Joseph Stalin

{{Audio|ru-Stalin.ogg|Joseph Stalin}} (Russian, in full: ????? ????????????? ?????? (Josef Vissarionovich Stalin), real name: ????? ????????????? ?????????? (Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvilli), Georgian: ????? ????????? (Ioseb Jughashvili); December 6 (OS)/December 18 (NS), 1878{{ref|Register}} – March 5, 1953) was the leader of the Soviet Union from mid-1920s to his death in 1953 and General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922-1953), a position which had later become that of party leader.

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Russian - Georgian - December 6 - OS - December 18 - NS - 1878 - March 5 - 1953 - Soviet Union - Communist Party of the Soviet Union

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Stalin became general secretary of the Soviet Communist Party in 1922 and following the death of Vladimir Lenin, he prevailed over Leon Trotsky in a power struggle during the 1920s. In the 1930s Stalin eliminated effective political opposition both within the Party and among the population (see Gulag) and consolidated his authority with the Great Purge, a period of widespread arrests and executions which reached its peak in 1937, remaining in power through World War II and until his death. Stalin molded the features that characterized the new Soviet regime; his policies, based on Marxist–Leninist ideology, are often considered to represent a political and economic system called Stalinism.

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General secretary of the Soviet Communist Party - 1922 - Vladimir Lenin - Leon Trotsky - 1920s - 1930s - Gulag - Great Purge - 1937 - World War II - Marxist–Leninist - Stalinism

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Under Stalin, who replaced the New Economic Policy (NEP) of the 1920s with five year plans (introduced in 1928) and collective farming, the Soviet Union was transformed from a largely peasant society to a major world industrial power by the end of the 1930s. However, collectivization was violently resisted by many peasants, resulting in millions of casualties amid famine and mass repression against peasants deemed "kulaks" by the authorities.

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New Economic Policy - 1920s - Five year plans - 1928 - Collective farming - Peasant - 1930s - Collectivization - Kulak

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A hard-won victory in World War II (the Great Patriotic War, 1941–45), made possible in part through the capacity for production that was the outcome of industrialization, laid the groundwork for the formation of the Warsaw Pact and established the USSR as one of the two major world powers, a position it maintained for nearly four decades following Stalin's death in 1953.

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Great Patriotic War - 1941 - 45 - Warsaw Pact - World powers

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Stalin's cult of personality, his concentration of power and the means of its execution has led to a common characterization of him as a dictator and to an opinion that he was personally responsible, directly or indirectly, via his policies, for millions or tens of millions of deaths and unjust imprisonments in the Soviet Union.

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Cult of personality - Dictator - Soviet Union

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Nikita Khrushchev, Stalin's actual successor, denounced his mass repressions and cult of personality in 1956, initiating the process of "de-Stalinization". {{ref|Khrushchev}}

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Nikita Khrushchev - 1956 - De-Stalinization

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