Joseph Stalin (1879–1953) was the leader of the Soviet Union between 1922 and 1953 and ranks as one of the most murderous dictators in history. In the name of building a Communist utopia, as many as 20 million people may have been killed during Stalin’s tenure.
Still, many Russians fondly remember Stalin as the man who modernized Soviet industry, turned the USSR into a military superpower, and led the nation to victory over Adolf Hitler (1889–1945) in World War II. More than a third of Russians, in a 2003 poll, claimed that Stalin did more good than harm.
Born in Georgia as Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, Stalin was the son of a cobbler and a former serf. He adopted his famous pseudonym years later, after becoming involved in revolutionary politics. He was an ally of Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924) and helped organize bank robberies to fund the cause. After the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917, Stalin was named editor of the official Communist newspaper, Pravda. When Lenin died, Stalin won a power struggle to succeed him as leader of the Soviet Union, driving his chief opponent, Leon Trotsky (1879–1940), into exile.
Stalin was intent upon transforming the USSR into an industrial power, and he instituted a series of five-year plans designed to help the country catch up with the West. His plans caused enormous harm—famines killed millions of people after he seized privately owned farms to form collectives—but the USSR made huge strides in increasing its economic output.
Politically, Stalin spent the 1930s consolidating his power via a series of show trials that inevitably resulted in the execution of his alleged opponents. Up to a million people may have been shot. He also nurtured a “cult of personality” that encouraged citizens to regard him as the living personification of Soviet patriotism.
In 1939, Stalin signed a nonaggression pact with Hitler. But two years later, Hitler broke the treaty, launching an invasion of Russia. The war took a tremendous toll on the Soviet military—its losses far exceeded those of the other Allies. After the war, Stalin pushed to install Communist governments in areas of Eastern Europe that had been liberated by the Red Army. He also formulated Soviet policy during the early phases of the Cold War. He died in 1953, at age seventy-four.
ADDITIONAL FACTS
- A memorial to the victims of Stalin’s purges opened in Moscow in 2007.
- In one of history’s more ironic twists, a Soviet peace award designed to be the Communist equivalent of the Nobel Peace Prize was named for Stalin. Its winners included American actor Paul Robeson (1898–1976), Chilean poet Pablo Neruda (1904–1973), and German playwright Bertolt Brecht (1898–1956). The award was renamed after Stalin’s death.
- Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev (1894–1971), delivered a famous speech in 1956 denouncing Stalin’s “cult of personality.” The speech, a crucial turning point in Soviet history, opened the door to criticism of the once-feared dictator and began the process of “de-Stalinization” in the USSR.
