[962], "Stalin" redirects here. [910] Kotkin observed that Stalin's ability to remain in power relied on him having a majority in the Politburo at all times. [655], From 1946 until his death, Stalin only gave three public speeches, two of which lasted only a few minutes. [326] Stalin announced that both kulaks and the "middle peasants" must be coerced into releasing their harvest. [551] After receiving a complaint about this from Yugoslav communist Milovan Djilas, Stalin asked how after experiencing the traumas of war a soldier could "react normally? Legal Bulletin January 2022 - Allen & Gledhill [16] Ekaterine worked as a house cleaner and launderer and was determined to send her son to school. [621] The 1947 Hungarian elections were also rigged by Stalin, with the Hungarian Working People's Party taking control. [890] In under three decades, Stalin transformed the Soviet Union into a major industrial world power,[891] one which could "claim impressive achievements" in terms of urbanisation, military strength, education and Soviet pride. [917] After the dissolution of the Union in 1991, the rest of the archives were opened to historians, resulting in much new information about Stalin coming to light,[918] and producing a flood of new research. [95] After returning to Tiflis, Stalin organised the robbing of a large delivery of money to the Imperial Bank in June 1907. - S. 261291. [321] Many Communists, including in Komsomol, OGPU, and the Red Army, were eager to be rid of the NEP and its market-oriented approach;[322] they had concerns about those who profited from the policy: affluent peasants known as "kulaks" and small business owners or "Nepmen". [861], Stalin married his first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, in 1906. [204] 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. [939] After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, the first President of the new Russian Federation, Boris Yeltsin, continued Gorbachev's denunciation of Stalin but added to it a denunciation of Lenin. Although many people were victims of the purge throughout this decade, the general Soviet public was not aware of the purge until 1937.[3]. [563] 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. [823] Lenin was his favourite author but he also read, and sometimes appreciated, a great deal of writing by Leon Trotsky and other arch-enemies. [908], McDermott nevertheless cautioned against "over-simplistic stereotypes"promoted in the fiction of writers like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Vasily Grossman, and Anatoly Rybakovthat portrayed Stalin as an omnipotent and omnipresent tyrant who controlled every aspect of Soviet life through repression and totalitarianism. Political and military achievements of Joseph Stalin | Britannica [728] He was of the view that if they became fully autonomous, then they would end up being controlled by the most reactionary elements of their community; as an example he cited the largely illiterate Tatars, whom he claimed would end up dominated by their mullahs. December 1 is the 335th day of the year (336th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar ; 30 days remain until the end of the year. [350] Large debts were accrued purchasing foreign-made machinery. [430] The first Moscow Trial took place in August 1936; Kamenev and Zinoviev were among those accused of plotting assassinations, found guilty in a show trial, and executed. [528] In 1941, the London Philharmonic Orchestra performed a concert to celebrate his birthday,[529] and in 1942, Time magazine named him "Man of the Year". [721] Following Lenin's death, Stalin contributed to the theoretical debates within the Communist Party, namely by developing the idea of "Socialism in One Country". [588] In 1949, he brought Nikita Khrushchev from Ukraine to Moscow, appointing him a Central Committee secretary and the head of the city's party branch. Recalcitrant cases could be reduced to nonpersons via involuntary commitment to a psychiatric institution. [181] In the early hours of 25 October, Stalin joined Lenin in a Central Committee meeting in the Smolny Institute, from where the Bolshevik coup the October Revolution was directed. [854], Stalin was no womanizer. [367] He oversaw proliferation of schools, newspapers, and libraries, as well as advancement of literacy and numeracy. [449] He was particularly concerned at the success that right-wing forces had in overthrowing the leftist Spanish government,[450] fearing a domestic fifth column in the event of future war with Japan and Germany. 1 December 1940, the Criminal Code of the RSFSR (of 1926) was . [312] According to Montefiore, at this point "Stalin was the leader of the oligarchs but he was far from a dictator". [121] There he had affairs with at least two women; his landlady, Maria Kuzakova, later gave birth to his second son, Konstantin. During this period, new memberships were suspended. [828] He also enjoyed practical jokes; for instance, he would place a tomato on the seat of Politburo members and wait for them to sit on it. [270] Stalin believed this would encourage independence sentiment among non-Russians, instead arguing that ethnic minorities would be content as "autonomous republics" within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. [805] By the 1920s, he was also suspicious and conspiratorial, prone to believing that people were plotting against him and that there were vast international conspiracies behind acts of dissent. [256], After the civil war, workers' strikes and peasant uprisings broke out across Russia, largely in opposition to Sovnarkom's food requisitioning project; as an antidote, Lenin introduced market-oriented reforms: the New Economic Policy (NEP). [517] In June 1942, the German Army began a major offensive in Southern Russia, threatening Stalingrad; Stalin ordered the Red Army to hold the city at all costs. [589] In the Leningrad Affair, the city's leadership was purged amid accusations of treachery; executions of many of the accused took place in 1950. [632] Stalin was concerned that Mao might follow Tito's example by pursuing a course independent of Soviet influence, and made it known that if displeased he would withdraw assistance from China; the Chinese desperately needed said assistance after decades of civil war. [288] In his private life, he divided his time between his Kremlin apartment and a dacha at Zubalova;[289] his wife gave birth to a daughter, Svetlana, in February 1926. Russian Revolution, Civil War and USSR 1917-1991 - EuroDocs [915] Since his death many more biographies have been written,[916] although until the 1980s these relied largely on the same sources of information. [809] Other historians linked his brutality not to any personality trait, but to his unwavering commitment to the survival of the Soviet Union and the international MarxistLeninist cause. [188], On 26 October 1917, Lenin declared himself chairman of a new government, the Council of People's Commissars ("Sovnarkom"). [354] To promote intensification of labour, a series of medals and awards as well as the Stakhanovite movement were introduced. Widely considered to be one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Stalin was the subject of a pervasive personality cult within the international MarxistLeninist movement, which revered him as a champion of the working class and socialism. [98], In Baku, Stalin secured Bolshevik domination of the local RSDLP branch[99] and edited two Bolshevik newspapers, Bakinsky Proletary and Gudok ("Whistle"). [503] Amid the fighting, both the German and Soviet armies disregarded the law of war set forth in the Geneva Conventions;[504] the Soviets heavily publicised Nazi massacres of communists, Jews, and Romani. [404] In 1938, The History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), colloquially known as the Short Course, was released;[405] biographer Robert Conquest later referred to it as the "central text of Stalinism". [597] In April 1949, the Western powers established the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), an international military alliance of capitalist countries. [185] Trotsky and other later Bolshevik opponents of Stalin used this as evidence that his role in the coup had been insignificant, although later historians reject this. [357] He warned of a "danger from the right", including in the Communist Party itself. Instead, the KMT repressed the Communists and a civil war broke out between the two sides.[317]. [726] Ultimately he believed that all nations would merge into a single, global human community,[726] and regarded all nations as inherently equal. [923] 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. [279] To bolster his image as a devoted Leninist, Stalin gave nine lectures at Sverdlov University on the "Foundations of Leninism", later published in book form. Language links are at the top of the page across from the title. The Russian economy had grown by around 14% per year. [909] Service similarly warned of the portrayal of Stalin as an "unimpeded despot", noting that "powerful though he was, his powers were not limitless", and his rule depended on his willingness to conserve the Soviet structure he had inherited. Rodendorf, Alexander Andreyevich Svechin, Pavel Sytin, F.F. [881] Montefiore also claimed that Stalin had at least two illegitimate children,[882] although he never recognised them as being his. [87] In April 1906, Stalin attended the RSDLP Fourth Congress in Stockholm; this was his first trip outside the Russian Empire. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin[g] (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili;[d] 18 December[O.S. When Stalin's purge of the Communist Party and Soviet government began in 1934 after the assassination of Leningrad party boss Sergei Kirov (1 December 1934), Beria ran the purges in Transcaucasia. 2 (126). [241] In Moscow, Lenin and Trotsky blamed him for his behaviour in the PolishSoviet war. 2014. [476] In June 1940, the Red Army occupied the Baltic states, which were forcibly merged into the Soviet Union in August;[477] they also invaded and annexed Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, parts of Romania. He initially refused, leading to an international crisis in 1946, but one year later Stalin finally relented and moved the Soviet troops out. [495] The German advance on Moscow was halted after two months of battle in increasingly harsh weather conditions. [913] During Stalin's lifetime, his approved biographies were largely hagiographic in content. 24 V. . [307] Some of those United Opposition members who were repentant were later rehabilitated and returned to government. MOM updates advisory on workplace safe management measures . Muthuvel Karunanidhi Stalin ( / stln, - lin /, [a] born 1 March 1953), often referred to by his initials as M. K. Stalin, is an Indian Tamil politician serving as the 8th and current Chief Minister of Tamil Nadu. [553] As the Red Army had conquered German territory, they discovered the extermination camps that the Nazi administration had run. [625] He gambled that the Western powers would not risk war, but they airlifted supplies into West Berlin until May 1949, when Stalin relented and ended the blockade. [227] The Polish-Soviet War ended on 18 March 1921, when a peace treaty was signed in Riga. [189] Stalin backed Lenin's decision not to form a coalition with the Mensheviks and Socialist Revolutionary Party, although they did form a coalition government with the Left Socialist Revolutionaries. [934] In October 1961, Stalin's body was removed from the mausoleum and buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, the location marked by a bust. [126], In January 1912, while Stalin was in exile, the first Bolshevik Central Committee was elected at the Prague Conference. [27] He joined 600 trainee priests who boarded there,[28] and he achieved high grades. [343] Although he and Stalin had been close for many years,[344] Bukharin expressed concerns about these policies; he regarded them as a return to Lenin's old "war communism" policy and believed that it would fail. 1893 class table of Gori Religious School including a photo of Stalin. [81] They launched attacks on the government's Cossack troops and pro-Tsarist Black Hundreds,[82] co-ordinating some of their operations with the Menshevik militia. [431] The second Moscow Show Trial took place in January 1937,[432] 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. [52] In November 1901, he was elected to the Tiflis Committee of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), a Marxist party founded in 1898. [530] There remained mutual suspicions between Stalin, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who were together known as the "Big Three". [884] The other, Alexander, was the son of Lidia Pereprygina; he was raised as the son of a peasant fisherman and the Soviet authorities made him swear never to reveal that Stalin was his biological father. [537] Stalin was impatient for the UK and U.S. to open up a Western Front to take the pressure off of the East; they eventually did so in mid-1944. [83], In November 1905, the Georgian Bolsheviks elected Stalin as one of their delegates to a Bolshevik conference in Saint Petersburg. Events Pre-1600 800 - A council is convened in the Vatican, at which Charlemagne is to judge the accusations against Pope Leo III. [708] He claimed to be a loyal Leninist,[709] although wasaccording to Service"not a blindly obedient Leninist". Despite initial catastrophes, the Soviet Red Army repelled the German invasion and captured Berlin in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. Archive and investigation of the military scientist A. [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 suffered either a heart attack or a series of strokes in 1945, and his health hadn't been the same . [363] Nationalist sentiment among ethnic minorities was suppressed. "Purges of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union", Learn how and when to remove this template message, Trade unions in the Soviet Union Role in the Soviet class system, chekism, and party rule, Bibliography of Stalinism and the Soviet Union, Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization, . [853] While head of the Soviet Union he remained in contact with many of his old friends in Georgia, sending them letters and gifts of money. [178] Lenin began calling for the Bolsheviks to seize power by toppling the Provisional Government in a coup d'tat. The Tehran Conference was the first of two meetings of the "Big Three" Allied leaders (Premier Joseph Stalin of the Soviet Union, U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, and Great Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill) held at the request of the U.S. President at the height of World War II. The move was in part for company, in part to keep an eye on them. [365], Stalin desired a "cultural revolution",[366] entailing both creation of a culture for the "masses" and wider dissemination of previously elite culture. Code named Eureka, the. [68] During his exile, the RSDLP had split between Vladimir Lenin's "Bolsheviks" and Julius Martov's "Mensheviks". 6 December]1878[1] 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician, political theorist, and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. December 5, 1936. - Vol. At Josef Stalin 's urging, the Central Committee of the . [216] He befriended two military figures, Kliment Voroshilov and Semyon Budyonny, who would form the nucleus of his military and political support base. [169] There, Stalin and a fellow Bolshevik Lev Kamenev assumed control of Pravda,[170] and Stalin was appointed the Bolshevik representative to the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, an influential council of the city's workers. [439] 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. [203] In November 1917, he signed the Decree on Nationality, according ethnic and national minorities living in Russia the right of secession and self-determination. [563] Germany was divided into four zones: Soviet, U.S., British, and French, with Berlin itselflocated within the Soviet areaalso subdivided thusly. 181 Birthdate: December 18, 1878 Sun Sign: Sagittarius Birthplace: Gori, Georgia Died: March 5, 1953 Controversial Russian dictator, Joseph Stalin, ruled the Soviet Union for around 25 years from 1929 to 1953 and is credited for making it a prominent industrial and military power of the world. Lenin called for establishment of a new federation named the "Union of Soviet Republics of Europe and Asia", reflecting his desire for expansion across the two continents and insisted that the Russian state should join this union on equal terms with the other Soviet states. [547] An agreement was also made that a post-war Polish government should be a coalition consisting of both communist and conservative elements. He was faced with the problem that there were few Marxists left in Eastern Europe, with most having been killed by the Nazis. [92] In March 1907 she bore a son, Yakov. [832] His Volynskoe suburb had a 20-hectare (50-acre) park, with Stalin devoting much attention to its agricultural activities. They were required to confess their transgressions towards the party and name accomplices. As a result of his Five-Year Plans, the country underwent agricultural collectivisation and rapid industrialisation, creating a centralised command economy. In 1952, Stalin's last book, Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR, was published. [700] Leading this vanguard, he believed that the Soviet peoples needed a strong, central figureakin to a Tsarwhom they could rally around. [152] Stalin retained the name for the rest of his life, possibly because it was used on the article that established his reputation among the Bolsheviks. [715] Stalin adopted the Leninist view on the need for a revolutionary vanguard who could lead the proletariat rather than being led by them. The most prolific period of executions occurred during the Great Purge, from 1936 to 1938. [281] Embarrassed by its contents, Stalin offered his resignation as General Secretary; this act of humility saved him and he was retained in the position. Punishments ranged from eviction and relocation to summary execution. [565] Still, Stalin foresaw the undesirability of a nuclear conflict, saying in 1949 that "atomic weapons can hardly be used without spelling the end of the world. [851] Stalin was sociable and enjoyed a joke. [127] Shortly after the conference, Lenin and Grigory Zinoviev decided to co-opt Stalin to the committee. She gave birth to a son, named Alexander, in around April 1917. [519] In December 1942, he placed Konstantin Rokossovski in charge of holding the city. Moscow Trials (1936-38) --> show trials, an excuse for Stalin to remove big opposition (Bukharin 1938, Kamenev and Zinoviev in 1936)- 1st December Laws --> ordered the immediate commencing of purges and trials for threats and rivals to the communist regime. [89] Lenin and Stalin disagreed with this decision[90] and later privately discussed how they could continue the robberies for the Bolshevik cause. [491] The German Wehrmacht pushed deep into Soviet territory;[492] soon, Ukraine, Byelorussia, and the Baltic states were under German occupation, and Leningrad was under siege;[493] and Soviet refugees were flooding into Moscow and surrounding cities. [499] He purged the military command; several high-ranking figures were demoted or reassigned and others were arrested and executed. [643] The Soviet press engaged in vituperative attacks on Zionism, Jewish culture, and "rootless cosmopolitanism",[644] with growing levels of anti-Semitism being expressed across Soviet society. [215] At the same time, he disregarded orders and repeatedly threatened to resign when affronted. [903] According to Kotkin, Stalin "built a personal dictatorship within the Bolshevik dictatorship. [631] In December 1949, Mao visited Stalin. Rees cited a diagnosis performed by neuropathologist Vladimir Bekhterev on Stalin in 1927 and who had described him as a "typical case of severe paranoia". [7] His parents were Besarion Jughashvili and Ekaterine Geladze. [335] Although officially voluntary, many peasants joined the collectives out of fear they would face the fate of the kulaks; others joined amid intimidation and violence from party loyalists. [410] Stalin initiated confidential communications with Hitler in October 1933, shortly after the latter came to power in Germany. Many experts believe these threats further encouraged Stalin to carry out his purge . [809] An autodidact,[821] he claimed to read as many as 500 pages a day,[822] with Montefiore regarding him as an intellectual. [484] Although de facto head of government for a decade and a half, Stalin concluded that relations with Germany had deteriorated to such an extent that he needed to deal with the problem as de jure head of government as well: on 6 May, Stalin replaced Molotov as Premier of the Soviet Union. The first Party purge of the Joseph Stalin era took place in 19291930 in accordance with a resolution of the XVI Party Conference. Resolution came about shortly after Stalin's assassination of Sergey Kirov. [774] In 1935, he began using a new dacha provided for him by Lakoba at Novy Afon;[775] in 1936, he had the Kholodnaya Rechka dacha built on the Abkhazian coast, designed by Miron Merzhanov. [778] According to biographer Montefiore, "it is clear from hostile and friendly witnesses alike that Stalin was always exceptional, even from childhood". [954], Some positive sentiment can also be found elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. [329] Large numbers died during the journey. [411] Stalin admired Hitler, particularly his manoeuvres to remove rivals within the Nazi Party in the Night of the Long Knives. [390] In 1936, Nikolai Yezhov became head of the NKVD. Ganin A.V. Stalin had called for the Chinese Communists to ally themselves with Kuomintang (KMT) nationalists, viewing a Communist-Kuomintang alliance as the best bulwark against Japanese imperial expansionism. These criticised Stalin's rude manners and excessive power, suggesting that Stalin should be removed from the position of general secretary. [105] They also kidnapped the children of several wealthy figures to extract ransom money. [707] In his book, Foundations of Leninism, he stated that "Leninism is the Marxism of the epoch of imperialism and of the proletarian revolution". Joseph Stalin > Quotes. [440] During these years, approximately 1.6million people were arrested,[441] 700,000 were shot, and an unknown number died under NKVD torture. In June 1937, he said in a speech, "Let our enemies know that anyone who attempts to raise a hand against the will of our people, against the will . December 1, 1943: The Tehran Declaration | Miller Center [63] There, he lived in a two-room peasant's house, sleeping in the building's larder. [781] He was a hard worker,[782] and displayed a keen desire to learn;[783] when in power, he scrutinised many details of Soviet life, from film scripts to architectural plans and military hardware. In part, because Sverdlov served as the original chairman of the party secretariat and was considered a natural candidate for the position of General Secretary. [1] After Stalin's death in 1953, he was eventually succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev, who subsequently denounced his rule and initiated the de-Stalinisation of Soviet society. CHAPTER I. [938] Gorbachev saw the total denunciation of Stalin as necessary for the regeneration of Soviet society. [282] Initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, he consolidated power to become a dictator. [809] Stalin also enjoyed watching films late at night at cinemas installed in the Kremlin and his dachas. [602], The U.S. began pushing its interests on every continent, acquiring air force bases in Africa and Asia and ensuring pro-U.S. regimes took power across Latin America. [383] [392] Government policiesincluding the focus on rapid industrialisation, the socialisation of livestock, and the emphasis on sown areas over crop rotationexacerbated the problem;[397] the state had also failed to build reserve grain stocks for such an emergency. [451] The Great Terror ended when Yezhov was removed as the head of the NKVD, to be replaced by Lavrentiy Beria,[452] a man totally devoted to Stalin. 1 (09). [268] Another disagreement came over the Georgian affair, with Lenin backing the Georgian Central Committee's desire for a Georgian Soviet Republic over Stalin's idea of a Transcaucasian one. [420] Stalin aided the Chinese as the KMT and the Communists had suspended their civil war and formed the desired United Front. [554] Stalin refused to punish the offenders. Initially Stalin refused to repeal the Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1945, which significantly benefited the Soviet Union over China, although in January 1950 he relented and agreed to sign a new treaty between the two countries. Locations. [894] Although millions of Soviet citizens despised him, support for Stalin was nevertheless widespread throughout Soviet society. [148] According to Montefiore, this was "Stalin's most famous work". [222], In December 1918, Stalin was sent to Perm to lead an inquiry into how Alexander Kolchak's White forces had been able to decimate Red troops based there. First Moscow Conference (CAVIAR) Moscow Soviet Union: September 29 - October 1, 1941 Stalin, Harriman, Beaverbrook, Molotov: Allied aid to the Soviet Union. [183] 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. "[857] Montefiore described Stalin's favoured types as "young, malleable teenagers or buxom peasant women,"[858] who would be supportive and unchallenging toward him. John G. Wright: Stalin's New Labor Laws (14 September 1940) [615] He demanded that war reparations be paid by Germany and its Axis allies Hungary, Romania, and the Slovak Republic. [690] Some of these derived from political expediency rather than any sincere intellectual commitment;[690] Stalin would often turn to ideology post hoc to justify his decisions. [521] The Soviet victory there marked a major turning point in the war;[522] in commemoration, Stalin declared himself Marshal of the Soviet Union. In this he recalled the 1825 Decembrist Revolt by Russian soldiers returning from having defeated France in the Napoleonic Wars. [468] A week later, Germany invaded Poland, sparking the UK and France to declare war on Germany. [770] Along with other senior figures, he had a dacha at Zubalova, 35km outside Moscow,[771] although ceased using it after Nadezhda's 1932 suicide.