Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin was a very powerful and murderous dictator (Joseph 1). He was the second leader of the Soviet Union (Stalin 1). Joseph Stalin’s real name was losif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili was born on December 18, 1879 in Gori, Georgia (1). Was educated at the Tiflis Theological Seminary (Kreis 1).

Was born of illiterate peasant parents, his harsh spirit have been blamed on undeserved and severe beatings by his father, inspiring vengeful feelings toward anyone in a position to wield power over him (Stalin 1). His mother set him on a path to become a priest, and he studied Russian Orthodox Christianity until he was nearly twenty (1). He studied at a theological seminary where he began to read Marxist literature ( Joseph 1). He never graduated, instead devoted his time to the revolutionary movement against the Russian monarchy (1).

Stalin was not one of the decisive players in the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917, but he soon rose through the ranks of the party (Joseph 1). After Lenin’s death in 1924, a triumvirate of Stalin, Kamenev, and Zinoviev governed against Trotsky and Bukharin ( Stalin 2). The final stage of Stalin’s rise to power was the ordered assassination of Trotsky in Mexico in 1940, where he had lived since 1936 (Stalin 2). Indeed, after Trotsky’s death only two members of the “old Bolsheviks” remained – Stalin himself and his foreign minister Vyacheslav Molotov (2).

Stalin consolidated his power base with the Great Purges against his political and ideological opponents, most notably the old cadres and the rank and file of Bolshevik Party (Stalin 2). The population suffered immensely during the Great Terror of the 1930s, during which Stalin purged the party of ‘enemies of the people’, resulting in the execution of thousands and the exile of millions to the gulag system of slave labor camps (Joseph 1). He also orchestrated a massive famine in the Ukraine in which a estimated 5 million people died (Stalin 2). It is believed that with the purges, forced famines, state terrorism, labor camps, and forced migration, Stalin was responsible for the death of as many as 40 million people within the borders of the Soviet Union (2). These purges severely depleted the Red Army, and despite repeated warnings, Stalin was ill prepared for Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 (Joseph 1). His political future, and that of the Soviet Union, hung in the balance, but Stalin recovered to lead his country to victory (1).