[34], Stalin joined a forbidden book club at the school;[35] he was particularly influenced by Nikolay Chernyshevsky's 1863 pro-revolutionary novel What Is To Be Done? [445] The Terror damaged the Soviet Union's reputation abroad, particularly among sympathetic leftists. During a brief period back in Tiflis, Stalin and the Outfit planned the ambush of a mail coach, during which most of the group although not Stalin were apprehended by the authorities. [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. [240] As People's Commissar for Nationalities, Stalin believed that each national and ethnic group should have the right to self-expression,[241] facilitated through "autonomous republics" within the Russian state in which they could oversee various regional affairs. [769] Montefiore suggested that this charm was "the foundation of Stalin's power in the Party". Fairness is based on someone's cultural background, religious affiliation, cognitive biases/dissonance and prejudices, promotes healthy workplace culture. Instead, the KMT repressed the Communists and a civil war broke out between the two sides.[308]. [477] Despite intelligence agencies repeatedly warning him of Germany's intentions, Stalin was taken by surprise. [575], Stalin's health was deteriorating, and heart problems forced a two-month vacation in the latter part of 1945. [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. He argued that Jewish nationalism, particularly Zionism, was hostile to socialism. [197] Socialist revolutionaries accused Stalin's talk of federalism and national self-determination as a front for Sovnarkom's centralising and imperialist policies. [451] Militarily, the Soviets also faced a threat from the east, with Soviet troops clashing with the expansionist Japanese in the latter part of the 1930s. [158] Stalin was in the city when the February Revolution took place; uprisings broke out in Petrograd as Saint Petersburg had been renamed and Tsar Nicholas II abdicated to escape being violently overthrown. [844] When she died, Stalin allegedly said: "This creature softened my heart of stone. [572] Academia and the arts were also allowed greater freedom than they had prior to 1941. The third and final part shows how, through an overt co-option of Lenin's legacy, Stalin 'manufactured' a charismatic bond with the Soviet people. [418] By the latter part of 1937, the purges had moved beyond the party and were affecting the wider population. He had to share power with a collection of other Soviet leaders, including Trotsky, Zinoviev, and Kamenev. [393] Grain exports, which were a major means of Soviet payment for machinery, declined heavily. [406] In turn, the anti-communist governments of Germany, Fascist Italy and Japan signed the Anti-Comintern Pact of 1936. As a result of his Five-Year Plans, the country underwent agricultural collectivisation and rapid industrialisation, creating a centralised command economy. [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. [652] According to a report published in The New York Times, Stalin was poisoned with warfarin by his own Politburo members. [539] Privately, Stalin sought to ensure that Poland would come fully under Soviet influence. [622], At the end of the Second World War, the Soviet Union and the United States divided up the Korean Peninsula, formerly a Japanese colonial possession, along the 38th parallel, setting up a communist government in the north and a pro-Western government in the south. [241], Stalin's native Caucasus posed a particular problem because of its highly multi-ethnic mix. [120] In February 1912, Stalin again escaped to Saint Petersburg,[121] tasked with converting the Bolshevik weekly newspaper, Zvezda ("Star") into a daily, Pravda ("Truth"). [598] Within Western countries, Stalin was increasingly portrayed as the "most evil dictator alive" and compared to Hitler. [113] In June 1911, Stalin was given permission to move to Vologda, where he stayed for two months,[114] having a relationship with Pelageya Onufrieva. [927] The Center, in 2019, reports that around 70% of Russians believe that Stalin played a positive role in their homeland. [76] He publicly lambasted the "pogroms against Jews and Armenians" as being part of Tsar Nicholas II's attempts to "buttress his despicable throne". He used no principles, no mercy, and no ethics. [174] A Bolshevik-controlled ship, the Aurora, opened fire on the Winter Palace; the Provisional Government's assembled delegates surrendered and were arrested by the Bolsheviks. Stalin has also been described as 5ft 4,5,6.Harry Truman once commented in Life "I was surprised at Stalin's stature - he was not over 5 feet 5 or . [244] The Georgian Communist Party opposed the idea, resulting in the Georgian affair. This has been a period replete with events of a decisive nature. "[869] For most Westerners and anti-communist Russians, he is viewed overwhelmingly negatively as a mass murderer;[869] for significant numbers of Russians and Georgians, he is regarded as a great statesman and state-builder. [705] He read about, and admired, two Tsars in particular: Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great. 227 in July 1942, which directed that those retreating unauthorised would be placed in "penal battalions" used as cannon fodder on the front lines. [907] Wheatcroft and historian R. W. Davies estimate famine deaths at 5.56.5million[908] while scholar Steven Rosefielde gives a number of 8.7million. [179], On 26 October 1917, Lenin declared himself chairman of a new government, the Council of People's Commissars ("Sovnarkom"). [541] Although concealing his desires from the other Allied leaders, Stalin placed great emphasis on capturing Berlin first, believing that this would enable him to bring more of Europe under long-term Soviet control. [196] That month, he travelled to Helsinki to talk with the Finnish Social-Democrats, granting Finland's request for independence in December. Under Stalin, socialism in one country became a central tenet of the party's ideology. No, I do not think that Stalin was a good leader. [169] Lenin began calling for the Bolsheviks to seize power by toppling the Provisional Government in a coup d'tat. [107], In March 1908, Stalin was arrested and interned in Bailov Prison in Baku. Updated on September 12, 2019 After his death in 1953, Soviet leader Joseph Stalin's remains were embalmed and put on display next to those of Vladimir Lenin. 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. [770] According to Volkogonov, "Stalin's private life and working life were one and the same"; he did not take days off from political activities. However, the party was not fully under his control. [652] He was moved onto a couch and remained there for three days. [437] Such functionaries often carried out a greater number of arrests and executions than their quotas set by Stalin's central government. [418] Stalin issued a decree establishing NKVD troikas which could mete out rulings without involving the courts. [903] According to Michael Ellman, the best modern estimate for the number of repression deaths during the Great Purge is 950,0001.2million, which includes executions, deaths in detention, or soon after their release. [413] In May 1933, he released from prison many convicted of minor offences, ordering the security services not to enact further mass arrests and deportations. [534] The Gulag system of forced labour camps was expanded further. [500] He also permitted a wider range of cultural expression, notably permitting formerly suppressed writers and artists like Anna Akhmatova and Dmitri Shostakovich to disperse their work more widely. [559] At a banquet held for army commanders, he described the Russian people as "the outstanding nation" and "leading force" within the Soviet Union, the first time that he had unequivocally endorsed the Russians over other Soviet nationalities. [3] [4] [5] Contents 1 Early life 2 CTU General Secretary 2.1 2022 Sri Lankan protests 3 References Early life [ edit] The Congress, and Zhukov constantly critised Stalin for things that he would do, and propose better ideas. [341] Large debts were accrued purchasing foreign-made machinery. [673] The new leaders sought rapprochement with Yugoslavia and a less hostile relationship with the U.S.,[674] pursuing a negotiated end to the Korean War in July 1953. [456] Germany began negotiations with the Soviets, proposing that Eastern Europe be divided between the two powers. [24] Stalin faced several severe health problems: An 1884 smallpox infection left him with facial scars;[25] and at age 12 he was seriously injured when he was hit by a phaeton, probably the cause of a lifelong disability in his left arm. [543] Stalin had wanted Hitler captured alive; he had his remains brought to Moscow to prevent them becoming a relic for Nazi sympathisers. [686], As a Marxist and an anti-capitalist, Stalin believed in an inevitable "class war" between the world's proletariat and bourgeoise. [488] In June 1941, he ordered a scorched earth policy of destroying infrastructure and food supplies before the Germans could seize them,[489] also commanding the NKVD to kill around 100,000 political prisoners in areas the Wehrmacht approached. [638] In September 1952, several Kremlin doctors were arrested for allegedly plotting to kill senior politicians in what came to be known as the Doctors' Plot; the majority of the accused were Jewish. [147] In March 1914, concerned over a potential escape attempt, the authorities moved Stalin to the hamlet of Kureika on the edge of the Arctic Circle. Although concerns were expressed that adopting this new post on top of his others would overstretch his workload and give him too much power, Stalin was appointed to the position. [39] Stalin devoted himself to Marx's socio-political theory, Marxism,[40] which was then on the rise in Georgia, one of various forms of socialism opposed to the empire's governing tsarist authorities. Born into poverty in 1879 to an alcoholic cobbler father and washerwoman mother, Stalin . [112] There he had affairs with at least two women; his landlady, Maria Kuzakova, later gave birth to his second son, Konstantin. [683] Volkogonov believed that Stalin's Marxism was shaped by his "dogmatic turn of mind", suggesting that this had been instilled in the Soviet leader during his education in religious institutions. [462] A GermanSoviet Frontier Treaty was signed shortly after, in Stalin's presence. [287] Stalin built up a retinue of his supporters in the Central Committee,[288] while the Left Opposition were gradually removed from their positions of influence. In his governance, Stalin was inspired by the ideologies of both Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin and merged to two to form the Stalinism ideology, a form of socialism that . [395] In 1938, The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), colloquially known as the Short Course, was released;[396] biographer Robert Conquest later referred to it as the "central text of Stalinism". [127] [709] Following Lenin's death, Stalin contributed to the theoretical debates within the Communist Party, namely by developing the idea of "Socialism in One Country". [250] At the 11th Party Congress in 1922, Lenin nominated Stalin as the party's new General Secretary. [44], In October 1899, Stalin began work as a meteorologist at the Tiflis observatory. He did. [94] He attended the Fifth RSDLP Congress, held at the Brotherhood Church in London in MayJune 1907. The widely covered 1943 Tehran summit saw Allied leaders Joseph Stalin, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Winston Churchill assemble for the first time. [380] The second five-year plan had its production quotas reduced from that of the first, with the main emphasis now being on improving living conditions. [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. [632] The Soviet press engaged in attacks on Zionism, Jewish culture, and "rootless cosmopolitanism",[633] with growing levels of anti-Semitism being expressed across Soviet society. Unrest soon spread across the Russian Empire in what came to be known as the Revolution of 1905. [796], Keenly interested in the arts,[797] Stalin admired artistic talent. [704] In his words, "the people need a Tsar, whom they can worship and for whom they can live and work". [937] In December 2010, unknown persons decapitated it and it was destroyed in a bomb attack in 2011. [816] As an infant, Stalin displayed a love of flowers,[817] and later in life he became a keen gardener. [576] He grew increasingly concerned that senior political and military figures might try to oust him; he prevented any of them from becoming powerful enough to rival him and had their apartments bugged with listening devices. [591] In August 1949, the bomb was successfully tested in the deserts outside Semipalatinsk in Kazakhstan. [540] The Red Army withheld assistance to Polish resistance fighters battling the Germans in the Warsaw Uprising, with Stalin believing that any victorious Polish militants could interfere with his aspirations to dominate Poland through a future Marxist government. [809] He liked the Western genre,[810] although his favourite films were Volga Volga and Circus (both directed by Grigori Alexandrov and starring Lyubov Orlova). Comrade Stalin constantly warns us that not conceit but modesty distinguishes the Bolshevik, that any leader, in whatever post he may be, is the servant of the people. He was faced with the problem that there were few Marxists left in Eastern Europe, with most having been killed by the Nazis. [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. In 1961, just eight years later, the Soviet government ordered Stalin's remains removed from the tomb. [628] When the Israeli ambassador Golda Meir arrived in the USSR, Stalin was angered by the Jewish crowds who gathered to greet her. [486] The German advance on Moscow was halted after two months of battle in increasingly harsh weather conditions. [53], That month, Stalin travelled to the port city of Batum. [910], Shortly after his death, the Soviet Union went through a period of de-Stalinization. [413] This mixed approach began to change in December 1934, after prominent party member Sergey Kirov was murdered. [737][738] His mustached face was pock-marked from smallpox during childhood; this was airbrushed from published photographs. [230] Stalin had cautioned against this; he believed that nationalism would lead the Polish working-classes to support their government's war effort. [425] There were mass expulsions from the party,[426] with Stalin commanding foreign communist parties to also purge anti-Stalinist elements. [268] Stalin took charge of the funeral and was one of its pallbearers; against the wishes of Lenin's widow, the Politburo embalmed his corpse and placed it within a mausoleum in Moscow's Red Square. [215] During the war, he proved his worth to the Central Committee, displaying decisiveness, determination, and willingness to take on responsibility in conflict situations. [192] He took Nadezhda Alliluyeva as his secretary[193] and at some point married her, although the wedding date is unknown. [422] The second Moscow Show Trial took place in January 1937,[423] and the third in March 1938, in which Bukharin and Rykov were accused of involvement in the alleged Trotskyite-Zinovievite terrorist plot and sentenced to death. [139] According to Montefiore, this was "Stalin's most famous work". Fair leadership doesn't use power to make arbitrary and . [617] Across Eastern Europe, the Soviet model was enforced, with a termination of political pluralism, agricultural collectivisation, and investment in heavy industry. [126] After two months, Stalin and Sverdlov escaped back to Saint Petersburg. Initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, he consolidated power to become a dictator by the 1930s. Severe disruptions to food production contributed to the famine of 193033 that killed millions. [416] State repression intensified after Kirov's death;[417] Stalin instigated this, reflecting his prioritisation of security above other considerations. [395] He declared that "socialism, which is the first phase of communism, has basically been achieved in this country". [430] He also initiated "national operations", the ethnic cleansing of non-Soviet ethnic groupsamong them Poles, Germans, Latvians, Finns, Greeks, Koreans, and Chinesethrough internal or external exile. [362] The government's anti-religious campaign was re-intensified,[363] with increased funding given to the League of Militant Atheists. [389] Stalin blamed the famine on hostile elements and sabotage within the peasantry;[390] his government provided small amounts of food to famine-struck rural areas, although this was wholly insufficient to deal with the levels of starvation. [639] Stalin nevertheless mistrusted his doctors; in January 1952 he had one imprisoned after they suggested that he should retire to improve his health. 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