Joseph Dzhugashvili was born in 1878 in Georgia, which was then part of the vast Russian Empire. He was the son of a housewife and a simple shoemaker. Vissarion, his father, an alcoholic and rowdy, was arrested after an attack on the city police chief.
In 1894, 16-year-old Joseph received a grant to study at the elementary Russian Orthodox seminary. By the end of the first year, Dzhugashvili Jr. firmly decided that he did not believe in God.
Despite his convictions, Joseph remained in the seminary until 1899, then he was expelled - Dzhugashvili did not pass the final exam. But then the young man was thinking about something completely different: he was fascinated by Lenin’s writings and joined a Marxist political group.
The future leader took his first pseudonym while still in seminary. He called himself Koba and demanded that his comrades call him the same. This is the name of the hero from Joseph’s favorite novel “The Patricide,” written by Alexander Kazbegi. In the novel, Koba is a young peasant who can easily be called a “noble robber”, only, unlike Robin Hood, he is more realistic.
1901 Stalin at the age of 23.
1894 15-year-old Joseph Dzhugashvili.
After leaving church school, Stalin worked at a weather station until 1901, then finally became an underground revolutionary. Koba organized rallies, started riots and constantly wrote articles for underground propaganda leaflets. In 1904 he joined Lenin's new Bolshevik group.
In 1911, Koba takes his second and last pseudonym, which for the next few decades will inspire fear and respect throughout the world - he begins to call himself Stalin.
1901 Photos of Koba from police archives.
March 1908. Photos of Stalin after his arrest.
Personal file of Joseph Stalin. The profile was opened after his arrest in Baku in 1910.
1911 Photos taken by the secret police in St. Petersburg.
During the First World War, Joseph Stalin never went to the front. As a child, he was twice run over by a horse-drawn carriage, as a result of which he received serious injuries to his left arm and was released from service. In April 1917, at the congress of the Communist Party, Stalin was elected to the Central Committee. Six months later the Committee voted for a revolution, which subsequently led to civil war.
In less than 10 years, Joseph Stalin would become General Secretary of the Communist Party. Along with his appointment, the leader received a number of nicknames that were firmly attached to him among the people: the Genius of Humanity, the Great Architect of Communism and many others.
1915 Stalin (second row, third from left) with a group of Bolsheviks in the village of Turukhansk, Russia.
Joseph Stalin, Vladimir Lenin and Mikhail Kalinin in 1919.
Indirect evidence that Stalin could have Ossetian ancestors on the male line is the information presented in the article S. Kravchenko and N. Maksimova“Look at the Roots” (Russian Newsweek magazine), which claims that Stalin’s grandson, theater director A.V. Burdonsky, agreed to give a DNA sample. The received transcripts showed that the DNA of Joseph Vissarionovich belongs to haplogroup G2. Oleg Balanovsky, an employee of the Laboratory of Human Population Genetics of the Medical Genetic Research Center of the Russian Academy of Medical Sciences, claims that “Its representatives, originating in India or Pakistan 14,300 years ago, spread 12,500 years ago throughout central Asia, Europe and the Middle East. In the territory of the former USSR, representatives of this haplogroup live both in the North Caucasus and in Georgia. However, according to some data, the highest frequency of this haplogroup is among Ossetians.”. Versions about the Ossetian origin of Stalin’s family are considered in the work of the Russian historian A.V. Ostrovsky (see: Ostrovsky A.V. Who stood behind Stalin? - M.: Publishing house "Neva", 2002. - 638 p. - ISBN 9785765417713.). Joseph Dzhugashvili’s classmate at the seminary, I. Iremashvili, in his book “Stalin and the Tragedy of Georgia,” published in Germany in German in 1932 by the Verfasser publishing house, claims that Stalin’s father Beso Ivanovich Dzhugashvili "Ossetian nationality"
There is an opinion that the date of birth was moved forward a year by Stalin himself, since 1928 was not suitable for celebrating the 50th anniversary: there were unrest among peasants in the country due to an artificial increase in prices for industrial goods, and there were other problems. Only by 1929 did Stalin manage to finally strengthen the regime of personal power (see Stalin's revolution). Therefore, this year was chosen to celebrate the anniversary, accordingly, a suitable official date of birth was chosen (
From Stalin's biography it is clear that he was an ambiguous, but bright and strong personality.
Joseph Dzhugashvili was born on December 6 (18), 1878, in the city of Gori, into a simple poor family. His father, Vissarion Ivanovich, was a shoemaker by profession. Mother , Ekaterina Georgievna, worked as a charwoman.
In 1888, Joseph became a student at the Gori Orthodox Theological School. Six years later he was enrolled in a seminary in Tiflis. As a student, Dzhugashvili became acquainted with the basics of Marxism and soon became close to underground revolutionaries.
In the 5th year of his studies, he was expelled from the seminary. The certificate issued to him stated that he could apply for a position as a teacher in a public school.
Life before the revolution
Anyone who is interested in a brief biography of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin , You should know that before the revolution he served in the newspaper Pravda and was one of its most prominent employees. During his activities, Dzhugashvili was persecuted by the authorities more than once.
The work “Marxism and the National Question” gave weight to the future Generalissimo in Marxist society. After this, V.I. Lenin began to entrust him with the solution of many important issues.
During the civil war, Stalin proved himself to be an excellent military organizer. On November 29, 1922, he, along with Lenin, Sverdlov and Trotsky, entered the Bureau of the Central Committee.
When Lenin, due to illness, withdrew from political activity, Stalin, together with Kamenev and Zinoviev, organized the “troika”, which was in opposition to L. Trotsky. In the same year he was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee.
Against the backdrop of a difficult political struggle, at the XIII Congress of the RCP, Stalin announced that he wanted to resign. He was retained as Secretary General by a majority vote.
Having gained a foothold in power, Stalin began to pursue a policy of collectivization. Under him, heavy industry began to actively develop. Against the backdrop of the formation of collective farms and other changes, a policy of severe terror was pursued.
Role in WWII
According to some historians, Stalin was to blame for the USSR's poor preparation for war. He is also blamed for huge losses. It is believed that he ignored intelligence reports about an imminent attack by Nazi Germany, even though he was told the exact date.
At the very beginning of the Second World War, Stalin showed himself to be a bad strategist. He made illogical, incompetent decisions. According to G. K Zhukov, the situation changed after the Battle of Stalingrad, when a turning point occurred in the war.
In 1943, Stalin decided to create an atomic bomb. In February 1945, He took part in the Yalta Conference, at which a new world order was established.
Personal life
Stalin was married twice. The first wife was E. Svanidze, the second was N. Alliluyeva. He had three children of his own and an adopted son, A.F. Sergeev.
The fate of his second wife and his own sons was tragic. The daughter of Joseph Vissarionovich, Svetlana, spent her entire life in exile.
According to A.F. Sergeev, at home Stalin was good-natured, affectionate, and joked a lot and often.
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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
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin(real name Dzhugashvili) - Russian revolutionary, Soviet political, party, statesman, military leader. Joseph Stalin was awarded the title of Generalissimo of the Soviet Union (1945). Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the leader of the Soviet state from the late 1920s until his death on March 5, 1953.
The childhood and education of Joseph Stalin
According to the official version, Joseph Stalin was born on December 9 (21), 1879 in the city of Gori, Tiflis province. According to unofficial data, Joseph Vissarionovich was born on December 6 (18), 1878.
Stalin's father Vissarion Dzhugashvili- was a shoemaker. He didn't earn much. He drank often.
Stalin's mother - Ekaterina Georgievna(nee - Geladze) loved her son very much. She dreamed that Joseph Stalin would become a priest. In 1888, Joseph was immediately accepted into the second preparatory class at the Gori Orthodox Theological School, and in September 1889, Joseph Dzhugashvili entered the first class of the school, where he received his education. Joseph Vissarionovich studied very well. He graduated from college in 1894 and his college graduation certificate had almost all excellent marks.
Joseph Stalin then continued his education; in September 1894, Dzhugashvili entered the Orthodox Tiflis Theological Seminary. But it was during this period that young Joseph Dzhugashvili made Marxist friends. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin began to attend meetings of underground groups of revolutionaries expelled by the tsarist government to Transcaucasia.
According to Wikipedia, English historian Simon Sebag-Montefiore wrote: “Stalin was an extremely gifted student who received high marks in all subjects: mathematics, theology, Greek, Russian. Stalin liked poetry, and in his youth he himself wrote poems in Georgian, which attracted the attention of connoisseurs.” In his opinion, Stalin had outstanding intellectual abilities: for example, he could read Plato in original. When Stalin came to power, the historian continues, he always wrote his own speeches and articles in a clear and often sophisticated style. The English historian argued that the myth of Stalin the ignoramus was spread Leon Trotsky and his supporters.
In 1931, a German writer Emil Ludwig in an interview he asked Stalin: “What prompted you to become 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...” At the same time, Joseph Vissarionovich did not talk about his drunkard father, who beat him, and his wife.
Communicating with new friends, Joseph Stalin systematically engaged in self-education, and then in revolutionary affairs. In 1898, young Dzhugashvili joined the first Georgian Social Democratic organization. Joseph Vissarionovich immediately proved himself to be a convincing speaker. Therefore, he was assigned to conduct propaganda in workers' circles.
Revolutionary career
In 1899, Joseph Dzhugashvili left the seminary, and in 1901 the young man actually became a professional revolutionary and went underground. He worked under the party nicknames “Koba”, “David”, “Stalin”. Joseph Vissarionovich took part in the so-called “exes”, that is, in attacks on banks to replenish the party treasury. Joseph Stalin became a member of the Tiflis and Batumi committees of the RSDLP. He was eventually arrested.
From 1902 and over the next eleven years, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was arrested 8 times. The young revolutionary was in exile seven times, but each time he managed to escape (except for exile in 1913). In exile, as Stalin’s associates noted, in particular, Mikhail Sverdlov, he behaved aloofly, even arrogantly.
In the intervals between arrests, Joseph Vissarionovich was engaged in great revolutionary work. Stalin organized the Baku strike in 1904, after which a collective agreement was concluded between the strikers and industrialists. In 1905, at the First Conference of the RSDLP in Tammerfors (Finland), Joseph Stalin personally met for the first time V. I. Lenina. Further, Stalin took part as a delegate from Tiflis in the IV and V congresses (1907) in Stockholm and London.
In 1912, at the plenum of the Baku RSDLP, Stalin was introduced in absentia to the Central Committee and to the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP.
Having noticed Joseph Vissarionovich’s literary abilities, he was entrusted with organizing the publication of the newspapers “Pravda” and “Zvezda”. In 1913, Stalin’s article “Marxism and the National Question” was published in Vienna. From that moment on, Joseph Dzhugashvili began to be considered an expert on the national question in revolutionary circles. In the same year in February, Joseph Vissarionovich was arrested and exiled to the Turukhansk region. He was freed only after the February revolution. Stalin returned to Petrograd and entered the Bureau of the Central Committee, and then, together with Lev Kamenev headed the editorial office of the newspaper Pravda.
Since Vladimir Lenin was abroad, Stalin, along with other revolutionaries in Petrograd, took an active part in the preparation and conduct of the October Revolution.
Wikipedia reports that due to Lenin’s forced departure into hiding, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, as his follower and like-minded person, spoke at the VI Congress of the RSDLP (b) (July-August 1917) with a report to the Central Committee. At a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) on August 5, Joseph Stalin was elected a member of the narrow composition of the Central Committee. In August-September, Joseph Dzhugashvili mainly carried out organizational and journalistic work, publishing his articles in the newspapers “Pravda” and “Soldatskaya Pravda”.
On the night of October 16, at an extended meeting of the Central Committee, he spoke out against the position of L. B. Kamenev and G. E. Zinovieva who voted against the decision to revolt. Joseph Stalin was elected a member of the Military Revolutionary Center, which joined the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee (VRK).
During this period, Joseph Stalin often spoke in debates at city conferences, where they reported on the current situation, and participated in anti-war propaganda. Joseph Stalin was elected a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Bureau from the Bolshevik faction. He increasingly supported Lenin's views. On October 10, 1917, at a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), Joseph Vissarionovich voted for a resolution on an armed uprising.
After the October Revolution, Joseph Stalin was directly involved in the development of a plan for the defeat of the troops advancing on Petrograd A.F. Kerensky And P.N. Krasnova. And then, together with Vladimir Lenin, he signed the decision of the Council of People's Commissars to ban the publication of “all newspapers closed by the Military Revolutionary Committee.”
Civil War
When the civil war began, Stalin was appointed chairman of the Military Council of the North Caucasus Military District (June-September 1918). Later, Joseph Stalin was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Front, then a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic and a representative of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense (from late 1918 to May 1919, and also from May 1920 to April 1922).
As the doctor of military and historical sciences wrote Mahmut Gareev, during the Civil War, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin gained extensive experience in military-political leadership of large masses of troops on many fronts (defense of Tsaritsyn, Petrograd, on the fronts against Denikin, Wrangel, White Poles).
Stalin - the path to power
English writer Charles Snow also characterized Stalin’s educational level quite highly: “One of the many curious circumstances related to Stalin: he was much more educated in a literary sense than any of his contemporary statesmen. Compared to him Lloyd George And Churchill- surprisingly poorly read people. As, indeed, Roosevelt».
Apparently thanks to his abilities, Joseph Stalin was elected to the Politburo and Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), as well as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). Initially, this position meant only the leadership of the party apparatus, and the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, Lenin, continued to be perceived by everyone as the leader of the party and government.
After Lenin's death, by the end of the 20s, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin defeated the opposition and became the head of Soviet Russia. From that moment on, Stalin took up state affairs. He decisively began to speed up industrialization and complete collectivization of agriculture.
Hunger and progress
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin declared 1929 the year of the “great turning point.” Joseph Vissarionovich was going to transform agricultural Russia into a developed industrial state. He named industrialization, collectivization and cultural revolution as the strategic objectives of the state. The course of the “great turning point” was carried out using violent methods that cost millions of human lives. But thanks to the enthusiasm of the population, the country has achieved a lot. Hydroelectric power stations and factories were built, and the first metro lines appeared in Moscow. At the same time, people died of hunger.
In 1932, a number of regions of the USSR (Ukraine, Volga region, Kuban, Belarus, Southern Urals, Western Siberia and Kazakhstan) were struck by famine. According to a number of historians, the famine of 1932-1933 was artificial; the state had the ability to reduce its scale and consequences.
Stalin's general line destroyed the rural worker. Along with the fists, innocent people also suffered. The rural population was forced to go to the city in search of work. The situation was critical. And then Joseph Stalin made a statement about “excesses on the ground,” and already before the war the situation in the village improved.
During these same years, Joseph Stalin decisively dealt with the opposition. As is known, the so-called “congress of victors”, the XVII Congress of the CPSU (b) (1934), for the first time stated that the resolution of the Tenth Congress had been implemented, and there was no longer any opposition in the party.
Joseph Stalin and the Great Patriotic War
Just before World War II, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, focusing on the situation that arose in Europe, decided to get closer to Germany. Thus, the leader of Soviet Russia, realizing that war with Hitler was inevitable, wanted to postpone the military conflict for some time in order to complete the rearmament of the army and completely switch to new types of military equipment.
Based on the pact Molotov-Ribbentrop, the USSR reached agreements on the delimitation of spheres of influence, and after the outbreak of World War II annexed the territories of Western Ukraine and Western Belarus, the Baltic states, Bessarabia and Northern Bukovina.
But World War II began on September 1, 1939, when Hitler attacked Poland. Since September 1939, Poland, France, Great Britain and its dominions were at war with Germany (Anglo-Polish Military Alliance of 1939 and Franco-Polish Alliance of 1921).
In June 1941, Hitler's treacherous attack on the USSR took place. In this difficult war, the country led by Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (as Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces) suffered serious material and bitter human losses.
During 1941, the USSR, USA and China joined the anti-Hitler coalition. As of January 1942, the coalition consisted of 26 states: the Big Four (USA, UK, USSR, China), British dominions (Australia, Canada, India, New Zealand, South Africa), countries of Central and Latin America, the Caribbean, as well as governments in expulsion of occupied European countries. The number of coalition participants increased during the war.
The Soviet Union, under the leadership of Stalin, made a decisive contribution to the victory over Nazism, which contributed to the expansion of the USSR's influence in Eastern Europe and East Asia, as well as the formation of the world socialist system.
In the post-war years, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin contributed to the creation of a powerful military-industrial complex in the country and the transformation of the USSR into one of the two world superpowers, possessing nuclear weapons and becoming a co-founder of the UN, a permanent member of the UN Security Council with the right of veto.
Deportations and repressions in the USSR
In the USSR, many peoples were subjected to total deportation, among them: Koreans, Germans, Ingrian Finns, Karachais, Kalmyks, Chechens, Ingush, Balkars, Crimean Tatars and Meskhetian Turks. Of these, seven - Germans, Karachais, Kalmyks, Ingush, Chechens, Balkars and Crimean Tatars - also lost their national autonomy.
Historians agree that Stalin's repressions in the Red Army caused serious damage to the country's defense capability and, among other factors, led to significant losses of Soviet troops in the initial period of the Great Patriotic War.
Those repressed during these years included three of the five marshals of the Soviet Union, 20 army commanders of the 1st and 2nd rank, 5 fleet flagships of the 1st and 2nd rank, 6 flagships of the 1st rank, 69 corps commanders, 153 division commanders, 247 brigade commanders.
During the war, the aggressive anti-religious campaign and mass closures of churches were stopped. Stalin became a supporter of the comprehensive expansion of the jurisdiction of the Russian Orthodox Church.
After the victory in 1945, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin proposed a toast “To the Russian people!”, which he called “the most outstanding nation of all the nations that make up the Soviet Union.”
July 24, 1945 in Potsdam Truman told Joseph Stalin that the United States “now has weapons of extraordinary destructive power.” According to Churchill's recollections, Stalin smiled, but did not become interested in the details. From this, Churchill concluded that Stalin did not understand anything and was not aware of events. But he was wrong.
That same evening, Stalin ordered Molotov to talk with Kurchatov on accelerating work on the nuclear project. On August 20, 1945, to manage the atomic project, the State Defense Committee created a Special Committee with emergency powers, headed by L.P. Beria. An executive body was created under the Special Committee - the First Main Directorate under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (PGU). Stalin's directive obliged the PGU to ensure the creation of atomic bombs, uranium and plutonium, in 1948.
Personal life of Joseph Stalin
On the night of July 16, 1906, in the Tiflis Church of St. David, Joseph Dzhugashvili married Ekaterina Svanidze. From this marriage, Stalin’s first son, Yakov, was born in 1907. At the end of the same year, Stalin's wife died of typhus.
In the spring of 1918, Stalin married for the second time. His wife was the daughter of a Russian revolutionary S. Ya. Alliluyeva — Nadezhda Alliluyeva.
On March 24, 1921, a son, Vasily, was born to Joseph Stalin and Nadezhda Alliluyeva in Moscow. Stalin also adopted Artem Sergeeva after the death of his close friend, a revolutionary Fedor Andreevich Sergeev.
In February 1926, daughter Svetlana was born.
Grandson of Stalin Evgeny Dzhugashvili born in 1936. For 25 years he worked as a senior teacher of the history of wars and military art at the Military Academy of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the USSR named after. K.E. Voroshilova. Performed the role of I.V. Stalin in a film by a Soviet Georgian director D.K. Abashidze"Yakov, son of Stalin" (1990). Citizen of Russia and Georgia, lived in Moscow and Tbilisi. Died in 2016.
Hobbies of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin loved to read. As Simon Sebag-Montefiore wrote: “...Stalin's library consisted of 20,000 volumes, and he spent many hours every day reading books, making notes in their margins and cataloging them. At the same time, Stalin’s tastes in reading were eclectic: Maupassant, Wilde, Gogol, Goethe, Zola. Stalin was an erudite man - he quoted the Bible, works Bismarck, works Chekhov, admired Dostoevsky, considering him a subtle psychologist.”
Death of Joseph Stalin
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin died at his official residence - the Near Dacha, where he constantly lived in the post-war period. On March 1, 1953, one of the guards found Joseph Stalin lying on the floor of a small dining room. On the morning of March 2, doctors arrived at Nizhnyaya Dacha and diagnosed paralysis on the right side of the body. On March 5 at 21:50, Stalin died. According to the medical report, death was caused by a cerebral hemorrhage.
In the Necropolis near the Kremlin wall, the memorial cemetery on Red Square, and in the wall itself there are urns with the ashes of state, party and military leaders of the USSR, participants in the October Revolution of 1917. To the right of the Mausoleum, especially prominent party leaders are buried without cremation, in a coffin and in a grave and the government, including in 1961 the body of Joseph Stalin was transferred there from the Mausoleum.
Assessment of the activities of Joseph Stalin
The activities of Joseph Stalin will be debated for a long time. Stalin's supporters believe that he left behind a strong party, a country with an advanced social and political system. Made the USSR a power of global importance.
Opponents of Joseph Vissarionovich believe that Stalin’s reign was characterized by the presence of an autocratic regime of personal power, the dominance of authoritarian-bureaucratic methods of management, excessive strengthening of the repressive functions of the state, the merging of party and state bodies, strict state control over all aspects of social life, violation of the fundamental rights and freedoms of citizens, deportations of peoples, mass deaths as a result of the famine of 1931-1933 and rampant repression.
In the obituary for the death of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, The Manchester Guardian of March 6, 1953 wrote: “The essence of Stalin’s historical achievement is that he took Russia with a plow and left it with nuclear reactors. He raised Russia to the level of the second industrial power in the world. This was not the result of purely material progress and organization. Such achievements would not have been possible without a comprehensive cultural revolution, during which the entire population attended school and studied very hard."
After Stalin's death, public opinion about him was largely shaped in accordance with the position of officials of the USSR and Russia. After the 20th Congress of the CPSU, Soviet historians assessed Stalin taking into account the position of the ideological bodies of the USSR.
Nevertheless, geographical objects in many countries of the world are named after Stalin.
In the Foundation's report Carnegie(2013) notes that if in 1989 Stalin’s “rating” in the list of the greatest historical figures was minimal - 12% (Vladimir Lenin - 72%, Peter I - 38%, Alexander Pushkin - 25%), then in 2012 Stalin turned out to be in first place with 49%. According to a public opinion poll conducted by the Public Opinion Foundation on February 18-19, 2006, 47% of Russian residents considered Stalin’s role in history to be generally positive, 29% - negative. During a survey of television viewers (May 7 - December 28, 2008), organized by the Rossiya TV channel in order to select the most valued, notable and symbolic personality in Russian history, Stalin occupied the leading position by a wide margin. As a result, Stalin took third place, losing about 1% of the votes to the first two historical figures.
When Nikita Khrushchev at the 20th Congress he debunked Stalin’s personality cult, after which at one meeting in the Kremlin he declared:
— The Chief of the General Staff is present here Sokolovsky, he will confirm that Stalin did not understand military issues. Am I right? “No way, Nikita Sergeevich,” the marshal answered clearly. He was relieved of his post.
Georgy Konstantinovich Zhukov also confirmed: “We are not worth Stalin’s little finger!”
Joseph Stalin in the news these days
The figure of Joseph Stalin continues to play a huge role in the political life of the country; films are made about Stalin, with which scandals are associated; Joseph Vissarionovich is discussed by politicians and ordinary people.
Every now and then scandals arise with banners or memorial signs to Stalin. The online publication “Free Press-South” states that a banner with a portrait of Joseph Stalin in the uniform of a generalissimo and the inscription: “We remember, we are proud!”, which was hung on April 29, 2015 in the center of Stavropol, caused a scandal. In May 2015, the monument to Joseph Stalin, erected in Lipetsk on the eve of the 70th anniversary of the Victory by local communists, was doused with pink paint. That same year, a banner depicting Stalin was hung in the center of Moscow.
In the Chelyabinsk region, coins with Stalin and Zhukov were issued. An initiative group of residents of the closed city of Ozersk in the Chelyabinsk region appealed to the administration of the locality with a request to erect a monument to Joseph Stalin for the 70th anniversary of the Victory.
In 2015, a monument dedicated to the participants of the 1945 Yalta Conference was unveiled in Yalta. The composition repeats the famous photograph taken at the end of the conference, in which Joseph Stalin, Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt are sitting next to each other. In the fall of the same year, in the village of Shelanger in the Mari El Republic, a monument to Joseph Stalin was unveiled at the entrance of the Zvenigovsky meat processing plant.
"Free Press" reported that, in the opinion of the President of Ukraine Petra Poroshenko, Joseph Stalin was one of those who started World War II in September 1939.
In 2016 Vladimir Zhirinovsky got into the news with a proposal to move all burials from Red Square in the capital to Mytishchi near Moscow. The LDPR leader mentioned that a few days ago people brought flowers to the grave of the “bloody dictator” Stalin in honor of the anniversary of his death. Although the country, according to him, still cannot recover from his rule.
Joseph Stalin is often mentioned in the campaign of Russian presidential candidates in the 2018 Elections. So the candidate Ksenia Sobchak in the fall of 2017, she called Stalin “an executioner and a criminal,” accusing him of “full-scale genocide of the Russian people.”
The Communist Party of the Russian Federation responded to this that scientific progress, hundreds of new research institutes, hundreds of new educational institutes, the elimination of illiteracy, a cultural breakthrough, and industrialization are associated with the name of Stalin.
Stalin was the most outstanding personality in the history of mankind.
Scandal with the film “The Death of Stalin”
On January 23, Free Press reported that the Ministry of Culture had revoked the distribution certificate of the satirical comedy “The Death of Stalin” by the British director Armando Iannucci. The film was also sent for additional legal examination, the news reported.
According to the head of the department Vladimir Medinsky, many people of the older generation, and not only others, will perceive it as an offensive mockery of the entire Soviet past, of the country that defeated fascism, of the Soviet army and of ordinary people. Medinsky assures that the revocation of the rental certificate is not related to issues of censorship, but to issues of morality.
The film, which was due to be released on January 25, tells the story of the struggle for power after the death of the Soviet leader. The main roles in the film were played by Jason Isaacs, Olga Kurilenko, Steve Buscemi And Rupert Friend.
The director of the feature film “The Death of Stalin” Armando Iannucci told reporters that he still hopes that his work will be released in Russia.
Press Secretary of the President of Russia Dmitry Peskov refused to consider the situation with the withdrawal of the distribution certificate from the film “The Death of Stalin” a few days before the start of its showing in cinemas as a manifestation of censorship.