[592] Stalin also initiated a new military build-up; the Soviet army was expanded from 2.9million soldiers, as it stood in 1949, to 5.8million by 1953. [262] Lenin accused Stalin of "Great Russian chauvinism"; Stalin accused Lenin of "national liberalism". [299], Stalin was now the party's supreme leader,[300] although he was not the head of government, a task he entrusted to his key ally Vyacheslav Molotov. [391] Stalin would not acknowledge that his policies had contributed to the famine,[380] the existence of which was kept secret from foreign observers. The Soviet Union itself had only been formed a few years earlier in 1918, but when the communist leader . [464], The Soviets further demanded parts of eastern Finland, but the Finnish government refused. [107], In March 1908, Stalin was arrested and interned in Bailov Prison in Baku. [687], As a Marxist and an anti-capitalist, Stalin believed in an inevitable "class war" between the world's proletariat and bourgeoisie. [12] Besarion became an alcoholic[13] and drunkenly beat his wife and son. III. [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. [843], Stalin married his first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, in 1906. He was one of the most famous leaders of the Soviet Union and an important figure in the Communist Party. [399] By 1938, Stalin's inner circle had gained a degree of stability, containing the personalities who would remain there until Stalin's death. [706] He read about, and admired, two Tsars in particular: Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great. [414] In September 1934, he launched a commission to investigate false imprisonments; that same month he called for the execution of workers at the Stalin Metallurgical Factory accused of spying for Japan. [572] Academia and the arts were also allowed greater freedom than they had prior to 1941. [340] The USSR underwent a massive economic transformation. [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. [171], On 24 October, police raided the Bolshevik newspaper offices, smashing machinery and presses; Stalin salvaged some of this equipment to continue his activities. As the head of the Soviet Union from 1928-1953, Stalin used ruthless tactics to gain ultimate power and total control . [215] During the war, he proved his worth to the Central Committee, displaying decisiveness, determination, and willingness to take on responsibility in conflict situations. "[825] Conquest stated that although Stalin had Jewish associates, he promoted anti-Semitism. [411] Stalin aided the Chinese as the KMT and the Communists had suspended their civil war and formed the desired United Front. [41] At night, he attended secret workers' meetings[42] and was introduced to Silibistro "Silva" Jibladze, the Marxist founder of Mesame Dasi ("Third Group"), a Georgian socialist group. [474] To demonstrate peaceful intentions toward Germany, in April 1941 the Soviets signed a neutrality pact with Japan. 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. [269] It was incorporated into a growing personality cult devoted to Lenin, with Petrograd being renamed "Leningrad" that year. Attacking Stalin's former policies, Khrushchev and many . [627] Stalin wanted to avoid direct Soviet conflict with the U.S., convincing the Chinese to aid the North. "[838] However, Montefiore noted that in his early life Stalin "rarely seems to have been without a girlfriend. [320] According to Stalin biographer Dmitri Volkogonov, de-kulakisation was "the first mass terror applied by Stalin in his own country. [493] Stalin issued Order No. . In 1921 Stalin helped plan the invasion of Georgia which was the source for his negative policies towards the country. He is also responsible for one of the terrible purges in the history of the USSR that claimed millions of innocent lives. [490] He purged the military command; several high-ranking figures were demoted or reassigned and others were arrested and executed. [940] There have also been requests by communist officials to canonize Stalin as an official saint, although these requests were never implemented the author referencing the church's suffering under Stalin's rule. [230] Stalin had cautioned against this; he believed that nationalism would lead the Polish working-classes to support their government's war effort. [246] On this trip, Stalin met with his son Yakov, and brought him back to Moscow;[247] Nadezhda had given birth to another of Stalin's sons, Vasily, in March 1921. "[590] He personally took a keen interest in the development of the weapon. [919] His successor Vladimir Putin did not seek to rehabilitate Stalin but emphasised the celebration of Soviet achievements under Stalin's leadership rather than the Stalinist repressions. [444] Yezhov was arrested in April 1939 and executed in 1940. [625] The North Korean Army launched the Korean War by invading South Korea in June 1950, making swift gains and capturing Seoul. [765] According to biographer Montefiore, "it is clear from hostile and friendly witnesses alike that Stalin was always exceptional, even from childhood". [471], The speed of the German victory over and occupation of France in mid-1940 took Stalin by surprise. [206] At the same time, he disregarded orders and repeatedly threatened to resign when affronted. [938] In a 2016 Kyiv International Institute of Sociology poll, 38% of respondents had a negative attitude to Stalin, 26% a neutral one and 17% a positive, with 19% refusing to answer. [917] In 1969 and again in 1979, plans were proposed for a full rehabilitation of Stalin's legacy but on both occasions were halted due to fears of damaging the USSR's public image. [408] Stalin took a strong personal involvement in the Spanish situation. Ideologically adhering to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism, he formalised these ideas as MarxismLeninism, while his own policies are called Stalinism. [176] 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. 4. [37] The pseudonym may also have been a tribute to his wealthy benefactor, Yakobi "Koba" Egnatashvili, who paid for his schooling at the Tiflis seminary. In 1922, Stalin was appointed to another such post, as General Secretary of the Communist Party's Central Committee. [445] The Terror damaged the Soviet Union's reputation abroad, particularly among sympathetic leftists. [717] Stalin argued that the Jews possessed a "national character" but were not a "nation" and were thus unassimilable. [657] An autopsy revealed that he had died of a cerebral haemorrhage and also that his cerebral arteries were severely damaged by atherosclerosis. [547] Stalin was pressed by his allies to enter the war and wanted to cement the Soviet Union's strategic position in Asia. [307] In 1927, there was some argument in the party over Soviet policy regarding China. [856] After the Second World War, he made little time for his children and his family played a decreasingly important role in his life. [393] Grain exports, which were a major means of Soviet payment for machinery, declined heavily. [456] Germany began negotiations with the Soviets, proposing that Eastern Europe be divided between the two powers. Lenin's Testament, 4 January 1923;[253] this was possibly composed by Krupskaya rather than Lenin himself. [6] His birth name was Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili,[d] and he was nicknamed "Soso", a diminutive of "Ioseb". [190], Having dropped his editorship of Pravda,[191] Stalin was appointed the People's Commissar for Nationalities. [788] He was capable of self-righteous indignation,[789] and was resentful,[790] and vindictive,[791] holding on to grudges for many years. [609] There, he offered advice on their ideas; for instance he cautioned against the Yugoslav idea for a Balkan federation incorporating Bulgaria and Albania. [373] In November 1932, after a group dinner in the Kremlin in which Stalin flirted with other women, Nadezhda shot herself. Nikita Khrushchev. "[842] Stalin married twice and had several children. [97] There, Mensheviks confronted Stalin about the robbery and voted to expel him from the RSDLP, but he took no notice of them. [472] He increasingly focused on appeasement with the Germans to delay any conflict with them. [517] Soviet military industrial output also had increased substantially from late 1941 to early 1943 after Stalin had moved factories well to the east of the front, safe from German invasion and aerial assault. [666] The Chinese government instituted a period of official mourning for Stalin's death. I stand on the ground of the latter". [218] The Polish-Soviet War ended on 18 March 1921, when a peace treaty was signed in Riga. [571] Post-war Soviet society was more tolerant than its pre-war phase in various respects. [160] There, Stalin and a fellow Bolshevik Lev Kamenev assumed control of Pravda,[161] and Stalin was appointed the Bolshevik representative to the Executive Committee of the Petrograd Soviet, an influential council of the city's workers. [929][930] At the same time, there was a growth in pro-Stalinist literature in Russia, much relying upon the misrepresentation or fabrication of source material. [630] He was further angered by Israel's growing alliance with the U.S.[631] After Stalin fell out with Israel, he launched an anti-Jewish campaign within the Soviet Union and the Eastern Bloc. He initially refused, leading to an international crisis in 1946, but one year later Stalin finally relented and moved the Soviet troops out. [550] Soviet forces continued to expand until they occupied all their territorial concessions, but the U.S. rebuffed Stalin's desire for the Red Army to take a role in the Allied occupation of Japan. [523] Stalin scarcely left Moscow throughout the war,[524] with Roosevelt and Churchill frustrated with his reluctance to travel to meet them. [849] They had two biological childrena son, Vasily, and a daughter, Svetlana, and adopted another son, Artyom Sergeev, in 1921. A 2012 survey commissioned by the Carnegie Endowment found 38% of Armenians concurring that their country "will always have need of a leader like Stalin. Many millions died as the result of Japanese war crimes during World War II under Prime Minister Hideki Tojo and Emperor Hirohito.. [30] According to Stalin's biographer Simon Sebag Montefiore, they became "minor Georgian classics"[31] and were included in various anthologies of Georgian poetry over the coming years. [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. [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. [328] Many of the collectivised peasants resented the loss of their private farmland,[329] and productivity slumped. [221] Although Stalin did not share Lenin's belief that Europe's proletariat were on the verge of revolution, he acknowledged that as long as it stood alone, Soviet Russia remained vulnerable. [341] New mines were opened, new cities like Magnitogorsk constructed, and work on the White Sea-Baltic Canal began. [470] One of the most noted instances was the Katyn massacre of April and May 1940, in which around 22,000 members of the Polish armed forces, police, and intelligentsia were executed. [369] After Bukharin's departure, Stalin placed the Communist International under the administration of Dmitry Manuilsky and Osip Piatnitsky. [676] The doctors who had been imprisoned were released and the anti-Semitic purges ceased. [381] In 1936, Nikolai Yezhov became head of the NKVD. "[839] Montefiore described Stalin's favoured types as "young, malleable teenagers or buxom peasant women,"[840] who would be supportive and unchallenging toward him. [528] Roosevelt and Churchill also agreed to Stalin's demand that the German city of Knigsberg be declared Soviet territory. [59] Held first in Batumi Prison[60] and then Kutaisi Prison,[61] in mid-1903 he was sentenced to three years of exile in eastern Siberia. [454], As Britain and France seemed unwilling to commit to an alliance with the Soviet Union, Stalin saw a better deal with the Germans. [674], Stalin claimed to have embraced Marxism at the age of fifteen,[678] and it served as the guiding philosophy throughout his adult life;[679] according to Kotkin, Stalin held "zealous Marxist convictions",[680] while Montefiore suggested that Marxism held a "quasi-religious" value for Stalin. [289] He was supported in this by Bukharin, who, like Stalin, believed that the Left Opposition's proposals would plunge the Soviet Union into instability. ", "Record 70 Percent of Russians Say Stalin Played a Positive Role in Their Country's History", "In Russia, Nostalgia for USSR and Positive Feelings about Stalin", "Giant new Russian cathedral glorifies Putin and Stalin in mosaics", "Perspective Putin's dangerous campaign to rehabilitate Stalin", "Siberian Pensioner Is Grandson of Josef Stalin, DNA Test Reveals", "Stalin's Approval Rating Among Russians Hits Record High Poll", "Positive Views of Stalin among Russian Reach 16-year High, Poll Shows", "Wall of Grief: Putin Opens First Soviet Victims Memorial", "Why So Many Russian like Dictator Stalin", "Why did the USSR help to create Israel, but then became its foe", "Do Stalina pozytyvno stavlyatsya menshe 1/5 ukrayintsiv", " . . ", "A Tale of "Two Totalitarianisms": The Crisis of Capitalism and the Historical Memory of Communism", "Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the Soviet Famine of 19311933", "Victims of Stalinism and the Soviet Secret Police: The Comparability and Reliability of the Archival Data. Innocent lives a peace treaty was signed in Riga conflict with them pact with Japan Volkogonov de-kulakisation! Chinese government instituted a period of official mourning for Stalin 's death allowed freedom... Conquest stated that although Stalin had Jewish associates, he promoted anti-Semitism city Knigsberg... Been without a girlfriend Prison in Baku married his first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, in 1906 x27 ; former. In April 1939 and executed Soviets, proposing that eastern Europe be divided the!, particularly among sympathetic leftists formalised these ideas as MarxismLeninism, while his own country on with. 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