[557] Aware that these countries had been pushed toward socialism through invasion rather than by proletarian revolution, Stalin referred to them not as "dictatorships of the proletariat" but as "people's democracies", suggesting that in these countries there was a pro-socialist alliance combining the proletariat, peasantry, and lower middle-class. [657] It has been conjectured that Stalin was murdered;[658] Beria has been suspected of murdering him, but no firm evidence has ever appeared. [53], That month, Stalin travelled to the port city of Batum. Chennai (Tamil Nadu) [India], January 14 (ANI) Tamil Nadu Chief Minister MK Stalin on Saturday took a veiled dig at Governor RN Ravi without mentioning his name during a Youth wing event organised to remember DMK founder Peraringar Anna. [648] There, he emphasised what he regarded as leadership qualities necessary in the future and highlighted the weaknesses of various potential successors, particularly Molotov and Mikoyan. [583] Sparked by a drought and ensuing bad harvest in 1946, it was exacerbated by government policy towards food procurement, including the state's decision to build up stocks and export food internationally rather than distributing it to famine-hit areas. Firstly, the divisions within the party, made his task of eliminating people less complicated, he only had individuals, not groups of people against him. [922] In recent years, the government and general public of Russia has been accused of rehabilitating Stalin. [509] This resulted in the protracted Battle of Stalingrad. [341] Large debts were accrued purchasing foreign-made machinery. A California professor was widely hounded on Twitter for praising the legacy of Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin, calling him "one of the great leaders" of the 20th century. [195] The decree's purpose was primarily strategic; the Bolsheviks wanted to gain favour among ethnic minorities but hoped that the latter would not actually desire independence. [917] In 1969 and again in 1979, plans were proposed for a full rehabilitation of Stalin's legacy but on both occasions were defeated by critics within the Soviet and international MarxistLeninist movement. Watch: When Rahul Gandhi got stumped over fuel prices . Stalin allowed the Russian Orthodox Church to retain the churches it had opened during the war. Despite initial catastrophes, the Soviet Red Army repelled the German invasion and captured Berlin in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. Check out our stalin leader selection for the very best in unique or custom, handmade pieces from our shops. [827] Additionally, according to Beria, Stalin had affairs with several Jewish women. [350] From 1929 to 1930, further show trials were held to intimidate opposition:[351] these included the Industrial Party Trial, Menshevik Trial, and Metro-Vickers Trial. [378] It therefore emphasised the expansion of housing space and the production of consumer goods. They were similar in some respects and yet very different. [939], Yevstafy Zhakov, a pastor of St. Olga Strelna near St. Petersburg, caused an uproar after he hung a portrait of Stalin among sacred images, stating: "I remember him [Stalin] on appropriate occasions, the day of his birthday, his death and that of Victory. [496] Stalin exploited Nazi anti-Semitism, and in April 1942 he sponsored the Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee (JAC) to garner Jewish and foreign support for the Soviet war effort. [129], After the October 1912 Duma elections, where six Bolsheviks and six Mensheviks were elected, Stalin wrote articles calling for reconciliation between the two Marxist factions, for which Lenin criticised him. [864], It was long rumored that Stalin married a sister of Lazar Kaganovich. The Soviet Union lagged behind the industrial development of Western countries,[310] and there had been a shortfall of grain; 1927 produced only 70% of grain produced in 1926. [126] After two months, Stalin and Sverdlov escaped back to Saint Petersburg. [802] His taste in music and theatre was conservative, favouring classical drama, opera, and ballet over what he dismissed as experimental "formalism". [219], The Bolsheviks won the Russian civil war by the end of 1919. . [712] This concept synthesised Marxist and Leninist ideas with nationalist ideals,[694] and served to discredit Trotskywho promoted the idea of "permanent revolution"by presenting the latter as a defeatist with little faith in Russian workers' abilities to construct socialism. [298] Some of those United Opposition members who were repentant were later rehabilitated and returned to government. [672] Economic reform scaled back the mass construction projects, placed a new emphasis on house building, and eased the levels of taxation on the peasantry to stimulate production. [542], In April 1945, the Red Army seized Berlin, Hitler committed suicide, and Germany surrendered in May. [654] Stalin died on 5 March 1953. [201] The treaty gave vast areas of land and resources to the Central Powers and angered many in Russia; the Left Socialist Revolutionaries withdrew from the coalition government over the issue. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Stalin has retained popularity in Russia and Georgia as a victorious wartime leader who cemented the Soviet Union's status as a leading world power. [260], They also disagreed on the nature of the Soviet state. [338] In 1928, the first five-year plan was launched, its main focus on boosting heavy industry;[339] it was finished a year ahead of schedule, in 1932. [399] By 1938, Stalin's inner circle had gained a degree of stability, containing the personalities who would remain there until Stalin's death. [925] A 2013 survey by Tbilisi State University found 45% of Georgians expressing "a positive attitude" to him. [307] Here, he argued for the concept of "Socialism in One Country", which he presented as an orthodox Leninist perspective. [726] Some of Stalin's colleagues described him as "Asiatic", and he supposedly once told a Japanese journalist that "I am not a European man, but an Asian, a Russified Georgian". [853] Conversely, Stalin had an affectionate relationship with Svetlana during her childhood,[854] and was also very fond of Artyom. [525], In November 1943, Stalin met with Churchill and Roosevelt in Tehran, a location of Stalin's choosing. [795] An autodidact,[806] he claimed to read as many as 500 pages a day,[807] with Montefiore regarding him as an intellectual. On June 11, 1937, Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin had 8 of his top army generals executed as part of The Great Purge. Reuters. No, I do not think that Stalin was a good leader. Serving in the Russian Civil War before overseeing the Soviet Union's establishment in 1922, Stalin assumed leadership over the country following Lenin's death in 1924. [181] Stalin became part of an informal foursome leading the government, alongside Lenin, Trotsky, and Sverdlov;[182] of these, Sverdlov was regularly absent and died in March 1919. [406] In turn, the anti-communist governments of Germany, Fascist Italy and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936. [36] Another influential text was Alexander Kazbegi's The Patricide, with Stalin adopting the nickname "Koba" from that of the book's bandit protagonist. [200] Lenin eventually convinced the other senior Bolsheviks of his viewpoint, resulting in signing of the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. [727] Service also noted that Stalin "would never be Russian", could not credibly pass as one, and never tried to pretend that he was. Stalin's strategy for emerging as leader was to destroy the authority of his opponents. [456] Germany began negotiations with the Soviets, proposing that Eastern Europe be divided between the two powers. [557] His armies controlled Central and Eastern Europe up to the River Elbe. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin [g] (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; [d] 18 December [ O.S. [502] The government increasingly promoted Pan-Slavist sentiment,[503] while encouraging increased criticism of cosmopolitanism, particularly the idea of "rootless cosmopolitanism", an approach with particular repercussions for Soviet Jews. [358] He oversaw proliferation of schools, newspapers, and libraries, as well as advancement of literacy and numeracy. [833] According to Montefiore, Stalin's friendships "meandered between love, admiration, and venomous jealousy". 1893 class table of Gori Religious School including a photo of Stalin. [194] In November 1917, he signed the Decree on Nationality, according ethnic and national minorities living in Russia the right of secession and self-determination. Millions more fell victim to forced labor, deportation, famine, massacres, and detention and interrogation by . [531], In 1944, the Soviet Union made significant advances across Eastern Europe toward Germany,[532] including Operation Bagration, a massive offensive in the Byelorussian SSR against the German Army Group Centre. [204] To secure access to the dwindling food supply, in May 1918 Sovnarkom sent Stalin to Tsaritsyn to take charge of food procurement in southern Russia. [765] According to historian Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin wasn't a psychopath. [928] A 2021 survey by the Center showed that Joseph Stalin was named by 39% of Russians as the "most outstanding figure of all times and nations" and while nobody received an absolute majority, Stalin was very clearly in first place, followed by Vladimir Lenin with 30% and Alexander Pushkin with 23%. This purge left his military in bad shape when war came, stripped of many of its most capable officers, but just another day for "The Man of Steel." [743] From mid-1918 until his death he favoured military-style clothing, in particular long black boots, light-coloured collarless tunics, and a gun. [615] In Poland, the Soviets merged various socialist parties into the Polish United Workers' Party, and vote rigging was used to ensure that it secured office. [811], Stalin was a keen and accomplished billiards player,[812] and collected watches. I stand on the ground of the latter". [822] After Stalin's death, Khrushchev claimed that Stalin encouraged him to incite anti-Semitism in Ukraine, allegedly telling him that "the good workers at the factory should be given clubs so they can beat the hell out of those Jews. [7] His parents were Besarion Jughashvili and Ekaterine Geladze. [244] The Georgian Communist Party opposed the idea, resulting in the Georgian affair. [932] A number of Georgians resent criticism of Stalin, the most famous figure from their nation's modern history. [816] As an infant, Stalin displayed a love of flowers,[817] and later in life he became a keen gardener. [115] He escaped to Saint Petersburg,[116] where he was arrested in September 1911 and sentenced to a further three-year exile in Vologda. [760] In 1935, he began using a new dacha provided for him by Lakoba at Novy Afon;[761] in 1936, he had the Kholodnaya Rechka dacha built on the Abkhazian coast, designed by Miron Merzhanov. [549] These events led to the Japanese surrender and the war's end. [795] Stalin also enjoyed watching films late at night at cinemas installed in the Kremlin and his dachas. [279] In his private life, he divided his time between his Kremlin apartment and a dacha at Zubalova;[280] his wife gave birth to a daughter, Svetlana, in February 1926. [196] His department allocated funds for establishment of presses and schools in the languages of various ethnic minorities. [673], Stalin claimed to have embraced Marxism at the age of fifteen,[677] and it served as the guiding philosophy throughout his adult life;[678] according to Kotkin, Stalin held "zealous Marxist convictions",[679] while Montefiore suggested that Marxism held a "quasi-religious" value for Stalin. He slowly died over the course of the next few days, apparently in agony, finally expiring on March 5th of a brain hemorrhage. Stalin, in his tweet described Yadav as a tall socialist leader. [16] Ekaterine worked as a house cleaner and launderer and was determined to send her son to school. [554] He also pushed for "war booty", which would permit the Soviet Union to directly seize property from conquered nations without quantitative or qualitative limitation, and a clause was added permitting this to occur with some limitations. [588] In April 1949, the Western powers established the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), an international military alliance of capitalist countries. [366] He personally met with a range of Western visitors, including George Bernard Shaw and H. G. Wells, both of whom were impressed with him. Stalin had nearly a million of his own citizens executed, beginning in the 1930s. Initially, Lenin's death was blamed on a series of strokes. [885] Dmitri Volkogonov characterised him as "one of the most powerful figures in human history. "[837] However, Montefiore noted that in his early life Stalin "rarely seems to have been without a girlfriend. [891] Khlevniuk noted that at various points, particularly when Stalin was old and frail, there were "periodic manifestations" in which the party oligarchy threatened his autocratic control. 6 December] 1878 [1] - 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. [460] On 17 September, the Red Army entered eastern Poland, officially to restore order amid the collapse of the Polish state. [98], In Baku, Stalin secured Bolshevik domination of the local RSDLP branch[99] and edited two Bolshevik newspapers, Bakinsky Proletary and Gudok ("Whistle"). [378] Like its predecessor, this plan was repeatedly amended to meet changing situations; there was for instance an increasing emphasis placed on armament production after Adolf Hitler became German chancellor in 1933. Stalin and a fellow senior Bolshevik Leon Trotsky both endorsed Lenin's plan of action, but it was initially opposed by Kamenev and other party members. [916], Khrushchev's de-Stalinisation process in Soviet society ended when he was replaced as leader by Leonid Brezhnev in 1964; the latter introduced a level of re-Stalinisation within the Soviet Union. December 21, 1878 - March 5, 1953. [175] Although he had been tasked with briefing the Bolshevik delegates of the Second Congress of Soviets about the developing situation, Stalin's role in the coup had not been publicly visible. [84] On arrival, he met Lenin's wife Nadezhda Krupskaya, who informed him that the venue had been moved to Tampere in the Grand Duchy of Finland. [875], Stalin's Soviet Union has been characterised as a totalitarian state,[876] with Stalin its authoritarian leader. [3] [4] [5] Contents 1 Early life 2 CTU General Secretary 2.1 2022 Sri Lankan protests 3 References Early life [ edit] [499] They achieved high levels of industrial productivity, outstripping that of Germany. "[921] In a 2017 interview, Putin added that while "we should not forget the horrors of Stalinism", the excessive demonization of "Stalin is a means to attack [the] Soviet Union and Russia". Red Army seized Berlin, Hitler committed suicide, and venomous jealousy '' seems to have been without girlfriend... 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