well as everything connected with his personal life, raises many questions. Stalin's relationship with his own mother was also strange. Many facts spoke about this, and even the fact that he introduced her to his grandchildren only when the eldest turned 15. Ekaterina Georgievna had practically no education, she could not write, she spoke only Georgian. Stalin's mother, whose nationality was not controversial, was a fairly sociable woman and was never afraid to express her personal opinion on any matter, even sometimes on political topics. She was not at all hampered by her lack of education. Some conclusions can be drawn from their correspondence, which can hardly be called letters, but most likely more like notes. It is worth noting that, despite such dryness of communication, it cannot be said that the son did not care about his mother. She was under constant and close supervision of the best doctors, but despite this, due to her age, her health did not improve. So, in May 1937, she fell ill with pneumonia, which is why she died on July 4th. The relationship was so bad that he could not even attend her funeral, but limited himself to a wreath with an inscription.
Death of the "Father of Nations"
The year was 1953. Many people have wanted Stalin's death for a long time. On March 1, he spent the whole day in his office; he did not look at important government mail and did not even have lunch. Without his permission, no one had the right to go to him, but already at 11 o’clock in the evening one of the duty officers went there at his own risk, and a terrible picture appeared before his eyes. After walking through several rooms, he saw Stalin lying on the floor and could not utter a word. For several days doctors fought for his life.
Thus, the year of Stalin's death was marked by conflicting opinions in society. Some were glad that the days of the dictator and tyrant had come to their logical end. Some, on the contrary, considered the leader’s inner circle to be traitors who, in one way or another, were involved in his death.
It is impossible to be 100% sure that conspirators from the top of the Politburo were involved in his death. Judging by some of the memoirs of Comrade Khrushchev himself and a number of close people, the leader that year no longer had the opportunity to govern the state; he was showing insanity and paranoia, which meant the inexorable approach of death. Despite the fact that he is no longer there, Stalin’s famous quotes have reached us, like “Shoot!” or “It doesn’t matter how they voted, it’s important how they counted.” They will be relevant for a long time, because the period of the life of the “father of nations” is forever included in all textbooks and remains in the memory of many people.
Stalin: Russian man of Georgian nationality
In order to understand his personality, it is necessary to draw your conclusions solely based on the few facts that are known from the direct speech of the leader himself. One thing is certain: Joseph Stalin, whose nationality can cause a lot of controversy, is a rather ambiguous personality. But, be that as it may, his assessment will always have several elements of subjectivity, which is based on everyone’s personal understanding of world and Soviet history.
In the modern world, Stalin’s nationality may cause some controversy, this is all due to a certain aura of mystery of his birth and origin, but, as the leader himself liked to say: “I am not a European, but a Russified Georgian-Asian.”
We stand for peace and champion the cause of peace.
/AND. Stalin/
Stalin (real name - Dzhugashvili) Joseph Vissarionovich, one of the leading figures of the Communist Party, the Soviet state, the international communist and labor movement, a prominent theorist and propagandist of Marxism-Leninism. Born into the family of a handicraft shoemaker. In 1894 he graduated from the Gori Theological School and entered the Tbilisi Orthodox Seminary. Under the influence of Russian Marxists who lived in Transcaucasia, he joined the revolutionary movement; in an illegal circle he studied the works of K. Marx, F. Engels, V. I. Lenin, G. V. Plekhanov. Since 1898 member of the CPSU. Being in a social democratic group "Mesame-dasi", carried out propaganda of Marxist ideas among the workers of the Tbilisi railway workshops. In 1899 he was expelled from the seminary for revolutionary activities, went underground, and became a professional revolutionary. He was a member of the Tbilisi, Caucasian Union and Baku Committees of the RSDLP, participated in the publication of newspapers “Brdzola” (“Struggle”), “Proletariatis Brdzola” (“Struggle of the Proletariat”), “Baku Proletarian”, “Buzzer”, “Baku Worker”, was an active participant in the Revolution of 1905-07. in Transcaucasia. Since the creation of the RSDLP, he supported Lenin’s ideas of strengthening the revolutionary Marxist party, defended the Bolshevik strategy and tactics of the class struggle of the proletariat, was a staunch supporter of Bolshevism, and exposed the opportunist line of the Mensheviks and anarchists in the revolution. Delegate to the 1st conference of the RSDLP in Tammerfors (1905), 4th (1906) and 5th (1907) congresses of the RSDLP.
During the period of underground revolutionary activity, he was repeatedly arrested and exiled. In January 1912, at a meeting of the Central Committee, elected by the 6th (Prague) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP, he was co-opted in absentia into the Central Committee and introduced into Russian Bureau of the Central Committee. In 1912-13, working in St. Petersburg, he actively collaborated in newspapers "Star" And "Is it true". Participant Krakow (1912) meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP with party workers. At this time Stalin wrote a work "Marxism and the National Question", in which he highlighted Lenin’s principles for solving the national question, and criticized the opportunist program of “cultural-national autonomy.” The work received a positive assessment from V.I. Lenin (see Complete collection of works, 5th ed., vol. 24, p. 223). In February 1913, Stalin was again arrested and exiled to the Turukhansk region.
After the overthrow of the autocracy, Stalin returned to Petrograd on March 12 (25), 1917, was included in the Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) and in the editorial office of Pravda, and took an active part in developing the work of the party in new conditions. Stalin supported Lenin's course of developing the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist one. On 7th (April) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP (b) elected member of the Central Committee(from that time on he was elected as a member of the party’s Central Committee at all congresses up to and including the 19th). At the 6th Congress of the RSDLP (b), on behalf of the Central Committee, he delivered a political report to the Central Committee and a report on the political situation.
As a member of the Central Committee, Stalin actively participated in the preparation and conduct of the Great October Socialist Revolution: he was a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, the Military Revolutionary Center - the party body for leading the armed uprising, and in the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. At the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets on October 26 (November 8), 1917, he was elected to the first Soviet government as People's Commissar for National Affairs(1917-22); at the same time in 1919-22 he headed People's Commissariat of State Control, reorganized in 1920 into the People's Commissariat Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate(RCT).
During the Civil War and foreign military intervention of 1918-20, Stalin carried out a number of important assignments of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the Soviet government: he was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, one of the organizers defense of Petrograd, member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern, Western, Southwestern Fronts, representative of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense. Stalin proved himself to be a major military-political worker of the party. By resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of November 27, 1919, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.
After the end of the Civil War, Stalin actively participated in the party’s struggle to restore the national economy, to implement the New Economic Policy (NEP), and to strengthen the alliance of the working class with the peasantry. During the discussion about trade unions imposed on the party Trotsky, defended Lenin's platform on the role of trade unions in socialist construction. On 10th Congress of the RCP (b)(1921) gave a presentation “The party’s immediate tasks in the national question”. In April 1922, at the Plenum of the Central Committee, Stalin was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee Party and held this post for over 30 years, but since 1934 he was formally Secretary of the Central Committee.
As one of the leading figures in the field of nation-state building, Stalin took part in the creation of the USSR. However, initially in solving this new and complex problem, he made a mistake by putting forward "autonomization" project(entry of all republics into the RSFSR with autonomy rights). Lenin criticized this project and justified the plan to create a single union state in the form of a voluntary union of equal republics. Taking into account the criticism, Stalin fully supported Lenin’s idea and, on behalf of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), spoke at 1st All-Union Congress of Soviets(December 1922) with a report on the formation of the USSR.
On 12th Party Congress(1923) Stalin made an organizational report on the work of the Central Committee and a report “National moments in party and state building”.
V.I. Lenin, who knew the party cadres excellently, had a huge influence on their education, sought the placement of cadres in the interests of the overall party cause, taking into account their individual qualities. IN "Letter to the Congress" Lenin gave characterizations to a number of members of the Central Committee, including Stalin. Considering Stalin one of the outstanding figures of the party, Lenin at the same time wrote on December 25, 1922: “Comrade. Stalin, having become Secretary General, concentrated immense power in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be able to use this power carefully enough” (ibid., vol. 45, p. 345). In addition to his letter, Lenin wrote on January 4, 1923:
“Stalin is too rude, and this shortcoming, quite tolerable in the environment and in communications between us communists, becomes intolerable in the position of Secretary General. Therefore, I suggest that the comrades consider a way to move Stalin from this place and appoint another person to this place, who in all other respects differs from Comrade. Stalin has only one advantage, namely, more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more attentive to his comrades, less capriciousness, etc.” (ibid., p. 346).
By decision of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), all delegations were familiarized with Lenin’s letter 13th Congress of the RCP (b), held in May 1924. Considering the difficult situation in the country and the severity of the struggle against Trotskyism, it was considered advisable to leave Stalin as General Secretary of the Central Committee so that he would take into account criticism from Lenin and draw the necessary conclusions from it.
After Lenin's death, Stalin actively participated in the development and implementation of the policies of the CPSU, plans for economic and cultural construction, measures to strengthen the country's defense capability and the foreign policy of the party and the Soviet state. Together with other leading figures of the party, Stalin waged an irreconcilable struggle against the opponents of Leninism, played an outstanding role in the ideological and political defeat of Trotskyism and right-wing opportunism, in defending Lenin’s teaching on the possibility of the victory of socialism in the USSR, and in strengthening the unity of the party. The works of Stalin were important in the propaganda of Lenin’s ideological heritage "On the Foundations of Leninism" (1924), "Trotskyism or Leninism?" (1924), "On questions of Leninism" (1926), “Once again about the social-democratic deviation in our party” (1926), “On the right deviation in the CPSU (b)” (1929), “On issues of agricultural policy in the USSR”(1929), etc.
Under the leadership of the Communist Party, the Soviet people implemented Lenin’s plan for building socialism and carried out revolutionary transformations of gigantic complexity and world-historical significance. Stalin, together with other leading figures of the party and the Soviet state, made a personal contribution to the solution of these problems. The key task in building socialism was the socialist industrialization, which ensured the economic independence of the country, the technical reconstruction of all sectors of the national economy, and the defense capability of the Soviet state. The most complex and difficult task of the revolutionary changes was the reorganization of agriculture on a socialist basis. When conducting collectivization of agriculture mistakes and excesses were made. Stalin also bears responsibility for these mistakes. However, thanks to decisive measures taken by the party with the participation of Stalin, the mistakes were corrected. Of great importance for the victory of socialism in the USSR was the implementation cultural revolution.
In the conditions of impending military danger and in the years Great Patriotic War 1941-45 Stalin took a leading part in the multilateral activities of the party to strengthen the defense of the USSR and organize the defeat of fascist Germany and militaristic Japan. At the same time, on the eve of the war, Stalin made a certain miscalculation in assessing the timing of a possible attack by Nazi Germany on the USSR. On May 6, 1941 he was appointed Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR(from 1946 - Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR), June 30, 1941 - Chairman of the State Defense Committee ( GKO), July 19 - People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, August 8 - Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the USSR.
As head of the Soviet state, he took part in Tehran (1943), Crimean(1945) and Potsdam (1945) conferences leaders of three powers - the USSR, the USA and Great Britain. In the post-war period, Stalin continued to work as General Secretary of the Party Central Committee and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. During these years, the party and the Soviet government carried out a tremendous amount of work to mobilize the Soviet people to fight for recovery and further development National economy, carried out a foreign policy aimed at strengthening the international position of the USSR and the world socialist system, at uniting and developing the international labor and communist movement, at supporting the liberation struggle of the peoples of colonial and dependent countries, at ensuring the peace and security of peoples throughout the world.
In Stalin's activities, along with positive aspects, there were theoretical and political errors, and some traits of his character had a negative impact. If in the first years of work without Lenin he took into account critical remarks addressed to him, then later he began to retreat from the Leninist principles of collective leadership and the norms of party life, and to overestimate his own merits in the successes of the party and the people. Gradually formed Stalin's personality cult, which entailed gross violations of socialist legality and caused serious harm to the activities of the party and the cause of communist construction.
20th Congress of the CPSU(1956) condemned the cult of personality as a phenomenon alien to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism and the nature of the socialist social system. In the resolution of the CPSU Central Committee of June 30, 1956 “On overcoming the cult of personality and its consequences” the party gave an objective, comprehensive assessment of Stalin’s activities and a detailed criticism of the cult of personality. The cult of personality did not and could not change the socialist essence of the Soviet system, the Marxist-Leninist character of the CPSU and its Leninist course, and did not stop the natural course of development of Soviet society. The party developed and implemented a system of measures that ensured the restoration and further development of Leninist norms of party life and the principles of party leadership.
Stalin was a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1919-52, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1952-53, a member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern in 1925-43, a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee from 1917, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR from 1922, a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st-3rd convocations . He was awarded the titles of Hero of Socialist Labor (1939), Hero of the Soviet Union (1945), Marshal of the Soviet Union (1943), and the highest military rank - Generalissimo of the Soviet Union (1945). He was awarded 3 Orders of Lenin, 2 Orders of Victory, 3 Orders of the Red Banner, Order of Suvorov 1st degree, as well as medals. After his death in March 1953, he was buried in the Lenin-Stalin Mausoleum. In 1961, by decision of the XXII Congress of the CPSU, he was reburied on Red Square.
Soch.: Soch., vol. 1-13, M., 1949-51; Questions of Leninism, and ed., M., 1952: On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, 5th ed., M., 1950; Marxism and questions of linguistics, [M.], 1950; Economic problems of socialism in the USSR, M., 1952. Lit.: XX Congress of the CPSU. Verbatim report, vol. 1-2, M., 1956; Resolution of the CPSU Central Committee “On overcoming the cult of personality and its consequences.” June 30, 1956, in the book: CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses. Conferences and plenums of the Central Committee, 8th ed., vol. 7, M., 1971; History of the CPSU, vol. 1-5, M., 1964-70: History of the CPSU, 4th ed., M., 1975.
Events during Stalin's reign:
- 1925 - adoption of a course towards industrialization at the XIV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
- 1928 - the first five-year plan.
- 1930 - the beginning of collectivization
- 1936 - adoption of the new constitution of the USSR.
- 1939 –1940 - Soviet-Finnish war
- 1941 –1945 - The Great Patriotic War
- 1949 - creation of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA).
- 1949 - successful test of the first Soviet atomic bomb, which was created by I.V. Kurchatov under the leadership of L.P. Beria.
- 1952 - renaming the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) into the CPSU