Year of birth of Stalin and. Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovich - interesting biography facts. Role in WWII

Stalin through the prism of decades - his youth, what marked the period of growing up, what factors made him a revolutionary and a famous communist figure. How did the great dictator come to power? The trials that he and the country faced, the pros and cons of Stalin’s methods of government.

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin and his era

Perhaps there is no more controversial figure in our history than Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin. This is a totalitarian leader who practically arrogated the highest position to himself, and the author of numerous repressions, and the leader of the victorious country in World War II. A very interesting and colorful character.

It is difficult, even in our time, to find a person who does not know who Stalin is. He aroused irritation in some, anger in others, respect in others, and fear in others. But none of his contemporaries remained indifferent to this charismatic and multifaceted politician.

Let's try to immerse ourselves in his world for a while and at least slightly lift the veil of history over his biography and the most striking events of his life.

Biography of Stalin. Start

As for the biography of Joseph Stalin, extremes are observed here. Previously, all details were clearly verified and approved by the relevant authorities. And now everyone is writing about him. We have to look for facts about Joseph Stalin as grains of truth in a sea of ​​wild imagination of the authors. Even his height and weight are adjusted at times.

The only thing that is not disputed is the years of life and the period of reign of the great dictator.

Childhood

Everything in the world has its beginning. Stalin was also small and, like any child, he loved to dream. Who knows whether he managed to realize his childhood dreams, but he left a mark on history for centuries.

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (real name Dzhugashvili) was born on December 21, 1879 in the city of Gori, which then still belonged to the Russian Empire. There is debate about his date of birth, as the numbers differ in different documents. But still, the official birthday of Joseph Stalin, recognized by the entire country, falls on the designated date.

Stalin was Georgian by nationality. His father, Vissarion Ivanovich, belonged to the lower strata of society - a simple shoemaker. Mother - Ekaterina Georgievna - comes from serfs.

It so happened that Joseph was the only child in the family - his older brothers died of typhus at a tender age. He himself was not strong either - from early childhood the future head of the Soviet Union was plagued by various ailments. And at the age of seven he was hit by a phaeton. Joseph survived, but from then on his left hand began to work poorly.

Stalin's childhood was not an easy one. His father was a bitter drunkard, as a result of which both the boy himself and his mother were repeatedly beaten by the enraged head of the family. The mother, a quiet and meek woman, doted on her only son and tried with all her might to brighten up his life. Being a simple-minded woman with narrow views, Ekaterina Dzhugashvili saw her son as “educated,” which for her meant entering the priesthood.

Due to poor health, he could not engage in heavy physical labor, so it was decided to send the boy to the Gori Theological School, where Joseph Dzhugashvili entered in 1888 and successfully graduated six years later.

Youth

Stalin continued his further studies at the Orthodox seminary in Tiflis. He successfully compensated for his physical deficiencies with an inquisitive mind and thirst for knowledge. This same craving brought him into the ranks of revolutionaries a year before graduating from the seminary. The teenager was keenly interested in the works of Marx and the political views of the Social Democratic Party, led by Lenin. He ardently supported the revolutionary movement and Leninist ideas, so without hesitation he joined the Georgian social democratic organization “Mesami-Dasi”, from where his political journey began.

It was in this organization, as the leader of one of the illegal revolutionary circles, that he discovered the leader in himself. He realized that he knew how to talk, that people loved to listen to him, his opinion was taken into account, and he realized that he liked all this. In this incarnation he was like a fish in water. Joseph Dzhugashvili finally chose his path and became an ardent supporter of Bolshevism. The first underground nickname appeared there - “Koba”. He tried many nicknames, but in the end he took the pseudonym “Stalin”.

For the sake of revolutionary ideas, they had to sacrifice education - the seminary did not tolerate a newly minted revolutionary, and Stalin was expelled shortly before the final exams with the wording “failure to appear for an exam for an unknown reason.” His education was not completed. All he had after several years of training was a certificate that he could teach in primary schools.

Path to power

Stalin has been considered a professional revolutionary since 1901. It was then that he decided to devote himself entirely to this activity and began to engage in illegal party activities. Soon he already heads the Tiflis committee of the RSDLP.

It is clear that this was by no means welcomed in the Russian Empire. Therefore, Joseph Stalin comes to the attention of the police and becomes a frequent “guest” in prison dungeons. Over 11 years, he survived six arrests and four escapes.

Focusing on the “Union of Struggle for the Liberation of the Working Class,” headed by Lenin, Stalin promoted radical methods of inter-class confrontation. By this, he draws harsh criticism from the majority of Mesame Dasi members, who continue to cling to pure verbiage within the framework of disagreement with the tsarist regime. They were not ready to take to the streets and start real resistance.

Thus, Joseph Dzhugashvili finally becomes a “leftist” and loses the support of the conservative majority of his party. Considering Lenin a true follower of Marxism and at the same time receiving support from the working class of Tiflis, the revolutionary Stalin is not going to deviate from his chosen path.

In April 1900, at a workers' May Day rally in Tiflis, Stalin spoke for the first time in front of a large audience. Apparently, both he and his listeners liked the debut. Subsequently, such speeches became part of the biography of Joseph the revolutionary.

When in 1903 at the congress of the RSDLP there was a final split in the party, and it was divided into the Bolsheviks (led by V.I. Lenin) and the Mensheviks, Dzhugashvili without hesitation supported his idol and joined the ranks of the Bolsheviks.

After this, he was entrusted with the leadership of Bolshevik organizations in Transcaucasia. This is the first appointment of this level. Stalin moved to Baku, where for several years he was actively involved in party affairs and organizing large strikes.

Thus began the path to power of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin.

Vladimir Lenin - pre-revolutionary photo

Stalin's career after the October Revolution

Despite his lack of education, Joseph Stalin was a natural leader and knew how to write speeches and propaganda materials for the press. In addition, he had a cunning and resourceful mind, which allowed him to move up the career ladder with giant strides.

Lenin brought him as close as possible to himself, appointing him, after the success of the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917, where he took a very active part, People's Commissar for Nationalities Affairs. The fact that he was entrusted with solving the national question spoke of high trust on Lenin’s part. But it was obvious that Stalin himself wanted more.

The establishment of the Bolshevik dictatorship in a state torn apart from inside and outside by military actions inspired new thoughts for the future sole ruler of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. He was convinced that this, firstly, was effective and, secondly, was a wonderful justification for autocracy. Since then, this thought has not left his head.

The practice of concentration camps, introduced by Lenin, aroused Stalin's keen interest. Later he would take this into service and apply it widely during his reign.

During the most difficult period for the young Soviet state, Stalin began to slowly but surely make sure that Lenin could no longer do without him. Even from exile, Vladimir Ilyich led the party through his faithful assistant. He literally became the right hand of the leader of the world proletariat.

Undoubtedly, this could not but affect his career. He becomes one of the party leaders. The reins of government of the young republic gradually passed into the hands of Joseph Vissarionovich, and he no longer let them go.

The only “cat” that ran between him and Lenin were the events in Tsaritsyn in 1919, when, according to Stalin’s instructions, after the betrayal of one former white officer, a whole galaxy of military specialists were shot without trial. After this incident, Stalin developed a hostility towards military experts.

Lenin criticized the action of his protégé, unable to resist making harsh statements against him, but it is unlikely that he changed his mind. Nevertheless, he certainly drew conclusions about irresolvable disagreements with the leader of the Bolshevik Party.

Stalin stubbornly walked towards his goal - sole power. Since 1921, when Lenin increasingly left the political leadership of party affairs to assistants due to illness, Joseph Vissarionovich was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). The position at that time did not imply such a wide range of powers, which the newly appointed Secretary General later introduced, pushing the Politburo aside.

Lenin, shortly before his death, realized what an unforgivable mistake he had made by entrusting the reins of power to such a dangerous ally. In his letters, he asked to remove Stalin from power and not to trust him with responsible positions. But these messages were too late - the political machine called “Stalin” had already gained momentum.

The Rise of Stalinism

After Lenin’s death, Stalin arranged it in such a way that, as if it were a matter of course, Vladimir Ilyich left him as his successor and continuer of the cause of the party of workers and peasants. Unnoticed by others, the prudent general secretary concentrated all power in his hands, while not forgetting to hide behind the implementation of the tasks outlined by “Comrade Lenin” and strict adherence to the party line.

His flexible mind and keen sense of people allowed him to surround himself with supporters who were ready to support the ambitious General Secretary in all his endeavors.

Period of repression

It's amazing how quickly Stalin managed to deal with the opposition. Trotsky, who believed that it was he who would lead the party, was expelled from the country by Stalin. Beginning in 1929, Zinoviev and Kamenev, who led the opposition movement against Stalin, paid for this with expulsion from the party and subsequent repressions. And after the murder of S. M. Kirov, extensive purges of opposition forces began, and soon they were completely destroyed. Some prominent party leaders suffered the same fate.

The thirties of the twentieth century were marked by the beginning of the heyday of the Stalin era. Now he made decisions alone and did as he saw fit. This was facilitated by massive repressions that swept across all corners of the vast country. The punitive body represented by the NKVD put this process on a broad track. Any person could be convicted, exiled to a camp, or shot with virtually no trial or investigation.

Stalin did not spare military specialists, whose hostility remained with him from the time of the defense of Tsaritsyn (since 1925 Stalingrad). Large-scale purges swept through the ranks of military personnel. Many people of outstanding intelligence and remarkable abilities were crushed by the punitive machine.

However, it is wrong to consider Stalin alone as the organizer of the repressions. Millions of denunciations written by ordinary Soviet citizens speak for themselves. In addition, there were enough “excesses” in the implementation of Stalin’s decrees at the local level. Particularly zealous performers could give odds to the leader himself.

If you look from the other side, raising the country from ruin and instilling a new ideology in the population is a huge and thankless job. Therefore, tough and even repressive measures are not a whim, but rather a necessity according to the era. There is no proven effective system based on loyalty and liberalism that would work well in such difficult conditions.

Collectivization and industrialization

Years of “dekulakization” and the forced organization of peasants into collective farms are still blamed on Stalin. But this is a double-edged sword. Undoubtedly, the collectivization process took place extremely harshly and at an accelerated pace. This was a consequence of the devastation and food crisis in the country. Whether there was another way in this situation and how it was possible to help the Soviet Union rise from the ruins is not an idle question. It remains open to this day.

When agricultural products began to be produced in abundance, the head of state began to sell them abroad. In exchange, industrial equipment was purchased to develop the country's industrial production, which was limping on both legs. Stalin wanted to transform the young Soviet republic from a backward agrarian appendage into an industrial power.

It was the era of his reign that was marked by rapid growth and construction of new industrial enterprises, as well as the development of science. Stalin took a keen interest in the latest developments in these areas. He wanted to bring the USSR to the forefront in all directions. Given the sanctions imposed on the country by major Western powers, this position is difficult to dispute. In defiance of capitalism, Joseph Vissarionovich planned to develop socialist industrialization.

He developed a network of research institutes and raised the salaries of scientists. Stalin sought to penetrate all advanced technologies and not just adopt them from the West, but make his own, much better and more efficient.

He succeeded completely. By the end of the thirties, that is, over two five-year plans, Soviet Russia became a leader in industrial growth and indicators of technical progress. The development of all sectors of the national economy proceeded at a tremendous pace.

Poster “Give industrialization”

In fairness, it must be said that all this was achieved through considerable sacrifices - both physical and social. The standard of living of the population was lower than during normal development going on at its own pace. Investments in socially significant projects were limited in order to fulfill plans for scientific development and industrialization.

Stalin did not forget about promoting his policies among the people. Never tired of declaring himself a faithful follower of Lenin's cause, by the end of the 30s he announced that the construction of socialism in one particular country was completed. And all the hindrances and obstacles at that moment are organized by malicious units who want to prevent the Soviet government from fulfilling the will of the people.

Under this sauce, a real hunt for “enemies of the people” unfolded. Everyone who in one way or another supported Trotsky’s opinion, or was in the opposition bloc organized by Kamenev and Zinoviev, was subjected to severe repression or destroyed.

Stalin is the commander in chief. The Great Patriotic War

One can argue a lot about Stalin’s qualities as the head of the Supreme High Command (during the war he had the rank of marshal), but the fact remains that he led the country to victory over Nazi Germany. It made a huge difference. Stalin, the commander-in-chief, not only defeated the “brown plague”, he proved to the whole world that there would be no success in the war against the Soviet Union. Despite the obvious hostility and policy of opposing communism, not a single capitalist country dared to attack the USSR anymore.

Stalin was not prepared for Germany to violate the peace treaty so treacherously. Far from being an idiot, he understood that war could not be avoided, but he really hoped to outplay Hitler. Of course, the ineffective actions of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief in the first days of the attack by the Wehrmacht troops hit the country hard. But this is understandable. Stalin is a good tactician, but a rather weak strategist.

The rapid military successes of the Nazis in the first months of the war are quite understandable. Nazi Germany was superior to the Soviet Union in terms of its location, level of funding, and other indicators. At its service was the economic and raw material base of all of Europe. And how can one blame Stalin, if even European countries, much more developed and powerful, almost instantly fell to the onslaught of the Third Reich.

Stalin managed to quickly put the country on a war footing and arranged the evacuation of strategically important enterprises to the rear. If you think about it, this is a very complex and labor-intensive process even in peacetime. You try to take any plant and move it at least a meter. And during the war, these same factories, one and a half to two months after the evacuation, worked at full capacity for the needs of the front.

Urgent measures were also taken to strengthen the troops of the Red Army and Navy.

In addition, Stalin rallied the multinational people so that Hitler’s specialists were unable to create the notorious “fifth column” to divide people and destroy the country from within. This, by the way, was a phenomenon of that time. Western historians have never been able to explain it.

They note Stalin's high merits as a negotiator. It was he who managed to organize an alliance with England and the USA against Hitler and convinced them to open a second front. In all conferences during the war, he played a leading role, while seeking agreements from his opponents on the necessary terms. It was Stalin who insisted on convening the Nuremberg Trials so that the world would learn about all the crimes of the Nazis and, in addition, innocent people would not suffer.

Surprisingly, the leader of the victorious country used the spoils of war and glory more than modestly. Surely there is a rational explanation for this.

One of Stalin's major contributions to peace policy was the creation of the United Nations, which exists virtually unchanged to this day.

The low supply of mechanized military equipment played an important role in the defeats of our troops in 1941-1942. Germany was head and shoulders ahead of us in this sense, if not more. This is understandable - industrialization has just begun in our country, while the Germans have been successfully promoting technological progress for a long time.

Of the biggest disadvantages, it is worth noting the “purges” among career officers of the former tsarist army. Of course, this greatly weakened the senior command staff and deprived Headquarters of competent strategic and tactical management. People at the top levels of military positions, as a rule, did not have the appropriate education and combat experience.

However, there is no better school for troops than war, no matter how sad it is. And in the Red Army, training progressed by leaps and bounds. Empirically, military leaders gained experience, studied and comprehended military science. As a result, by the end of the war with Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union had the most powerful army not only in Europe, but in the whole world. By the way, this was one of the main reasons for the refusal of the bloc of major capitalist countries to start a war against the USSR. Everyone saw perfectly well that this army would repel any enemy.

You can treat Stalin as you like, but his historical role in the defeat of fascism is difficult to overestimate. This will remain for centuries.

Post-war Stalinism

Many historians agree that the apogee of totalitarianism and Stalinist repressions occurred in the post-war years of his rule (until his death). Most likely, this was so, because during the war years serious contradictions were revealed and unresolved problems of an ideological nature were exposed.

On the other hand, the country that had just been raised from its knees after the war was again in ruins. Almost destroyed, but not broken. The big question is whether it is possible to restore the economy as soon as possible and bring industry to its previous level using liberalism and loyal methods. Stalin can be respected simply because he had to go through this twice. Perhaps none of the historical figures can boast of such “luck”.

The head of state had to mobilize all his strength and skills, as well as available resources, in order to once again bring the country to the forefront in the shortest possible time. And he succeeded, despite everything. The USSR, under the leadership of I.V. Stalin, even turned into a powerful nuclear power.

He also successfully solved the problem of partially disbanding a huge army, which by the end of the war had reached such a size that it was really ready to conquer the whole world. It was necessary to gradually withdraw from the troops units and formations that were not needed in the new conditions, as well as equipment, and to find use for the freed-up resources in peaceful life.

During his reign, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin managed to raise our country to such a height that it not only stood on a par with developed capitalist countries, but even ahead of them in many respects. The great dictator and tyrant did so much for the USSR that not a single general secretary could surpass him.

It was not for nothing that cities, streets, districts, millionaire collective farms, automobile factories (the famous ZIS, later the Likhachev plant) were named after Stalin; even a turbo-electric ship was named “Joseph Stalin”. Revolutionary at that time, tanks of the IS family (Joseph Stalin) are the pride of tankers. They were so ahead of their era that their prototypes are still in service with the Russian army.

Personal life of the leader

Until some time this topic was taboo. They only knew about her what was allowed to be covered. His family and children were carefully protected from prying eyes. All photographs and other evidence of this aspect of Stalin's life were destroyed.

Then another extreme appeared - so many new stunning facts about the personal life of the head of the Soviet state were discovered that many of them look like obvious stupidity.

Family

It is known that Stalin’s first wife was the sister of his classmate Ekaterina Svanidze. She lived only three years after the wedding, managing to give birth to her husband’s son, Yakov. After the death of his mother, the boy was raised by her parents throughout his childhood, since the father, due to his extreme workload with revolutionary affairs, could not independently take care of his son.

Ekaterina Svanidze - Stalin's first wife

Stalin married for the second time fourteen years later. His wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, was a good two decades younger than her husband. But this did not interfere with their marriage and the birth of children. They say that the leader loved his wife very much, who bore him a son and daughter - Vasily and Svetlana.

The first-born Yakov was finally brought to his father's house, and the family was reunited. Stalin's sons and daughter lived under the same roof. The tough totalitarian leader now has a family home.

Little is known about his marriage life with Nadezhda Alliluyeva. This is not surprising - given the leader’s extreme suspicion, his wife’s social circle was incredibly narrowed. Some were not allowed to approach her for a cannon shot, others were afraid to approach her themselves - it was an uneven time to give Stalin food for suspicion.

Nadezhda, according to contemporaries, was a woman of fine spiritual organization. Such a vacuum of communication was not good for her. The situation was aggravated by the fact that Stalin himself was also rarely at home - in his role as head of state, his workload increased incredibly. In addition, due to his despotic nature, he did not hesitate to tyrannize his wife and loved ones, without hiding his bad mood or discontent when they did not obey him.

It is difficult to say whether this or something else was the reason, but the apogee came when the youngest daughter Svetlana was seven years old. Stalin's wife was found dead on November 8, 1932. She committed suicide by shooting herself in the head with a pistol. The very fact of suicide of the wife of the country's first person, of course, was initially tried to be silenced. According to the official version, the cause of death was complicated appendicitis.

Obviously, the death of his beloved wife greatly influenced Stalin. He was never able to recover and never tied the knot with anyone else. Perhaps his reverent attitude towards his youngest daughter lies precisely in this.

Joseph Stalin's eldest son, Yakov Dzhugashvili, died during the Great Patriotic War. It seems that the leader did not make any preferences and did not exempt his son from the general conscription. There is a version that Yakov was captured, and Stalin was offered to exchange his son for a captured German general. The head of the USSR refused, saying: “I don’t exchange generals for lieutenants!”

Of Stalin's direct descendants, he had a grandson, Joseph Alliluyev. However, he is known very little, especially since Stalin’s descendants were forgotten after the leader’s daughter Svetlana emigrated to the USA.

Stalin in photographs

There are very few amateur photos of Stalin. The dictator was very scrupulous about his image, which would be replicated to the masses. Therefore, all the photographs, even amateur ones, captured Stalin exactly as he wanted to see himself from the outside.

For ceremonial photos, Stalin usually posed with awards. As for the awards, the leader had something to be proud of. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin had many orders and medals, and was three times a recipient of the Order of the Red Banner. But in general, he didn’t really boast about them and didn’t strive to put on a ceremonial jacket every time. Although he loved the jackets themselves and wore them almost everywhere.

Death of Stalin

Stalin died suddenly. Of course, by that time he could no longer boast of excellent health, but no one expected the death of the great dictator. This happened at his home on March 5, 1953. The cause of Joseph Vissarionovich’s death was recognized as cerebral hemorrhage.

His death shocked millions of citizens of our country. He really was a kind of icon, they believed in him, they even prayed for him. People cried when the sad news reached all corners of the Soviet Union.

During Stalin's funeral, when the funeral procession walked through the streets, they could not accommodate everyone who wanted to see the leader off on his last journey. This man really managed to create nationwide love for himself.

At first, the mausoleum in which the body of V.I. Lenin lay became a necropolis for him. Later, after the cult of personality was debunked, the coffin with Stalin’s body was taken out of the mausoleum and reburied near the Kremlin wall. A bust of the leader is installed on the grave.

Be that as it may, the date of Stalin’s death meant the end of an entire era.

Stalin's personality. Debunking the cult of personality

After Stalin passed away, at one of the party congresses, namely at the 20th Congress of the Communist Party, General Secretary N.S. Khrushchev read a report in which he debunked the cult of personality of the great dictator. The congress delegates were in great shock; they did not at all expect such a turn of events.

To be honest, it is debatable whether life became easier under Khrushchev compared to the era of Stalinist terror.

In addition, Stalin was a leader, and a very good one at that. This is exactly what our country needed at that difficult time. Until now, many of his contemporaries remember the leader only on the positive side.

In general, not all information in Khrushchev’s report was objective. The red thread was a prejudiced attitude towards the object of worship. More in-depth research is needed to draw far-reaching conclusions.

Despite the debunking of the cult of personality, the Lenin-Stalinist national idea of ​​socialism was taken as the basis for the development of the Soviet Union for a long time. And Stalin himself, despite the obvious disadvantages and miscalculations, was a great historical figure. His era will be on everyone's lips for many years to come.

Great historical figure - Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin is one of the most controversial personalities in history. Stalin's personality has been and will be the subject of heated discussions all the time. He is respected and criticized, loved and hated. Some consider Stalin the greatest leader who was able to create order in the country and led the people to success in the bloodiest war of our state. Others are convinced that he was a real tyrant who indiscriminately shot and raped innocent people. Modern historians argue and will continue to argue about this. Most likely, this is one of those cases when it is impossible to come to a compromise and definitely say something about this person.

Childhood and youth of the future ruler

Joseph Dzhugashvili (the ruler's real name) was born in the small Georgian town of Gori in 1879, on December 21. His family was not rich, they belonged to the lower class. His father worked as a shoemaker, and his mother was the daughter of a serf. Joseph was the third child, but grew up alone because his older brother and sister died as children. Joseph himself was not a completely healthy child. One of his defects was that the toes on his left foot were fused. In addition, Joseph had problems with the skin of his face and back.

When little Soso (a diminutive name) turned seven years old, his left hand deteriorated. He received this injury after the boy was hit by a phaeton.

Among other things, Soso’s father, Vissarion, was very fond of drinking, and while intoxicated he more than once beat his wife and boy. Stalin noted how in one of these cases, he threw a knife at his father and almost killed him. Soon Vissarion left his family and began to wander. The date and time of his death remain a mystery to this day. Stalin's neighbor, Joseph Iremashvili, spoke of seeing Stalin's father killed in a drunken brawl. According to another version, Vissarion died of natural causes.

The mother of the future ruler, Ketevan Geladze, was a strict and wise woman, but she loved her child very much and dreamed of making him a successful career. Ketevan saw her son as a priest. Stalin's mother died in 1937. Joseph was unable to attend the funeral, giving his opponents reason to talk about the fact that there was a bad relationship between mother and son.

In 1888, Stalin was able to enter an Orthodox institution in the city of Gori. After graduating from college, he was enrolled in a religious institution in Tiflis. At this very time, he joined the ranks of revolutionaries, having studied the teachings of Marxism. Stalin studied well, all subjects were very easy for him and he never had any problems with it. While studying at the seminary, Joseph becomes the head of the Marxist movement, actively engaged in propaganda.
Joseph was never able to graduate from the institution; he was expelled for absenteeism and failure to appear for tests. He was given a document allowing him to work as a tutor. For some time he had to earn money through tutoring. At the beginning of 1900, he was accepted into the Tiflis Observatory of Physical Phenomena as a calculator.

The road to power

After Stalin was accepted into the observatory, a new stage of his life began. He began to promote Marxism with even greater activity, thanks to which the position of the future ruler of the Soviet Union was strengthened. He began to engage in revolutionary activities. In 1905, he personally met Vladimir Lenin and other influential revolutionaries. In 1912, Joseph definitely decided to change his last name and became Stalin. The origin of this pseudonym is unknown, but there is a version that this is the correct translation from Georgian into Russian of his real surname. In Georgian “juga” means “steel”.

Before becoming the ruler of the USSR, Stalin had to go through and experience a lot. He spent from 1913 to 1917 in exile. While in prison, Joseph often corresponded with Vladimir Ilyich. After the February Revolution he came back to Petrograd.
Upon arrival in Petrograd, Lenin appointed Stalin to the post of People's Commissar for Nationalities. Joseph received a seat on the Council of People's Commissars. Lenin decided to appoint Stalin to this position because of his article “Marxism and the National Question,” which greatly impressed the “leader.” The future ruler gained a reputation as the main expert on nationalities.

The next stage on the path to Stalin's rule was the Civil War. From 1918 to 1922, with a short break, Stalin was on the Revolutionary Military Council. The civil war became a huge experience for the future ruler. As one historian argued, the Civil War contributed to the development of Stalin's military-political qualities. Here he led large troops on several fronts, including the defense of Tsaritsyn and Petrograd.

Most famous historians noted that during the defense of Tsaritsyn, there were disagreements between Stalin and Voroshilov with Trotsky. Trotsky accused these two of insubordination, and the leader was dissatisfied with the great trust in the “counter-revolutionary” military experts.
In 1922, at the next Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), Joseph Stalin was appointed General Secretary of the party. Formally, he led only the party apparatus, and Lenin was still considered the leader of the party and the entire people.

At the same time, Lenin became seriously ill and could no longer engage in politics. In his absence, Stalin, Kamenev and Zinoviev organized the so-called “troika”, whose main goal was to counter Trotsky. The Troika members held good positions and had influence. Trotsky was the head of the Red Army.

In September 1922, Joseph Stalin showed an inclination towards Russian autocracy. He developed a plan according to which all nearby republics were to join the RSFSR as autonomous ones. This action of Stalin caused indignation among almost everyone, even Lenin. Under his personal pressure, the republics were included as allies with all the possibilities of statehood.

After this, Lenin’s health condition worsened even more, and a struggle for power began. Stalin turned out to be the strongest of all the contenders. In fact, he was the ruler of the state, gradually eliminating all his opponents. In the end, he achieved his goal and became chairman of the government of the Soviet Union.

Already in 1930, power was completely concentrated in the hands of Joseph Stalin. Very great anxiety and restructuring began in the Soviet Union. This time became one of the most terrible in the entire history of our country. Mass repressions and collectivization took place, which ultimately led to the death of millions of peasants. Ordinary workers were deprived of food and forced to starve. The ruler of the USSR sold all the products that were taken from the peasants abroad. The leader invested the profits earned from the products into the development of the industry, thereby making the Union the second country in the world in terms of industrial production in the shortest possible time. Only the price of such a rise turned out to be too high.

Years of Stalin's power

In 1940, Stalin's power was undeniable; he was the sole leader of the Soviet Union. It is no secret that under Stalin we had a totalitarian regime in our state; he was a dictator. Stalin is known, of course, for his power as a ruler; he was extremely efficient. The ruler knew how to make the most important decision in the shortest possible time. He managed to control absolutely all the processes that took place in the state. All actions were coordinated with him personally; he knew about everything that was happening in the USSR.

During his years at the helm of the Soviet Union, Stalin was able to achieve truly great results. Experts in the field of history highly appreciate his contribution to the development of the USSR. Despite his tough management style, he was able to make the USSR victorious in the Great Patriotic War, thanks to him agriculture was intensified. He was able to make his state a superpower, which rivaled the greatness and power of only the United States. The USSR had enormous geopolitical influence in the world, and all this thanks to Joseph Vissarionovich.

However, the means by which such greatness was achieved scares and horrifies many even now. The basis for governing the country for Stalin was dictatorship, violence, and terror. Many accuse him of major murders of scientists and engineers; this caused enormous harm to the scientific activities of the state.

Despite this, many people who grew up in the USSR deeply respect Stalin and consider him a great man, an outstanding ruler and an honorary citizen.

Personal life

Stalin at one time did everything so that no one knew about his personal life. However, historians, despite all the efforts of the ruler, still managed to restore the sequence of events. The ruler's first marriage took place in 1906; his chosen one was Ekaterina Svanidze. She gave birth to a son, who received the name Yakov. After living with Stalin for a year, Catherine fell ill with typhus and died.

Stalin's second and last marriage happened 14 years later, in 1920. This time Nadezhda Alliluyeva became his wife, who was able to give birth to his daughter Svetlana and son Vasily. 12 years after marriage, Stalin found himself a widower twice. Nadezhda committed suicide as a result of a quarrel with her husband. This was the last marriage of the ruler.

Death of Stalin

The death of the ruler occurred in 1953, on March 5. USSR doctors determined that the cause of death was cerebral hemorrhage. After the autopsy, it turned out that Stalin suffered several strokes during his lifetime, which caused heart problems.

At first, Stalin’s body was placed in the Mausoleum next to Lenin, but after 9 years it was decided to rebury the ruler near the Kremlin. There are many versions about the death of the ruler. Many believe that his subordinates specifically did not allow doctors to see the ruler so that they could not raise Stalin. His comrades did this because they considered his policies to be incorrect in governing the state.

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili
Predecessor:	The position has been created; himself as Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR
Successor:	Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov
Predecessor:	The position has been created; himself as People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR
Successor:	Nikolai Alexandrovich Bulganin
Predecessor:	Semyon Konstantinovich Timoshenko
Successor:	The position has been abolished; he himself as People's Commissar of the Armed Forces of the USSR
Predecessor:	Vyacheslav Mikhailovich Molotov
Successor:	The position has been abolished; himself as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR
1st People's Commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate of the RSFSR February 24, 1920 – April 25, 1922
Predecessor:	The position has been created; himself as People's Commissar of State Control of the RSFSR
Successor:	Alexander Dmitrievich Tsyurupa
Predecessor:	Lander, Karl Ivanovich
Successor:	The position has been abolished; himself as People's Commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate of the RSFSR
1st People's Commissar for Nationalities of the RSFSR October 26 (November 8) 1917 - July 7, 1923
Predecessor:	Position established
Successor:	Position established
Predecessor:	Position established
Successor:	Position established
	1) RSDLP (1903-1917) 2) RSDLP (b) (1917-1918) 3) RKP(b) (1918-1925) 4) CPSU (b) (1925-1952) 5) CPSU (since 1952)
Birth:	December 6 (18), 1878, according to the official version December 9 (21), 1879, Gori, Tiflis province, Russian Empire
Buried:	Necropolis near the Kremlin wall
	Vissarion Ivanovich Dzhugashvili
	Ekaterina (Ketevan) Geladze
	Ekaterina Svanidze (1904-1907) Nadezhda Alliluyeva (1919-1932)
	sons: Yakov and Vasily daughter: Svetlana adopted son: Artyom Sergeev
Military service
Years of service:	1918 - 1920 1941 - 1953
Affiliation:	RSFSR USSR
	Generalissimo of the Soviet Union
Commanded:	Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Armed Forces (since 1941) Chairman of the State Defense Committee (1941-1945)
Autograph:

Biography

Childhood and youth

Revolutionary activities

Defense of Tsaritsyn

Participation in the creation of the USSR

Fighting the opposition

Collectivization of the USSR

Industrialization

Urban planning

Pre-war foreign policy

Domestic policy

Foreign policy

The creation of the Soviet atomic bomb

Post-war economy of the USSR

Death of Stalin

Assessment of Russian officials

Public opinion polls

Notable Facts

(real name - Dzhugashvili, cargo. იოსებ ჯუღაშვილი, December 6 (18), 1878 (according to the official version December 9 (21), 1879), Gori, Tiflis province, Russian Empire - March 5, 1953, Kuntsevo, Moscow region, RSFSR, USSR) - Russian revolution ational and Soviet state, political , party and military leader. People's Commissar for Nationalities of the RSFSR (1917-1923), People's Commissar of State Control of the RSFSR (1919-1920), People's Commissar of the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate of the RSFSR (1920-1922); General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) (1922-1925), General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) (1925-1934), Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b) (1934-1952), Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee (1952-1953); Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (1941-1946), Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR (1946-1953); Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the USSR (since 1941), Chairman of the State Defense Committee (1941-1945), People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR (1941-1946), People's Commissar of the Armed Forces of the USSR (1946-1947). Marshal of the Soviet Union (since 1943), Generalissimo of the Soviet Union (since 1945). Member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern (1925-1943). Honorary member of the USSR Academy of Sciences (since 1939). Hero of Socialist Labor (since 1939), Hero of the Soviet Union (since 1945).

During the period Stalin was in power, a number of the most important events occurred in the history of the USSR and the world in the 20th century, in particular: the accelerated industrialization of the USSR, the creation of large mechanized agriculture in the USSR; participation in World War II, mass labor and front-line heroism, the transformation of the USSR into a superpower with significant scientific, military and industrial potential, strengthening the geopolitical influence of the Soviet Union in the world; as well as forced collectivization, famine in 1932-1933 in part of the USSR, the establishment of a dictatorial regime, mass repressions, deportations of peoples, numerous human losses (including as a result of wars and German occupation), the division of the world community into two warring camps, the establishment socialist system in Eastern Europe and East Asia, the beginning of the Cold War. Public opinion regarding Stalin's role in these events is extremely polarized.

Biography

Childhood and youth

Childhood

Joseph Stalin was born into a poor Georgian family (a number of sources suggest versions about the Ossetian origin of Stalin’s ancestors), in house number 10 on Krasnogorskaya Street (the former Rusis-Ubani quarter) in the city of Gori, Tiflis province of the Russian Empire. Father - Vissarion Ivanovich Dzhugashvili - was a shoemaker by profession, later - a worker at the shoe factory of the manufacturer Adelkhanov in Tiflis. Mother - Ekaterina Georgievna Dzhugashvili (nee Geladze) - came from the family of a serf peasant Geladze in the village of Gambareuli, worked as a day laborer.

During Stalin’s life and subsequently in encyclopedias, reference books and biographies, the birthday of I.V. Stalin was designated as December 9 (21), 1879. The anniversaries celebrated during his life were timed precisely to this date. A number of researchers, with reference to the first part of the metric book of the Gori Assumption Cathedral Church, intended for registering births, have established a different date of birth for Stalin. The historian G.I. Chernyavsky writes that in the registration book of the Assumption Cathedral in the city of Gori the name of Joseph Dzhugashvili is listed and the following entry follows: "1878. Born on December 6th. Baptized on December 17th. Parents are residents of the city of Gori, peasant Vissarion Ivanov Dzhugashvili and his legal wife Ekaterina Georgieva. The godfather is a Gori resident, peasant Tsikhatrishvili.”. He concludes that Stalin’s true date of birth is December 6 (18), 1878. It is noted that according to the information of the St. Petersburg Provincial Gendarmerie Administration, the date of birth of I.V. Dzhugashvili is listed as December 6, 1878, and in the documents of the Baku Gendarme Administration the year of birth is marked as 1880. At the same time, there are documents from the police department where the years of birth of Joseph Dzhugashvili are listed as 1879 and 1881. In a document filled out in his own hand by I.V. Stalin in December 1920, in the questionnaire of the Swedish newspaper “Folkets Dagblad Politiken” the date of birth is listed as 1878.

Joseph was the third son in the family; the first two (Mikhail and George) died in infancy. His native language was Georgian. Stalin learned Russian later, but always spoke with a noticeable Georgian accent. According to his daughter Svetlana, Stalin, however, sang in Russian with virtually no accent.

Ekaterina Georgievna was known as a strict woman, but who passionately loved her son; she tried to give her child an education and hoped for the development of his career that she associated with the position of a priest. According to some evidence, Stalin treated his mother with extreme respect. Stalin could not come to his mother’s funeral in May 1937, but sent a wreath with the inscription in Russian and Georgian: . Perhaps his absence was due to the trial that was unfolding in those days in the “Tukhachevsky Case”.

At the age of five in 1884, Joseph fell ill with smallpox, which left marks on his face for the rest of his life. Since 1885, due to a severe bruise - a phaeton flew into him - Joseph Stalin remained with a defect in his left hand throughout his life. Stalin's height in his youth was 174 cm (according to the Baku Gendarmerie Directorate), in old age it dropped to 172 cm (according to the Kremlin medical record).

Education. Entry into revolutionary activity

In 1886, Ekaterina Georgievna wanted to enroll Joseph to study at the Gori Orthodox Theological School. However, since the child did not know the Russian language at all, he was unable to enter the school. In 1886-1888, at the request of his mother, the children of the priest Christopher Charkviani began teaching Joseph Russian. The result of the training was that in 1888 Soso entered not the first preparatory class at the school, but immediately the second preparatory class. Many years later, on September 15, 1927, Stalin’s mother, Ekaterina Dzhugashvili, will write a letter of gratitude to the school’s Russian language teacher, Zakhary Alekseevich Davitashvili:

In 1889, Joseph Dzhugashvili, having successfully completed the second preparatory class, was admitted to the school. In July 1894, upon graduating from college, Joseph was noted as the best student. His certificate contains “A” grades in many subjects. After graduating from college, Joseph was recommended for admission to a theological seminary.

A student of the Gori Theological School, Dzhugashvili Joseph... entered the first grade of the school in September 1889 and, with excellent behavior (5), showed success:
According to the Sacred History of the Old Testament
According to the Sacred History of the New Testament
According to the Orthodox Catechism
Explanation of worship with the church charter
Languages:
Russian with Church Slavonic
Greek	- (4) very good
Georgian	- (5) excellent
Arithmetic	- (4) very good
Geographies
Calligraphy
Church singing:
Russian
and Georgian
Fragment of Stalin's certificate

In September 1894, Joseph, having brilliantly passed the entrance exams, was enrolled in the Orthodox Tiflis Theological Seminary, which was located in the center of Tiflis. There he first became acquainted with the ideas of Marxism. By the beginning of 1895, seminarian Joseph Dzhugashvili became acquainted with underground groups of revolutionary Marxists expelled by the government to Transcaucasia (among them: I. I. Luzin, O. A. Kogan, G. Ya. Franceschi, V. K. Rodzevich-Belevich, A. Ya. Krasnova and others). Stalin himself later recalled: “I joined the revolutionary movement at the age of 15, when I contacted underground groups of Russian Marxists who then lived in Transcaucasia. These groups had a great influence on me and gave me a taste for underground Marxist literature."

In 1896-1898, at the seminary, Joseph Dzhugashvili led an illegal Marxist circle, which met in the apartment of the revolutionary Vano Sturua at number 194 on Elizavetinskaya Street. In 1898, Joseph joined the Georgian social democratic organization “Mesame-Dasi” (“Third Group”). Together with V.Z. Ketskhoveli and A.G. Tsulukidze, I.V. Dzhugashvili forms the core of the revolutionary minority of this organization. Subsequently - in 1931 - Stalin, in an interview with the German writer Emil Ludwig, asked “What prompted you to become an oppositionist? Possibly mistreatment from parents? answered: "No. My parents treated me quite well. Another thing is the theological seminary where I studied then. Out of protest against the mocking regime and the Jesuit methods that existed in the seminary, I was ready to become and actually became a revolutionary, a supporter of Marxism...”.

In the book of memoirs “Stalin and the Tragedy of Georgia,” published in 1932 in Berlin in German, Joseph Dzhugashvili’s classmate at the Tiflis Theological Seminary, Joseph Iremashvili, argued that young Stalin was characterized by rancor, vindictiveness, deceit, ambition and lust for power.

In 1898-1899, Joseph led a circle at the railway depot, which included Vasily Bazhenov, Alexey Zakomoldin, Leon Zolotarev, Yakov Kochetkov, Pyotr Montin (Montyan). He also conducts classes in workers' circles at the Adelkhanov shoe factory, at the Karapetov plant, at the Bozardzhian tobacco factory, and at the Main Tiflis railway workshops. Stalin recalled this time: “I remember 1898, when I first received a circle of railway workshop workers... Here, in the circle of these comrades, I then received my first baptism of fire... My first teachers were Tiflis workers.”. On December 14-19, 1898, a six-day strike of railway workers took place in Tiflis, one of the initiators of which was seminarian Joseph Dzhugashvili. On April 19, 1899, Joseph Dzhugashvili took part in a work day in Tiflis.

Without completing the full course, in the fifth year of study, before the exams on May 29, 1899, he was expelled from the seminary with reasons “for failure to appear for exams for an unknown reason”(probably the actual reason for the exclusion, which was also followed by official Soviet historiography, was the activities of Joseph Dzhugashvili in promoting Marxism among seminarians and railway workshop workers). The certificate issued to Joseph Dzhugashvili upon expulsion stated that he could serve as a teacher in primary public schools.

After being expelled from the seminary, Joseph Dzhugashvili spent some time tutoring. Among his students, in particular, was S. A. Ter-Petrosyan (future revolutionary Kamo). From the end of December 1899, I.V. Dzhugashvili was accepted into the Tiflis Physical Observatory as a computer-observer.

1900-1917

On July 16, 1904, in the Tiflis Church of St. David, Joseph Dzhugashvili married Ekaterina Svanidze. She became Stalin's first wife. Her brother studied with Joseph Dzhugashvili at the Tiflis Theological Seminary. But three years later, the wife died of tuberculosis (according to other sources, the cause of death was typhoid fever). From this marriage, in 1907, Stalin's first son, Yakov, would appear.

Until 1917, Joseph Dzhugashvili used a large number of pseudonyms, in particular: Beshoshvili, Nizheradze, Chizhikov, Ivanovich. Of these, in addition to the pseudonym “Stalin,” the most famous was the pseudonym “Koba.” In 1912, Joseph Dzhugashvili finally adopted the pseudonym “Stalin”.

Revolutionary activities

On April 23, 1900, Joseph Dzhugashvili, Vano Sturua and Zakro Chodrishvili organized a workers' May Day, which brought together 400-500 workers. At the rally, which was opened by Chodrishvili, Joseph Dzhugashvili, among others, spoke. This speech was Stalin's first appearance before a large gathering of people. In August of the same year, Dzhugashvili participated in the preparation and conduct of a major action by Tiflis workers - a strike in the Main Railway Workshops. Revolutionary workers took part in organizing workers’ protests: M. I. Kalinin, S. Ya. Alliluyev, as well as M. Z. Bochoridze, A. G. Okuashvili, V. F. Sturua. From August 1 to August 15, up to four thousand people took part in the strike. As a result, more than five hundred strikers were arrested. Arrests of Georgian Social Democrats continued in March - April 1901. Coco Dzhugashvili, as one of the leaders of the strike, avoided arrest: he quit his job at the observatory and went underground, becoming an underground revolutionary.

In September 1901, the illegal newspaper Brdzola (Struggle) was published at the Nina printing house, organized by Lado Ketskhoveli in Baku. The editorial of the first issue, entitled "From the Editor", belonged to twenty-two-year-old Coco. This article is the first known political work of I.V. Dzhugashvili-Stalin.

In 1901-1902, Joseph was a member of the Tiflis and Batumi committees of the RSDLP. On April 5, 1902, he was arrested for the first time in Batumi. On April 19 he was transferred to Kutaisi prison. After a year and a half of imprisonment and transfer to Butum, he was exiled to Eastern Siberia. On November 27, he arrived at his place of exile - in the village of Novaya Uda, Balagansky district, Irkutsk province. After more than a month, Joseph Dzhugashvili made his first escape and returned to Tiflis, from where he later moved again to Batum.

After the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP (1903), held in Brussels and London, he became a Bolshevik. On the recommendation of one of the leaders of the Caucasian Union of the RSDLP, M. G. Tskhakaya Koba was sent to the Kutaisi region to the Imeretian-Mingrelian Committee as a representative of the Caucasian Union Committee. In 1904-1905, Stalin organized a printing house in Chiatura and participated in the December 1904 strike in Baku.

During the First Russian Revolution of 1905-1907, Joseph Dzhugashvili was busy with party affairs: he wrote leaflets, participated in the publication of Bolshevik newspapers, organized a fighting squad in Tiflis (autumn 1905), visited Batum, Novorossiysk, Kutais, Gori, Chiatura. In February 1905, he participated in arming the workers of Baku in order to prevent Armenian-Azerbaijani clashes in the Caucasus. In September 1905, he participated in the attempt to seize the Kutaisi workshop. In December 1905, Stalin participated as a delegate at the 1st Conference of the RSDLP in Tammerfors, where he first met V.I. Lenin. In May 1906 - delegate to the IV Congress of the RSDLP, held in Stockholm.

In 1907, Stalin was a delegate to the Vth Congress of the RSDLP in London. In 1907-1908 one of the leaders of the Baku Committee of the RSDLP. Stalin was involved in the so-called. "Tiflis expropriation" in the summer of 1907.

At the plenum of the Central Committee after the 6th (Prague) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP (1912), he was co-opted in absentia into the Central Committee and the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. Trotsky, in his work “Stalin,” argued that this was facilitated by Stalin’s personal letter to V.I. Lenin, where he said that he agreed to any responsible work.

On March 25, 1908, Stalin was again arrested in Baku and imprisoned in Bailov prison. From 1908 to 1910 he was in exile in the city of Solvychegodsk, from where he corresponded with Lenin. In 1910, Stalin escaped from exile. After this, Stalin was detained by the authorities three times, and each time he escaped from exile to the Vologda province. From December 1911 to February 1912 in exile in the city of Vologda. On the night of February 29, 1912, he fled from Vologda.

In 1912-1913, while working in St. Petersburg, he was one of the main employees in the first mass Bolshevik newspaper Pravda. At Lenin's proposal at the Prague Party Conference in 1912, Stalin was elected a member of the party's Central Committee and placed at the head of the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee. On May 5, 1912, on the day the first issue of the newspaper Pravda was published, Stalin was arrested and exiled to the Narym region. A few months later he escaped (5th escape) and returned to St. Petersburg, where he settled with the worker Savinov. From here he led the Bolshevik election campaign to the 4th State Duma. During this period, the wanted Stalin lives in St. Petersburg, constantly changing apartments, under the pseudonym Vasiliev.

In November and at the end of December 1912, Stalin twice traveled to Krakow to visit Lenin for meetings of the Central Committee with party workers. At the end of 1912-1913 in Krakow, Stalin, at the insistence of Lenin, wrote a long article “Marxism and the National Question”, in which he expressed Bolshevik views on how to resolve the national question and criticized the program of “cultural-national autonomy” of the Austro-Hungarian socialists. The work gained fame among Russian Marxists, and from this time on Stalin was considered an expert on national problems.

Stalin spent January 1913 in Vienna. Soon, in the same year, he returned to Russia, but in March he was arrested, imprisoned and exiled to the village of Kureika, Turukhansk Territory, where he spent 4 years - until the February Revolution of 1917. In exile he corresponded with Lenin.

Until 1917, Joseph Dzhugashvili used a large number of pseudonyms, in particular: Beshoshvili, Nizheradze, Chizhikov, Ivanovich. Of these, in addition to the pseudonym "Stalin", the most famous pseudonym "Koba". In 1912, Joseph Dzhugashvili finally adopted the pseudonym “Stalin”.

1917. Participation in the October Revolution

After the February Revolution he returned to Petrograd. Before Lenin's arrival from exile, he was one of the leaders of the Central Committee of the RSDLP and the St. Petersburg Committee of the Bolshevik Party. In 1917 - member of the editorial board of the newspaper Pravda, the Politburo of the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party, and the Military Revolutionary Center. At first, Stalin supported the Provisional Government. In relation to the Provisional Government and its policies, I proceeded from the fact that the democratic revolution was not yet completed, and overthrowing the government was not a practical task. However, then he joined Lenin, who advocated transforming the “bourgeois-democratic” February revolution into a proletarian socialist revolution.

April 14 - 22 was a delegate to the First Petrograd City Conference of Bolsheviks. On April 24 - 29, at the VII All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP(b), he spoke in the debate on the report on the current situation, supported Lenin’s views, and made a report on the national question; elected member of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b).

In May - June he was a participant in anti-war propaganda; was one of the organizers of the re-election of the Soviets and in the municipal campaign in Petrograd. June 3 - 24 participated as a delegate to the First All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies; was elected a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee and a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee Bureau from the Bolshevik faction. Also participated in the preparation of demonstrations on June 10 and 18; published a number of articles in the newspapers Pravda and Soldatskaya Pravda.

Due to Lenin's forced departure into hiding, Stalin spoke at the VI Congress of the RSDLP(b) (July - August 1917) with a report to the Central Committee. At a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b) on August 5, he was elected a member of the narrow composition of the Central Committee. In August - September he mainly carried out organizational and journalistic work. On October 10, at a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), he voted for the resolution on an armed uprising and was elected a member of the Political Bureau, created “for political leadership in the near future.”

On the night of October 16, at an extended meeting, the Central Committee spoke out against the position of L. B. Kamenev and G. E. Zinoviev, who voted against the decision to revolt; was elected a member of the Military Revolutionary Center, as part of which he joined the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee.

On October 24 (November 6), after the cadets destroyed the printing house of the Rabochiy Put newspaper, Stalin ensured the publication of a newspaper in which he published the editorial “What do we need?” calling for the overthrow of the Provisional Government and its replacement by a Soviet government elected by representatives of workers, soldiers and peasants. On the same day, Stalin and Trotsky held a meeting of the Bolsheviks - delegates of the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets of the RSD, at which Stalin made a report on the course of political events. On the night of October 25 (November 7), he participated in a meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b), which determined the structure and name of the new Soviet government.

1917-1922. Participation in the Russian Civil War

After the victory of the Great October Socialist Revolution, Stalin joined the Council of People's Commissars as People's Commissar for Nationalities. At this time, on the territory of the former Russian Empire, a civil war broke out between various social, political and ethnic groups. At the Second All-Russian Congress of Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies, Stalin was elected a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee. On the night of October 28, at the headquarters of the Petrograd Military District, he took part in the development of a plan for the defeat of the troops of A.F. Kerensky and P.N. Krasnov, who were advancing on Petrograd. On October 28, Lenin and Stalin signed a resolution of the Council of People's Commissars banning the publication of “all newspapers closed by the Military Revolutionary Committee.”

On November 29, Stalin joined the Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP(b), which also included Lenin, Trotsky and Sverdlov. This body was given “the right to resolve all emergency matters, but with the mandatory involvement of all members of the Central Committee who were in Smolny at that moment in the decision.” At the same time, Stalin was re-elected to the editorial board of Pravda. In November - December 1917, Stalin mainly worked at the People's Commissariat for Nationalities. On November 2 (15), 1917, Stalin, together with Lenin, signed the “Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia.”

In April 1918, Stalin, together with H. G. Rakovsky and D. Z. Manuilsky in Kursk, negotiated with representatives of the Ukrainian Central Rada on concluding a peace treaty.

During the Civil War from October 8, 1918 to July 8, 1919 and from May 18, 1920 to April 1, 1922, Stalin was also a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the RSFSR. Stalin was also a member of the Revolutionary Military Councils of the Western, Southern, and Southwestern Fronts.

As noted by Doctor of Historical and Military Sciences M. M. Gareev, during the Civil War Stalin gained extensive experience in the military-political leadership of large masses of troops on many fronts (defense of Tsaritsyn, Petrograd, on the fronts against Denikin, Wrangel, the White Poles, etc.).

French journalist Henri Barbusse quotes the words of Stalin's assistant at the People's Commissariat of National Affairs S.S. Pestkovsky regarding the period of the Brest negotiations at the beginning of 1918:

L. D. Trotsky wrote about the Brest negotiations in his work “Stalin”:

Defense of Tsaritsyn

In May 1918, after the outbreak of the civil war due to the aggravation of the food situation in the country, the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR appointed Stalin responsible for food supplies in the south of Russia and was sent as an extraordinary representative of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee for the procurement and export of grain from the North Caucasus to industrial centers. Arriving in Tsaritsyn on June 6, 1918, Stalin took power in the city into his own hands. He took part not only in the political, but also in the operational and tactical leadership of the district. In particular, he canceled the orders of military commander Snesarev and on July 16 launched an offensive to the west and south of Tsaritsyn, which ended in failure.

At this time, in July 1918, the Don Army of Ataman P.N. Krasnov launched its first attack on Tsaritsyn. On July 22, the Military Council of the North Caucasus Military District was created, of which Stalin became its chairman. The council also included K. E. Voroshilov and S. K. Minin. Stalin, having taken charge of the city's defense, showed a penchant for tough measures.

The first military measures taken by the Military Council of the North Caucasus Military District, headed by Stalin, resulted in defeats for the Red Army. At the end of July, the White Guards captured Torgovaya and Velikoknyazheskaya, and in connection with this, Tsaritsyn’s connection with the North Caucasus was interrupted. After the failure of the Red Army offensive on August 10-15, Krasnov’s army surrounded Tsaritsyn on three sides. The group of General A.P. Fitzkhelaurov broke through the front north of Tsaritsyn, occupying Erzovka and Pichuzhinskaya. This allowed them to reach the Volga and disrupt the connection between the Soviet leadership in Tsaritsyn and Moscow.

The defeats of the Red Army were also caused by the betrayal of the chief of staff of the North Caucasus Military District, former tsarist colonel A. L. Nosovich. Historian D. A. Volkogonov writes:

Thus, blaming “military experts” for the defeats, Stalin carried out large-scale arrests and executions. In his speech at the VIII Congress on March 21, 1919, Lenin condemned Stalin for the executions in Tsaritsyn.

At the same time, from August 8, the group of General K.K. Mamontov was advancing in the central sector. On August 18-20, military clashes took place on the near approaches to Tsaritsyn, as a result of which Mamontov’s group was stopped, and on August 20, the Red Army troops with a sudden blow drove the enemy north of Tsaritsyn and by August 22 liberated Erzovka and Pichuzhinskaya. On August 26, a counteroffensive was launched along the entire front. By September 7, the White troops were driven back beyond the Don; at the same time, they lost about 12 thousand killed and captured.

In September, the White Cossack command decided to launch a new attack on Tsaritsyn and carried out additional mobilization. The Soviet command took measures to strengthen defenses and improve command and control. By order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic of September 11, 1918, the Southern Front was created, the commander of which was P. P. Sytin. Stalin became a member of the RVS of the Southern Front (until October 19, K. E. Voroshilov until October 3, K. A. Mekhonoshin from October 3, A. I. Okulov from October 14).

On September 19, 1918, in a telegram sent from Moscow to Tsaritsyn to front commander Voroshilov, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars Lenin and Chairman of the Military Revolutionary Council of the Southern Front Stalin, in particular, noted: “Soviet Russia notes with admiration the heroic exploits of the communist and revolutionary regiments of Kharchenko, Kolpakov, Bulatkin’s cavalry, Alyabyev’s armored trains, and the Volga Military Flotilla.”

Meanwhile, on September 17, General Denisov's troops launched a new attack on the city. At the beginning of October, Stalin was recalled to Moscow and withdrawn from the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern Front. Soon after this, on October 18, the whites were driven back from the city for several months.

1919-1922

In January 1919, Stalin and Dzerzhinsky traveled to Vyatka to investigate the reasons for the defeat of the Red Army near Perm and the surrender of the city to the forces of Admiral Kolchak. The Stalin-Dzerzhinsky Commission contributed to the reorganization and restoration of combat effectiveness of the broken 3rd Army; however, in general, the situation on the Perm front was corrected by the fact that Ufa was taken by the Red Army, and Kolchak already on January 6 gave the order to concentrate forces in the Ufa direction and move to defense near Perm.

In the summer of 1919, Stalin organized resistance to the Polish offensive on the Western Front, in Smolensk.

By decree of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of November 27, 1919, Stalin was awarded the first Order of the Red Banner "in commemoration of his services to the defense of Petrograd and selfless work on the Southern Front".

Created on the initiative of Stalin, the First Cavalry Army led by S. M. Budyonny, K. E. Voroshilov, E. A. Shchadenko, supported by the armies of the Southern Front, defeated Denikin’s troops. After the defeat of Denikin's troops, Stalin led the restoration of the destroyed economy in Ukraine. In February - March 1920, he headed the Council of the Ukrainian Labor Army and led the mobilization of the population for coal mining.

In the period from May 26 to September 1, 1920, Stalin was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southwestern Front as a representative of the RVSR. There he led the breakthrough of the Polish front, the liberation of Kyiv and the advance of the Red Army to Lvov. On August 13, Stalin refused to carry out the directive of the commander-in-chief based on the decision of the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) on August 5 to transfer the 1st Cavalry and 12th Armies to help the Western Front. During the decisive Battle of Warsaw on August 13 - 25, 1920, the troops of the Western Front suffered a heavy defeat, which changed the course of the Soviet-Polish war. On September 23, at the IX All-Russian Conference of the RCP (b), Stalin tried to blame the failure near Warsaw on Commander-in-Chief Kamenev and front commander Tukhachevsky, but Lenin reproached Stalin for his biased attitude towards them.

In the same 1920, Stalin participated in the defense of southern Ukraine from the offensive of Wrangel’s troops. Stalin's instructions formed the basis of Frunze's operational plan, according to which Wrangel's troops were defeated.

As researcher A.P. Shikman notes. “the rigidity of decisions, enormous capacity for work and a skillful combination of military and political activities allowed Stalin to gain many supporters”.

1922-1930

Participation in the creation of the USSR

In 1922, Stalin participated in the creation of the USSR. Stalin did not consider it necessary to create a union of republics, but rather a unitary state with autonomous national associations. This plan was rejected by Lenin and his associates.

On December 30, 1922, at the First All-Union Congress of Soviets, a decision was made to unite the Soviet republics into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics - the USSR. Speaking at the congress, Stalin said:

“In the history of Soviet power, today is a turning point. He puts milestones between the old, already passed period, when the Soviet republics, although they acted together, but walked apart, occupied primarily with the question of their existence, and a new, already opened period, when the separate existence of the Soviet republics comes to an end, when the republics unite into a single union state for a successful fight against economic devastation, when the Soviet government is no longer thinking only about existence, but also about developing into a serious international force that can influence the international situation, that can change it in the interests of the working people.”

Fighting the opposition

See also Trotsky, Lev Davidovich, Right Opposition in the CPSU(b), Left Opposition in the RCP(b) and the CPSU(b), Letter to the Congress.

Beginning at the end of 1921, Lenin increasingly interrupted his work leading the party. Stalin had to carry out the main work in this direction. During this period, Stalin was a permanent member of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), and at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) on April 3, 1922, he was elected to the Politburo and Organizing Bureau of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), as well as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP (b). Initially, this position meant only the leadership of the party apparatus, while the Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the RSFSR, Lenin, formally remained the leader of the party and government.

Stalin's behavior forced Lenin to reconsider his appointment, and in an addendum to the “Letter to the Congress” dated January 4, 1923, Lenin stated:

“Stalin is too rude, and this shortcoming, quite tolerable in the environment and in communications between us communists, becomes intolerable in the position of Secretary General. Therefore, I suggest that the comrades consider a way to move Stalin from this place and appoint another person to this place, who in all other respects differs from Comrade. Stalin has only one advantage, namely, more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more attentive to his comrades, less capriciousness, etc. This circumstance may seem like an insignificant detail. But I think that from the point of view of protecting against a split and from the point of view of what I wrote above about the relationship between Stalin and Trotsky, this is not a trifle, or it is such a trifle that can become decisive.”

However, Lenin did not propose another candidate, and also spoke sharply about a number of other party figures (possible rivals of Stalin), including "Trotsky's non-Bolshevism", with his “self-confidence and excessive enthusiasm for the purely administrative side of the matter”. These charges were more serious for a member of the RCP(b) than rudeness. Before the XIII Congress of the RCP (b) (May, 1924), N.K. Krupskaya handed over Lenin’s “Letter to the Congress.” In response, Stalin, according to Trotsky, announced his resignation for the first time:

Kamenev proposed to resolve the issue by voting. The majority was in favor of leaving Stalin as General Secretary of the RCP(b), only Trotsky's supporters voted against. Subsequently, a proposal was put forward that the document should be read out at closed meetings of individual delegations. Thus, the “Letter to the Congress” was not mentioned in the materials of the congress. Later, this fact was used by the opposition to criticize Stalin and the party (it was argued that the Central Committee “hidden” Lenin’s “testament”). Stalin himself rejected these accusations.

In the 1920s, the highest power in the party, and in fact in the country, belonged to the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. Before Lenin's death, besides Lenin, it included six more people: Stalin, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Trotsky, Rykov and Tomsky. All issues were resolved by majority vote. Since 1922, due to illness, Lenin actually retired from political activity. Within the Politburo, Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev organized "three", based on opposition to Trotsky. Kamenev supported Zinoviev in almost everything. Tomsky, being the leader of the trade unions, had a negative attitude towards Trotsky since the time of the so-called. "discussions about trade unions". Rykov could become Trotsky's only supporter.

On January 21, 1924, Lenin died. Immediately after Lenin's death, several groups formed within the party leadership, each of which laid claim to power. The Troika united with Bukharin, Rykov, Tomsky and Kuibyshev, forming the so-called Politburo (which included Rykov as a member and Kuibyshev as a candidate member). "seven".

Trotsky considered himself the main contender for leadership in the country after Lenin, and underestimated Stalin as a competitor. Soon other oppositionists, not only Trotskyists, sent a similar so-called to the Politburo. "Statement of the 46." The Troika then showed its power, mainly using the resources of the apparatus led by Stalin.

At the XIII Congress of the RCP (b) all oppositionists were convicted. Stalin's influence increased greatly. Stalin’s main allies in the “seven” were Bukharin and Rykov. In 1925, the city of Tsaritsyn was renamed Stalingrad.

A new split emerged in the Politburo in October 1925, when Zinoviev, Kamenev, G. Ya. Sokolnikov and Krupskaya presented a document criticizing the party line from a “left” point of view (Zinoviev led the Leningrad communists, Kamenev led the Moscow communists, and among the working class of large cities, living worse than before the First World War, there was strong dissatisfaction with low wages and rising prices for agricultural products, which led to the demand for pressure on the peasantry and especially on the kulaks). The Seven broke up. At that moment, Stalin began to unite with the “right” Bukharin-Rykov-Tomsky, who expressed the interests primarily of the peasantry. In the internal party struggle that began between the “right” and “left,” he provided them with the forces of the party apparatus, and they (namely Bukharin) acted as theorists. The “new opposition” of Zinoviev and Kamenev was condemned at the XIV Congress.

By that time, the “theory of the victory of socialism in one country” had emerged. This view was developed by Stalin in the brochure “On Questions of Leninism” (1926) and Bukharin. They divided the question of the victory of socialism into two parts - the question of the complete victory of socialism, that is, the possibility of building socialism and the complete impossibility of restoring capitalism by internal forces, and the question of the final victory, that is, the impossibility of restoration due to the intervention of Western powers, which would only be excluded by establishing a revolution in the West.

Trotsky, who did not believe in socialism in one country, joined Zinoviev and Kamenev. The so-called "United Opposition". Having established himself as a leader, Stalin in 1929 accused Bukharin and his allies of a “right deviation” and began to actually implement (in extreme forms) the program of the “left” to curtail the NEP and accelerated industrialization through the exploitation of the countryside. At the same time, the 50th anniversary of Stalin is widely celebrated (whose date of birth was changed at the same time, according to Stalin’s critics, in order to somewhat smooth out the “excesses” of collectivization with the celebration of the round anniversary and demonstrate in the USSR and abroad who is the true and beloved master of all the people countries).

Modern researchers believe that the most important economic decisions in the 20s were made after open, broad and heated public discussions, through open democratic voting at plenums of the Central Committee and congresses of the Communist Party.

On January 1, 1926, Stalin was again confirmed by the Plenum of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks as General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.

Various historians believe that the years from 1926 to 1929 should be considered the time of Stalin’s rise to sole power.

1930-1941

On February 13, 1930, Stalin was awarded the second Order of the Red Banner for “services on the front of socialist construction”. In 1932, Stalin's wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, committed suicide.

In May 1937, Stalin's mother died, but he could not come to the funeral, but sent a wreath with the inscription in Russian and Georgian: “To my dear and beloved mother from her son Joseph Dzhugashvili (from Stalin)”.

On May 15, 1934, Stalin signed the decree of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR “On the teaching of national history in schools of the USSR,” according to which the teaching of history in secondary and higher schools was resumed.

In the second half of the 1930s, Stalin worked on preparing for publication the textbook “A Short Course in the History of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks),” of which he was the main author. On November 14, 1938, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks adopted a resolution “On the organization of party propaganda in connection with the release of the “Short Course on the History of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks”.” The decree officially made the textbook the basis for the propaganda of Marxism-Leninism and established its compulsory study in universities.

Managing the USSR Economy in the 1930s

Collectivization of the USSR

After the disruption of grain procurements in 1927, when it was necessary to take emergency measures (fixed prices, closing markets and even repression), and the disruption of the grain procurement campaign of 1928-1929, the issue had to be resolved urgently. The path to creating farming through the stratification of the peasantry was incompatible with the Soviet project for ideological reasons. A course was set for collectivization. This also implied the liquidation of the kulaks. On January 5, 1930, J.V. Stalin signed the main document for the collectivization of agriculture in the USSR - the Resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the pace of collectivization and measures of state assistance to collective farm construction.” In accordance with the resolution, in particular, it was envisaged to carry out collectivization in the North Caucasus, Lower and Middle Volga by the fall of 1930, and no later than the spring of 1931. The document also stated: “In accordance with the growing pace of collectivization, it is necessary to further intensify the work on the construction of factories producing tractors, combines and other tractor and trailed equipment, so that the deadlines given by the Supreme Economic Council for completing the construction of new factories are in no case delayed.”

On March 2, 1930, Pravda published an article by I. V. Stalin “Dizziness from success. On issues of the collective farm movement", in which he, in particular, accused "zealous socializers" V "decay and discredit" collective farm movement and condemned their actions, "grist to the mill of our class enemies". On the same day, a model charter of the agricultural artel was published, in the development of which Stalin was directly involved.

Until March 14, 1930, Stalin was working on the text of the resolution of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the fight against distortions of the party line in the collective farm movement,” which was published in the Pravda newspaper on March 15. This resolution allowed the dissolution of collective farms that were not organized on a voluntary basis. The result of the resolution was that by May 1930, cases of dissolution of collective farms affected more than half of all peasant farms.

Industrialization

An important issue of time was also the choice of method of industrialization. The discussion about this was difficult and long, and its outcome predetermined the character of the state and society. Not having, unlike Russia at the beginning of the century, foreign loans as an important source of funds, the USSR could industrialize only at the expense of internal resources.

An influential group (Politburo member N.I. Bukharin, Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars A.I. Rykov and Chairman of the All-Union Central Council of Trade Unions M.P. Tomsky) defended the “sparing” option of gradual accumulation of funds through the continuation of the NEP. L. D. Trotsky - forced version. J.V. Stalin initially supported Bukharin’s point of view, but after Trotsky was expelled from the party’s Central Committee at the end of 1927, he changed his position to the diametrically opposite one. This led to a decisive victory for the supporters of forced industrialization. And after the start of the global economic crisis in 1929, the foreign trade situation deteriorated sharply, which completely destroyed the possibility of survival of the NEP project.

As a result of industrialization, the USSR took first place in terms of industrial production in Europe and second in the world, overtaking England, Germany, France and second only to the United States. The USSR's share in world industrial production reached almost 10%. A particularly sharp leap was achieved in the development of metallurgy, energy, machine tool building, and the chemical industry. In fact, a whole series of new industries arose: aluminum, aviation, automobile industries, bearing production, tractor and tank construction. One of the most important results of industrialization was the overcoming of technical backwardness and the establishment of the economic independence of the USSR. For the years 1928-1940, according to CIA estimates, the average annual growth of the gross national product in the USSR was 6.1%, which was inferior to Japan, was comparable to the corresponding figure in Germany and was significantly higher than the growth in the most developed capitalist countries experiencing the “Great Depression” .

Industrialization was accompanied by disruptions in production and disruptions to planned targets, followed by a series of show trials of the so-called “pests” - managers and specialists of enterprises. The first of these was the Shakhty affair (1928), about which Stalin said: “The Shakhty people are now in all branches of our industry. Many of them have been caught, but not all have been caught yet.”

In the summer of 1933, Stalin decided to found the Northern Fleet of the USSR Navy. This decision was made after Stalin’s visit to the village of Polyarnoye in the Murmansk region in July 1933.

Urban planning

Stalin was one of the main initiators of the implementation of the General Plan for the reconstruction of Moscow in accordance with the canons of urban planning, which resulted in massive construction in the center and on the outskirts of Moscow. In the second half of the 1930s, construction of many significant facilities was also carried out throughout the USSR. Stalin was interested in everything in the country, including construction. His former bodyguard Rybin recalls:

I. Stalin personally inspected the necessary streets, going into the courtyards, where mostly rickety huts were breathing their last, and there were many mossy sheds on chicken legs huddled. The first time he did this was during the day. A crowd immediately gathered, did not allow us to move at all, and then ran after the car. We had to reschedule the examinations for the night. But even then, passers-by recognized the leader and escorted him with his long tail. As a result of lengthy preparation, the master plan for the reconstruction of Moscow was approved. This is how Gorky Street, Bolshaya Kaluzhskaya, Kutuzovsky Prospekt and other beautiful thoroughfares appeared. During another trip along Mokhovaya, Stalin said to the driver Mitryukhin: It is necessary to build a new university named after Lomonosov, so that students study in one place, and do not wander all over the city.

Among the construction projects begun under Stalin was the Moscow Metro. It was under Stalin that the first metro in the USSR was built. During the construction process, by personal order of Stalin, the Sovetskaya metro station was adapted for the underground control center of the Moscow Civil Defense Headquarters. In addition to the civilian metro, complex secret complexes were built, including the so-called Metro-2, which Stalin himself used. In November 1941, a solemn meeting on the occasion of the anniversary of the October Revolution was held in the metro at the Mayakovskaya station. Stalin arrived by train along with his guards, and he did not leave the Supreme High Command building on Myasnitskaya, but went down from the basement into a special tunnel that led to the metro.

Domestic politics and mass repression

On the use of physical coercion against arrested persons in the practice of the NKVD.
Circular of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. January 10, 1939

The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks became aware that the secretaries of regional and regional committees, when checking the employees of the NKVD, blamed them for using physical force on those arrested as something criminal. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks explains that the use of physical coercion in the practice of the NKVD was allowed, that physical coercion is an exception, and, moreover, only in relation to such obvious enemies of the people who, using a humane method of interrogation, brazenly refuse to hand over the conspirators, do not give evidence for months , they are trying to slow down the exposure of the conspirators remaining in the wild, therefore, they continue the fight against the Soviet regime also in prison. Experience has shown that such an installation yielded results, greatly speeding up the process of exposing the enemies of the people. True, later, in practice, the method of physical influence was polluted by the scoundrels Zakovsky, Litvin, Uspensky and others, because they turned it from an exception into a rule and began to apply it to honest people who were accidentally arrested, for which they suffered due punishment. But this in no way discredits the method itself, since it is correctly applied in practice. It is known that all bourgeois intelligence services use physical force against representatives of the socialist proletariat, and, moreover, use it in the ugliest forms. The question is why socialist intelligence should be more humane in relation to the inveterate agents of the bourgeoisie, the sworn enemies of the working class and collective farmers. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks believes that the method of physical coercion must be used in the future, as an exception, in relation to obvious and non-disarming enemies of the people, as a completely correct and appropriate method. The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks demands from the secretaries of regional committees, regional committees, and the Central Committee of the National Communist Parties that when checking NKVD employees, they are guided by this explanation.

Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks I. Stalin

On February 10, 1934, the post of General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, which Stalin had held since 1922, was abolished, and the work of managing the apparatus was divided between three secretaries of the Central Committee - I.V. Stalin, L.M. Kaganovich and A.A. Zhdanov.

Domestic policy in the USSR in the second half of the 1930s was characterized by harsh repressive measures carried out by Soviet government bodies with the participation of party bodies of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. According to many historians, the signal for the beginning of mass repressions in the USSR was the murder of the leader of the Leningrad party organization of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, S. M. Kirov, committed on December 1, 1934 in Leningrad. There are versions in the historical literature that claim Stalin’s involvement in this murder. After the 20th Congress of the CPSU, on Khrushchev’s initiative, a Special Commission of the CPSU Central Committee was created to investigate the issue, headed by N. M. Shvernik with the participation of party leader O. G. Shatunovskaya (repressed in 1937). Molotov V.M. in 1979 stated: “The commission came to the conclusion that Stalin was not involved in the murder of Kirov. Khrushchev refused to publish this - not in his favor.". In 1990, during an investigation conducted by the prosecutorial and investigative team of the USSR Prosecutor's Office, the Main Military Prosecutor's Office and the State Security Committee of the USSR together with employees of the Party Control Committee under the CPSU Central Committee, the following conclusion was given: “In these cases there is no information about preparation in 1928-1934. There is no information about the assassination attempt on Kirov, as well as about the involvement of the NKVD and Stalin in this crime.” Despite this decision of the prosecutor's office, the literature often expresses both the point of view about Stalin's involvement in the murder of Kirov, and the everyday one - in favor of the version of a lone killer.

According to historian O.V. Khlevnyuk, Stalin used the fact of Kirov’s murder to "own political goals", first of all, as a reason for the final elimination of former political opponents - leaders and members of the opposition of the 20s and early 30s.

After the conviction (January 16, 1935) of G.E. Zinoviev and L.B. Kamenev, with the participation of Stalin, a closed letter from the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated January 18, 1935, “Lessons from the events associated with the villainous murder of comrade. Kirov". The letter stated that the terrorist act against Kirov was prepared by the Leningrad group of Zinovievites (“Leningrad center”), the inspirer of which, according to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, was the so-called. the “Moscow center” of the Zinovievites, headed by Kamenev and Zinoviev. According to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, these “centers” were “essentially a disguised form of a White Guard organization, fully deserving of its members being treated as White Guards”.

On January 26, 1935, Stalin signed a resolution of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, according to which 663 former supporters of G. E. Zinoviev were to be expelled from Leningrad to northern Siberia and Yakutia for a period of three to four years.

From September 1936 to November 1938, repressions were carried out under the leadership of People's Commissar of Internal Affairs N.I. Ezhov. As O. V. Khlevnyuk notes, there is a large amount of documentary evidence that Yezhov’s activities during these years were carefully controlled and directed by Stalin. During the repressions of the second half of the 1930s, not only potential political rivals were eliminated, but also many party leaders loyal to Stalin, law enforcement officers, plant managers, officials and foreign communists hiding in the USSR.

During the mass repressions of the Yezhovshchina period, physical coercion (torture) was used against those arrested. On February 8, 1956, the “Pospelov Commission” created by the Presidium of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks) provided a report on repressions in the USSR, to which was attached a circular of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks dated January 10, 1939, signed by Stalin, and confirming the practice established by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks (Bolsheviks) “use of physical force” during interrogations. According to N. Petrov, Stalin’s handwritten resolutions were preserved on documents received by him from the NKVD of the USSR, in which he demanded the use of torture against those arrested.

At a meeting of combine operators in 1935, to a replica of the Bashkir collective farmer A. Gilba “Although I am the son of a kulak, I will honestly fight for the cause of the workers and peasants and for the building of socialism” Stalin expressed his attitude to this issue with the phrase “The son is not responsible for his father”.

The European organization PACE condemned Stalin's policies, which, according to PACE, led to the famine and the death of millions of people.

Pre-war foreign policy

After Hitler came to power, Stalin sharply changed traditional Soviet policy: if previously it was aimed at an alliance with Germany against the Versailles system, and through the Comintern - at fighting the Social Democrats as the main enemy (the theory of “social fascism” is Stalin’s personal attitude ), now it consisted of creating a system of “collective security” within the USSR and the former Entente countries against Germany and an alliance of communists with all left forces against fascism (the “popular front” tactics). This position was initially not consistent: in 1935, Stalin, alarmed by the German-Polish rapprochement, secretly proposed a non-aggression pact to Hitler, but was refused. After this, the policy of “collective security” advocated by Litvinov turns out to have no alternative. However, at the same time, Stalin demanded that diplomats not give any specific obligations to their partners. However, France and England were afraid of the USSR and hoped to “appease” Hitler, which was manifested in the history of the “Munich Agreement” and subsequently in the failure of negotiations between the USSR and England and France on military cooperation against Germany. Immediately after Munich, in the fall of 1938, Stalin made hints towards Germany about the desirability of improving mutual relations in terms of trade. On October 1, 1938, Poland, in an ultimatum, demanded that the Czech Republic transfer to it the Cieszyn region, the subject of territorial disputes between it and Czechoslovakia in 1918-1920. And in March 1939, Germany occupied the remaining part of Czechoslovakia. On March 10, 1939, Stalin made a report at the XVIII Party Congress, in which he formulated the goals of Soviet policy as follows:

1. “Continue to pursue a policy of peace and strengthening business ties with all countries.
2. ...Do not let war provocateurs, who are accustomed to raking in the heat with the wrong hands, drag our country into conflicts.”

This was noted by the German embassy as a hint of Moscow's reluctance to act as allies of England and France. In May, Litvinov, a Jew and an ardent supporter of the “collective security” course, was removed from his post as head of the NKID and replaced by Molotov. The German leadership also regarded this as a favorable sign.

By that time, the international situation was sharply aggravating due to German claims against Poland; England and France this time showed their readiness to go to war with Germany, trying to attract the USSR to the alliance. In the summer of 1939, Stalin, while supporting negotiations on an alliance with England and France, simultaneously began negotiations with Germany. As historians note, Stalin's hints towards Germany intensified as relations between Germany and Poland deteriorated and strengthened between Britain, Poland and Japan. Hence the conclusion is drawn that Stalin’s policy was not so much pro-German as anti-British and anti-Polish in nature; Stalin was categorically not satisfied with the old status quo; in his own words, he did not believe in the possibility of a complete victory for Germany and the establishment of its hegemony in Europe.

According to the official Soviet concept, Stalin was forced to conclude a pact, since the unscrupulous behavior of Western countries left him no other choice (which is also confirmed by the correspondence of Western participants in the negotiations between the USSR and England and France); according to another, Stalin did not exhaust all the possibilities of an alliance against Hitler and conspired with him because he considered such a situation the most profitable for himself, both in terms of territorial acquisitions and in relation to the opportunity to take the position of the “third rejoicing” in the impending war of “imperialist powers." Stalin said:

“The war is going on between two groups of capitalist countries (poor and rich in terms of colonies, raw materials, etc.). For the redivision of the world, for domination over the world! We are not averse to them having a good fight and weakening each other. It would not be bad if At the hands of Germany, the position of the richest capitalist countries (especially England) was shaken.Hitler, without understanding it and not wanting it, is shaking and undermining the capitalist system.<...>We can maneuver, push one side against the other in order to better tear ourselves apart.<...>What would be bad if, as a result of the defeat of Poland, we extended the socialist system to new territories and populations?”

There is, however, every reason to believe that in this respect the USSR was no different from England and France, who also hoped to enter the war after Germany and the USSR had exhausted each other. It seems obvious that at the time of the conclusion of the Munich agreements, the USSR seemed to the leaders of England and France to be a more dangerous neighbor than Nazi Germany. Thus, Stalin's position as the leader of the USSR should not be assessed as anything unusual for international relations.

According to historians A. S. Barsenkov and A. I. Vdovin, the conclusion of a pact with Germany made it possible to gain time to strengthen the defense capability of the USSR, weakened the unity within the fascist bloc and largely predetermined the victorious outcome of the Great Patriotic War for the USSR.

In its issue of January 1, 1940, Time magazine named Stalin “man of the year.” The magazine explained its choice by the conclusion of the “Nazi-Communist” non-aggression pact and the outbreak of the Soviet-Finnish war, as a result of which, according to Time, Stalin radically changed the balance of political forces and became Hitler’s partner in aggression. The article suggested that Stalin was driven by an obsessive fear of simultaneous war with a number of capitalist countries, but that in practice his actions would have the opposite effect and unite the whole world against him.

Stalin and the Great Patriotic War

Since 1941, Stalin has been chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. During the Great Patriotic War, Stalin held the positions of Chairman of the State Defense Committee, People's Commissar of Defense and Supreme Commander-in-Chief of all the Armed Forces of the USSR.

During the Battle of Moscow in 1941, after Moscow was declared under a state of siege, Stalin remained in the capital. On November 6, 1941, Stalin spoke at a ceremonial meeting held at the Mayakovskaya metro station, which was dedicated to the 24th anniversary of the October Revolution. In his speech, Stalin explained the unsuccessful start of the war for the Red Army, in particular, “shortage of tanks and partly aviation”. The next day, November 7, 1941, at the direction of Stalin, a traditional military parade was held on Red Square.

At the same time, according to modern historians, arguments about the quantitative or qualitative superiority of German technology on the eve of the war are unfounded. On the contrary, in terms of certain parameters (the number and weight of tanks, the number of aircraft), the Red Army grouping along the western border of the USSR was significantly superior to the similar Wehrmacht grouping. A number of historians blame Stalin personally for the unpreparedness of the Soviet Union for war and the huge losses, especially in the initial period of the war. Other historians take the opposite point of view. Thus, historian A.V. Isaev states: “intelligence officers and analysts, with a lack of information, made conclusions that did not reflect reality... Stalin simply did not have information that could be 100% trusted”.

This statement by the historian Isaev, however, contradicts the fact that back in the May holidays of 1941, Soviet intelligence services installed listening devices in the office of the German Ambassador Schulenburg, as a result of which, several days before the war, information was received about Germany’s intention to attack the USSR. In addition, many other sources named June 22, 1941 as the date of the German attack. Even I. A. Bunin, while in occupied France, already on Saturday, June 21, 1941, wrote: “There is alarm everywhere: Does Germany want to attack Russia? Finland is evacuating women and children from cities...”, which shows that the German attack was not unexpected even for the Parisian inhabitants of his day.

According to Doctor of Historical Sciences O. A. Rzheshevsky, on June 17, 1941, the head of the 1st Directorate of the NKGB, P. M. Fitin, presented a special message from Berlin to I. V. Stalin: “All military measures of Germany to prepare an armed uprising against the USSR are completely completed, a strike can be expected at any time.” According to the version widespread in historical works, on June 15, 1941, Richard Sorge radioed to Moscow about the exact date of the start of the Great Patriotic War - June 22, 1941. According to V.N. Karpov, an employee of the press bureau of the Foreign Intelligence Service of the Russian Federation, Sorge’s alleged telegram about the date of the attack on the USSR on June 22 is a fake, created under Khrushchev, and Sorge named several dates for the attack on the USSR, which were never confirmed. According to V.N. Karpov, “intelligence did not name the exact date, they did not say unequivocally that the war would begin on June 22. No one doubted that war was inevitable, but no one had a clear idea of ​​when exactly and how it would begin.” Stalin did not doubted the inevitability of war, but the deadlines called by reconnaissance passed, and it did not begin. A version arose that England was spreading these rumors in order to push Hitler against the USSR. That’s why Stalin’s resolutions like “Isn’t this a British provocation?” appeared on intelligence reports.

January 4, 1943 magazine Time(New York) named Stalin "man of the year." The criterion for choosing someone as Person of the Year is the impact that person has had on the world. The article dedicated to this event began like this:

During the war, Stalin's eldest son Yakov was captured and died. According to another version, which is also adhered to by Joseph Stalin’s granddaughter (Yakov’s daughter) Galina Dzhugashvili and adopted son Artyom Sergeev, Yakov died in battle, and a double agent from the Abwehr was passed off as her father.

), but simply "comrade Stalin" "Comrade Vasiliev". As E. Radzinsky said, among the Soviet nomenklatura Stalin was also called "Master".

Domestic policy. The fight against cosmopolitanism

After the war, the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, under the leadership of I.V. Stalin, set a course for accelerated restoration of the economy destroyed by the war.

At the end of the 1940s, patriotic and Great Russian propaganda intensified, as well as the fight against cosmopolitanism. In the early 1950s, several high-profile anti-Semitic trials were carried out in the countries of Eastern Europe, and then in the USSR. All Jewish educational institutions, theaters, publishing houses and mass media were closed (except for the newspaper of the Jewish Autonomous Region Birobidzhaner shtern(“Birobidzhan Star” and “Soviet Gameland” magazine). Mass arrests and dismissals of Jews began. In the winter of 1953, rumors circulated about the supposedly impending deportation of Jews; Whether these rumors were true is debatable.

Stalin himself repeatedly made statements severely condemning anti-Semitism. On the other hand, former leader of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) V.G. Bazhanov, who emigrated from the USSR in 1928, claims that in his presence Stalin once said about one of the leaders of the Komsomol: “What is this lousy little Jew imagining!”. N. S. Khrushchev accuses Stalin of hidden anti-Semitism. In his Memoirs, he claims that when the problem of protests arose at one of the Moscow factories, the initiative of which was attributed to the Jews, Stalin told him: “we need to organize healthy workers, and let them, taking clubs in their hands, beat these Jews”. As Polish General Wladyslaw Anders argued, in 1941, during negotiations with Polish representatives (Prime Minister V. Sikorski and General W. Anders himself), Stalin expressed complete solidarity with the position of the Poles, emphasizing twice: "Jews are bad soldiers"

After the war, repressions were resumed for some time among the senior command staff of the USSR Armed Forces. So, in 1946-1948 according to the so-called In the “trophy case”, a number of major military leaders from the inner circle of Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov were arrested and put on trial, including Chief Marshal of Aviation A.A. Novikov, Lieutenant General K.F. Telegin.

In October 1952, at the 19th Congress of the CPSU, Stalin resigned as First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. However, already in October, at the Plenum of the CPSU Central Committee, he was again elected one of the secretaries of the CPSU Central Committee. Since Stalin was elected to the Central Committee without his consent, he did not take part in the work of the Party Central Committee as a secretary. An unusual and abnormal situation arose due to the fact that there was no leader in the party. In November 1952, G.M. Malenkov was elected to Stalin’s place as First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Until his death in March 1953, Stalin retained the post of head of the Government, that is, Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

1945-1953

Domestic policy

After the war, the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks, under the leadership of Stalin, set a course for accelerated restoration of the economy destroyed by the war.

Since 1948, scientific life in the country has been affected by the struggle against cosmopolitanism and the so-called “adulation to the West.”

After the war, repressions were resumed for some time among the senior command staff of the USSR Armed Forces. So, in 1946-1948. according to the so-called In the “trophy case”, a number of major military leaders from the inner circle of Marshal of the Soviet Union G.K. Zhukov were arrested and put on trial, including Chief Marshal of Aviation A.A. Novikov, Lieutenant General K.F. Telegin.

In October 1952, at the 19th Congress of the CPSU, Stalin tried to resign as Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee. Until his death, Stalin retained the post of Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR.

At the end of the 1940s, patriotic propaganda intensified in the USSR, as well as the fight against cosmopolitanism, which began after the adoption on March 28, 1947 of the resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks “On the Courts of Honor in the Ministries of the USSR and Central Departments,” signed by Stalin. According to this decree, a special body was created in each department - the “Court of Honor”, ​​which was entrusted with “consideration of anti-patriotic, anti-state and anti-social acts and actions committed by management, operational and scientific employees of ministries of the USSR and central departments, if these offenses and actions are not subject to criminal punishment”. Some authors studying this campaign attribute to it an anti-Semitic character. Stalin's statement is known, severely condemning anti-Semitism ( “Anti-Semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous relic of cannibalism”). On the other hand, there are witnesses to Stalin’s statements disparaging Jews.

In the post-war period, massive campaigns began against the departure from the “party principle”, against the “abstract academic spirit”, “objectivism”, as well as against “anti-patriotism”, “rootless cosmopolitanism” and “the derogation of Russian science and Russian philosophy”.

Stalin paid personal attention to the construction of new buildings of Moscow State University. The Moscow City Committee of the CPSU and the Moscow City Council proposed building a four-story town in the Vnukovo area, where there were wide fields, based on economic considerations. The President of the USSR Academy of Sciences S.I. Vavilov and the Rector of Moscow State University A.N. Nesmeyanov proposed building a modern ten-story building. However, at a Politburo meeting, which Stalin personally chaired, he said:

...this complex is for Moscow University, and not 10-12, but 20 floors. We will entrust the construction to Komarovsky. To speed up the pace of construction, it will need to be carried out in parallel with the design... It is necessary to create living conditions by building dormitories for teachers and students. How long will students live? Six thousand? This means that the hostel must have six thousand rooms. Special care should be taken for students with families.

On June 29, 1948, the Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR I.V. Stalin signed Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the USSR No. 2369, in accordance with which the Institute of Precision Mechanics and Computer Science was created. S. A. Lebedeva.

At the same time, an entire scientific field - genetics, with the direct participation of Stalin, was declared bourgeois and banned, which, according to historians, slowed down the development of this field of science in the USSR for decades.

In 1950, Stalin took part in a discussion on issues of linguistics; in his work “Marxism and Issues of Linguistics,” Stalin opposed the prominent Soviet linguist N. Ya. Marr, whose teaching in the USSR until 1950 was widespread in linguistics (the so-called “ new doctrine of language"). In his last theoretical work, “Economic Problems of Socialism in the USSR” (1952), Stalin put forward and developed a number of new principles of political economy, based on the works of Marx, Engels, and Lenin.

Foreign policy

In the states of Eastern Europe liberated by the Soviet Army, with the open support of Stalin, pro-Soviet communist forces came to power, later entering into an economic and military alliance with the USSR in its confrontation with the United States and the NATO bloc. Post-war contradictions between the USSR and the USA in the Far East led to the Korean War, in which Soviet pilots and anti-aircraft gunners took direct part. USSR in the post-war world. The defeat of Germany and its satellites in the war radically changed the balance of forces in the world. The USSR turned into one of the leading world powers, without which, according to Molotov, not a single issue of international life should now be resolved.

However, during the war years, the power of the United States grew even more. Their gross national product rose by 70%, and economic and human losses were minimal. Having become an international creditor during the war years, the United States gained the opportunity to expand its influence on other countries and peoples.

All this led to the fact that instead of cooperation in Soviet-American relations, a period of mutual distrust and suspicion began. The Soviet Union was worried about the US nuclear monopoly. America saw a threat to its security in the growing influence of the USSR in the world. All this led to the beginning of the Cold War.

Soviet intelligence had information about work in the West to create an atomic bomb. This information was reported by Beria to Stalin. However, it is believed that the letter from the Soviet physicist Flerov addressed to him at the beginning of 1943, who was able to explain the essence of the problem popularly, was of decisive importance. As a result, on February 11, 1943, the State Defense Committee adopted a decree to begin work on the creation of an atomic bomb. The English historian Anthony Beaver believes that Stalin’s desire to take Berlin as quickly as possible was not so much a political issue as a desire to study German experience in nuclear technology. He bases his opinion on a letter from Beria and Malenkov to Stalin, in which they report the seizure of 3 tons of uranium oxide at the Kaiser Wilhelm Institute.

On July 24, 1945, in Potsdam, Truman casually informed Stalin that the United States “now has weapons of extraordinary destructive power.” According to Churchill's recollections, Stalin smiled, but did not become interested in the details. From this, Churchill concluded that Stalin did not understand anything and was not aware of events. Some modern researchers believe that this was blackmail. That same evening, Stalin ordered Molotov to talk with Kurchatov about accelerating work on the atomic project. On August 20, 1945, to manage the atomic project, the State Defense Committee created a Special Committee with emergency powers, headed by L.P. Beria. An executive body was created under the Special Committee - the First Main Directorate under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR (PGU). Vannikov was appointed head of the PGU. Stalin's directive obliged the PGU to ensure the creation of atomic bombs, uranium and plutonium, in 1948. Already in November 1947, Molotov declared that “the secret of the atomic bomb has ceased to be a secret.” This statement was regarded in the West as a bluff.

In 1946, Stalin signed about sixty documents that determined the development of atomic science and technology. The result of these decisions was the creation of the atomic bomb, as well as the construction of the world's first nuclear power plant in Obninsk (1954) and the subsequent development of nuclear energy.

The successful test of the first Soviet atomic bomb was carried out on August 29, 1949 at a built test site in the Semipalatinsk region of Kazakhstan. On September 25, 1949, the Pravda newspaper published a TASS report.

Post-war economy of the USSR

After the war and famine (drought) of 1946, ration cards were abolished in 1947, although many goods remained in short supply, in particular, there was another famine in 1947. In addition, on the eve of the abolition of cards, prices for ration goods were raised, which made it possible to reduce them several times in 1948-1953. In 1952, the cost of bread was 39% of the price at the end of 1947, milk - 72%, meat - 42%, sugar - 49%, butter - 37%. As noted at the 19th Congress of the CPSU, at the same time the price of bread increased by 28% in the USA, by 90% in England, and more than doubled in France; the cost of meat in the USA increased by 26%, in England - by 35%, in France - by 88%. If in 1948 real wages were on average 20% lower than the pre-war level, then in 1952 they were already 25% higher than the pre-war level. In general, during 1928-1952. the greatest increase in living standards was among the party and labor elites, while for the vast majority of rural residents it did not improve or worsened.

In 1948, on the initiative of Stalin, the USSR adopted the so-called. “Stalin's plan for the transformation of nature,” according to which a grandiose offensive against drought was launched by planting forest protection plantations (along with other measures).

Death of Stalin

On March 1, 1953, Stalin lying on the floor in the small dining room of the Near Dacha (one of Stalin’s residences) was discovered by security officer P.V. Lozgachev. On the morning of March 2, doctors arrived at Nizhnyaya Dacha and diagnosed paralysis on the right side of the body. On March 5 at 21:50, Stalin died. Stalin's death was announced on March 5, 1953. According to the medical report, death was caused by a cerebral hemorrhage.

There are numerous conspiracy theories suggesting the unnaturalness of death and the involvement of Stalin's entourage in it. According to one of them (which, in particular, the historian E. S. Radzinsky adheres to), L. P. Beria, N. S. Khrushchev and G. M. Malenkov contributed to his death without providing assistance. According to another, Stalin was poisoned by his closest associate Beria.

Stalin became the only Soviet leader for whom a memorial service was performed by the Russian Orthodox Church (See Stalin and the Russian Orthodox Church).

According to journalist Vasily Golovanov, at Stalin’s funeral, due to the huge number of people wanting to say goodbye to Stalin, a stampede arose, which resulted in casualties. According to the journalist, “the exact number of deaths is unknown or classified”.

Stalin's embalmed body was placed on public display in the Lenin Mausoleum, which in 1953-1961 was called the “Mausoleum of V. I. Lenin and I. V. Stalin.” On October 30, 1961, the XXII Congress of the CPSU decided that “Stalin’s serious violations of Lenin’s covenants... make it impossible to leave the coffin with his body in the Mausoleum”. On the night of October 31 to November 1, 1961, Stalin's body was taken out of the Mausoleum and buried in a grave near the Kremlin wall. Subsequently, a monument was unveiled at the grave (bust by N.V. Tomsky).

Personality and the “cult of personality of Stalin”

During Stalin's lifetime, Soviet propaganda created a halo around him "great leader and teacher". A number of cities and streets in populated areas in the USSR and Eastern European countries were named after Stalin; many enterprises, institutions, collective farms, hydraulic structures received an additional name to their name "them. I.V. Stalin"; His name could also be found in the names of Soviet equipment produced in the 1930-1950s. In the Soviet press of the Stalin era, his name was mentioned in the same breath as Marx, Engels and Lenin. He has often been mentioned in songs, works of art and films.

Assessments of Stalin's personality are contradictory and there is a huge range of opinions about him, and often they describe him with opposing characteristics. On the one hand, many who communicated with Stalin spoke of him as a widely and diversified educated and extremely intelligent person. On the other hand, Stalin is often described negatively.

Some historians believe that Stalin established a personal dictatorship; others believe that until the mid-1930s the dictatorship was collective in nature. The political system implemented by Stalin is usually referred to as “totalitarianism.” According to the conclusions of many historians, the Stalinist dictatorship was an extremely centralized regime that relied primarily on powerful party-state structures, terror and violence, as well as mechanisms for ideological manipulation of society, the selection of privileged groups and the formation of pragmatic strategies. According to Oxford University professor R. Hingley, for a quarter of a century before his death, Stalin wielded more political power than any other figure in history. He was not just a symbol of the regime, but a leader who made fundamental decisions and was the initiator of all any significant government measures.

After the so-called “debunking the personality cult of Stalin” By the First Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee N. S. Khrushchev at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, Soviet historians assessed Stalin taking into account the position of the ideological bodies of the USSR. This position, in particular, can be illustrated by a quotation from the index of names to the Complete Works of Lenin, published in 1974, where the following is written about Stalin:

Along with the positive side, Stalin’s activities also had a negative side. While holding the most important party and government posts, Stalin committed gross violations of the Leninist principles of collective leadership and the norms of party life, violations of socialist legality, and unjustified mass repressions against prominent government, political and military figures of the Soviet Union and other honest Soviet people. The Party resolutely condemned and put an end to the personality cult of Stalin and its consequences, alien to Marxism-Leninism, approved the work of the Central Committee to restore and develop Leninist principles of leadership and norms of party life in all areas of party, state and ideological work, took measures to prevent such errors and perversions in future.

Personality assessments by Stalin's contemporaries

During Stalin's lifetime, attitudes towards him varied on a spectrum from benevolent and enthusiastic to negative. In particular, foreign writers who met with the Soviet leader left their reviews of Stalin: English - Bernard Shaw (1856-1950) and Herbert Wells (1866-1946), French - Henri Barbusse (1873-1935). In particular, the following statements by Nobel Prize laureate B. Shaw about Stalin are known: "Stalin is a very nice person and truly the leader of the working class", “Stalin is a giant, and all Westerners are pygmies”. In his book “An Essay on Autobiography,” H. Wells wrote about Stalin: “I have never met a more sincere, decent and honest person; there is nothing dark and sinister about him, and it is these qualities that should explain his enormous power in Russia. I thought before, before I met him, maybe people thought poorly of him because people were afraid of him. But I found that, on the contrary, no one is afraid of him and everyone believes in him. Stalin is completely devoid of the cunning and cunning of the Georgians.” The words of A. Barbusse about Stalin have become widely known in literature: “Stalin is Lenin today”; “This is an iron man. The surname gives us his image: Stalin - steel"; this is a man “with the head of a scientist, with the face of a worker, in the clothes of a simple soldier”.

Anti-Stalinist positions were taken by a number of communist figures, accusing Stalin of destroying the party and departing from the ideals of Lenin and Marx. This approach originated among the so-called. “Leninist Guard” (F. F. Raskolnikov, L. D. Trotsky, N. I. Bukharin, M. N. Ryutin). The most significant opponent of Stalin, L. D. Trotsky (1879-1940), called Stalin "outstanding mediocrity" not forgiving anyone "spiritual superiority".

Stalin's former secretary Boris Bazhanov (1900-1982), who fled the USSR in 1928, characterizes Stalin in his memoirs as “uncultured”, “cunning”, “ignorant” person. In the book of memoirs “Stalin and the Tragedy of Georgia,” published in 1932 in Berlin in German, Joseph Dzhugashvili’s classmate at the Tiflis Theological Seminary Joseph Iremashvili (1878-1944) argued that young Stalin had inherent "grudge, vindictiveness, deceit, ambition and lust for power".

Academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences V.I. Vernadsky (1863-1945), in a diary entry dated November 14, 1941, describing his impressions of Stalin’s speech at the Parade on Red Square on November 7, 1941, noted: “Only yesterday the text of Stalin’s speech reached us, which made a huge impression. We used to listen on the radio from five to ten. The speech is undoubtedly from a very smart person.". Soviet military leader I. G. Starinov conveys the impression made on him by Stalin’s speech: “We listened with bated breath to Stalin’s speech. (...) Stalin spoke about what worried everyone: about people, about personnel. And how convincingly he spoke! Here I first heard: “Personnel decides everything.” The words about how important it is to take care of people and take care of them are etched in my memory for the rest of my life...”.

Assessments of Stalin's personality by modern experts

When characterizing Stalin's personality, many historians note Stalin's penchant for reading a large amount of literature. Stalin was a very reading, erudite person and was interested in culture, including poetry. He spent a lot of time reading books, and after his death his personal library remained, consisting of thousands of books, with his notes in the margins. Stalin, in particular, read books by Guy de Maupassant, Oscar Wilde, N.V. Gogol, Johann Wolfgang Goethe, L.D. Trotsky, L.B. Kamenev. According to V.A. Razumny, Stalin preferred Kant to Hegel. Among the authors whom Stalin admired were Emil Zola and F. M. Dostoevsky. He quoted long passages from the Bible, the works of Bismarck, and the works of Chekhov. Stalin himself told some visitors, pointing to a stack of books on his desk: “This is my daily norm - 500 pages”. In this way, up to a thousand books were produced per year. Historian R. A. Medvedev, speaking against “often extremely exaggerated estimates of the level of his education and intelligence”, at the same time warns against downplaying it. He notes that Stalin read a lot, and widely, from fiction to popular science. In the pre-war period, Stalin devoted his main attention to historical and military-technical books; after the war, he moved on to reading political works, such as “History of Diplomacy” and the biography of Talleyrand. Medvedev notes that Stalin, being the culprit for the death of a large number of writers and the destruction of their books, at the same time patronized M. Sholokhov, A. Tolstoy and others, returns from exile E. V. Tarle, whose biography of Napoleon he treated with great respect interest and personally supervised its publication, suppressing tendentious attacks on the book. Medvedev emphasizes Stalin’s knowledge of national Georgian culture; in 1940, Stalin himself made changes to the new translation of “The Knight in the Skin of the Tiger”

The English writer and statesman Charles Snow also characterized Stalin's educational level as quite high:

There is evidence that back in the 20s, Stalin attended the play “Days of the Turbins” eighteen times by the writer M.A. Bulgakov. Stalin also maintained personal contacts with other cultural figures: musicians, film actors, directors. Stalin also personally entered into controversy with the composer D. D. Shostakovich. Stalin also loved cinema and was willingly interested in directing. One of the directors with whom Stalin was personally acquainted was A.P. Dovzhenko. Stalin liked films by this director such as “Arsenal” and “Aerograd”. Stalin also personally edited the script for the film Shchors.

Russian historian L.M. Batkin, recognizing Stalin’s love of reading, believes that he was a reader "aesthetically dense". Batkin believes that Stalin had no idea “about the existence of such a “subject” as art”, about "special artistic world" and about the structure of this world. According to Batkin's conclusion, Stalin "some energy" brought the semi-educated and average layer of people to “pure, strong-willed, outstanding form”. According to Batkin, Stalin’s oratorical style is extremely primitive: he is distinguished by “catechismal form, endless repetitions and inversions of the same thing, the same phrase in the form of a question and in the form of a statement, and again the same phrase through a negative particle”. Israeli expert on Russian literature Mikhail Weiskopf also argues that Stalin’s argument was based “on more or less hidden tautologies, on the effect of stupefying hammering in”.

On the other hand, the Russian philologist G. G. Khazagerov elevates Stalin’s rhetoric to the traditions of solemn, homiletical (preaching) eloquence and considers it didactic-symbolic. According to the author's definition, “The task of didactics is, based on symbolism as an axiom, to organize the picture of the world and to convey this ordered picture intelligibly. Stalinist didactics, however, also took on the functions of symbolism. This was manifested in the fact that the zone of axioms grew to include entire educational programs, and evidence, on the contrary, was replaced by reference to authority.”. Russian philologist V.V. Smolenenkova notes the strong impact that Stalin’s speeches had on the audience. Smolenenkova explains the effect of Stalin’s speeches by the fact that they were quite adequate to the mood and expectations of the audience. The English historian S. Sebag-Montefiore notes that Stalin's style was distinguished by clarity and, often, sophistication.

Assessment of Russian officials

Russian President D. A. Medvedev, speaking about the Katyn tragedy, called this act a crime of Stalin: “On our part, all assessments were given a long time ago. The Katyn tragedy is a crime of Stalin and a number of his henchmen. The position of the Russian state on this issue has long been formulated and remains unchanged.”. In an interview with the Izvestia newspaper, the President, in particular, noted that “Stalin committed a lot of crimes against his people... And despite the fact that he worked hard, despite the fact that under his leadership the country achieved success, what was done to his own people cannot be forgiven.”. According to Medvedev's position, Stalin's role in the victory in the Great Patriotic War was “very serious,” although Medvedev believes that the war was “won by our people.” In general, according to Medvedev, Stalin “had both weak decisions and very strong decisions, including during the war period. This also cannot be crossed out.”

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said in 2009: “It is obvious that from 1924 to 1953 the country, and the country was then led by Stalin, changed radically, it turned from agricultural to industrial. True, there was no peasantry left, but industrialization did take place. We won the Great Patriotic War. And no matter who said anything, victory was achieved.”. At the same time, the prime minister noted the repressions that took place during that period. According to Putin, the Katyn massacre was Stalin's revenge “for the death of 32 thousand Red Army soldiers who died in Polish captivity”.

According to the position of former USSR President M.S. Gorbachev, “Stalin is a man covered in blood”.

According to the Chairman of the Federation Council S. M. Mironov: “Stalin is a bloody executioner, and no matter what anyone says, he is and will be so”.

According to the Chairman of the State Duma B.V. Gryzlov, as the leader of the USSR Stalin “did a lot during the Great Patriotic War”, Although “excesses in domestic policy” his "do not decorate". “We know how respected he was by those who opened the second front.”, - said the head of the lower house of the Russian legislature.

The State Duma, in its statement “On the Katyn tragedy and its victims” dated November 26, 2010, officially recognized that the execution of Polish officers near Katyn was carried out on the direct orders of Stalin and other Soviet leaders. According to Russian media reports, the majority of deputies from the factions “United Russia”, “A Just Russia” and “LDPR” voted for the adoption of this statement. Deputies from the Communist Party of the Russian Federation faction voted against the adoption of the statement, insisting that the assertion about the guilt of the USSR leadership in the Katyn tragedy is based on falsified documents. Regarding the communist version of "falsification" documents, Russian President D. A. Medvedev stated the following on December 6, 2010: “ Stalin and his henchmen are responsible for this crime. And I have relevant documents that were received from the so-called “special folder”. These documents are now available on the Internet, they are publicly available with all resolutions. Attempts to cast doubt on these documents, to say that someone falsified them, are simply not serious. This is being done by those who are trying to whitewash the nature of the regime that Stalin created in a certain period in our country.”.

Public opinion polls

According to a public opinion poll on February 18-19, 2006 (Public Opinion Foundation), 47% of Russian residents considered Stalin’s role in history positive, 29% negative. Only in one socio-demographic group, among citizens with higher education, the historical figure of Stalin was perceived positively less often than negatively (39% and 41%). 59% believed that “in Stalin’s times, it was mostly innocent people who ended up in camps and prisons,” 12% believed that “mostly those who deserved it.” Among citizens under 35 years of age, 39% had a positive view of Stalin and 30% negatively. At the same time, 38% believed that Stalin and his activities are now being “denigrated,” and 29% believed that “they are being assessed objectively.”

Over the course of a multi-month (May 7 - December 28, 2008) electronic public opinion poll organized by the Rossiya TV channel, Stalin occupied the leading position by a wide margin. The final official data showed that Stalin took second place (519,071 votes), losing to Alexander Nevsky with 5,504 votes (1% of the votes).

Notable Facts

• Currently, Stalin is listed as an honorary citizen of the city of Ceske Budejovice (Czech Republic). From November 7, 1947 to April 29, 2004, Stalin was listed as an honorary citizen of Budapest. From 1947 to 2007 he was also an honorary citizen of the Slovak city of Kosice.
• January 1, 1940 American magazine Time called Stalin "man of the year" (1939). The editors of the magazine explained their choice with the conclusion "Nazi-communist" non-aggression pact and the outbreak of the Soviet-Finnish war, as a result of which, in the opinion Time, Stalin radically changed the balance of political forces and became Hitler's partner in aggression. On January 4, 1943, the magazine named Stalin “man of the year” for the second time. The article about this event said: “Only Joseph Stalin knows exactly how close Russia came to defeat in 1942. And only Joseph Stalin knows for certain what he had to do for Russia to overcome this..."
• During the Great Patriotic War, Stalin was usually addressed not by his first name, patronymic or military rank ( "Comrade Marshal (Generalissimo) of the Soviet Union"), but simply "comrade Stalin". Austrian Chancellor Karl Renner began his message to Stalin like this: “Dear Generalissimo, Comrade Stalin!”. In military documents, reports and reports, Stalin used a pseudonym "Comrade Vasiliev".
• In addition to the Georgian and Russian languages, Stalin read German relatively fluently, knew Latin, ancient Greek, Church Slavonic well, understood Farsi (Persian), and understood Armenian. In the mid-20s, he also studied French.
• On January 13, 2010, the Kyiv Court of Appeal found Stalin and other Soviet leaders guilty of the genocide of the Ukrainian people in 1932-1933, as a result of which, according to the judges, 3 million 941 thousand people died in Ukraine. The European organization PACE also condemned Stalin's policies, which, according to PACE, led to the famine and the death of millions of people.

We stand for peace and champion the cause of peace.
/AND. Stalin/

Stalin (real name - Dzhugashvili) Joseph Vissarionovich, one of the leading figures of the Communist Party, the Soviet state, the international communist and labor movement, a prominent theorist and propagandist of Marxism-Leninism. Born into the family of a handicraft shoemaker. In 1894 he graduated from the Gori Theological School and entered the Tbilisi Orthodox Seminary. Under the influence of Russian Marxists who lived in Transcaucasia, he joined the revolutionary movement; in an illegal circle he studied the works of K. Marx, F. Engels, V. I. Lenin, G. V. Plekhanov. Since 1898 member of the CPSU. Being in a social democratic group "Mesame-dasi", carried out propaganda of Marxist ideas among the workers of the Tbilisi railway workshops. In 1899 he was expelled from the seminary for revolutionary activities, went underground, and became a professional revolutionary. He was a member of the Tbilisi, Caucasian Union and Baku Committees of the RSDLP, participated in the publication of newspapers “Brdzola” (“Struggle”), “Proletariatis Brdzola” (“Struggle of the Proletariat”), “Baku Proletarian”, “Buzzer”, “Baku Worker”, was an active participant in the Revolution of 1905-07. in Transcaucasia. Since the creation of the RSDLP, he supported Lenin’s ideas of strengthening the revolutionary Marxist party, defended the Bolshevik strategy and tactics of the class struggle of the proletariat, was a staunch supporter of Bolshevism, and exposed the opportunist line of the Mensheviks and anarchists in the revolution. Delegate to the 1st conference of the RSDLP in Tammerfors (1905), 4th (1906) and 5th (1907) congresses of the RSDLP.

During the period of underground revolutionary activity, he was repeatedly arrested and exiled. In January 1912, at a meeting of the Central Committee, elected by the 6th (Prague) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP, he was co-opted in absentia into the Central Committee and introduced into Russian Bureau of the Central Committee. In 1912-13, working in St. Petersburg, he actively collaborated in newspapers "Star" And "Is it true". Participant Krakow (1912) meeting of the Central Committee of the RSDLP with party workers. At this time Stalin wrote a work "Marxism and the National Question", in which he highlighted Lenin’s principles for solving the national question, and criticized the opportunist program of “cultural-national autonomy.” The work received a positive assessment from V.I. Lenin (see Complete collection of works, 5th ed., vol. 24, p. 223). In February 1913, Stalin was again arrested and exiled to the Turukhansk region.

After the overthrow of the autocracy, Stalin returned to Petrograd on March 12 (25), 1917, was included in the Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b) and in the editorial office of Pravda, and took an active part in developing the work of the party in new conditions. Stalin supported Lenin's course of developing the bourgeois-democratic revolution into a socialist one. On 7th (April) All-Russian Conference of the RSDLP (b) elected member of the Central Committee(from that time on he was elected as a member of the party’s Central Committee at all congresses up to and including the 19th). At the 6th Congress of the RSDLP (b), on behalf of the Central Committee, he delivered a political report to the Central Committee and a report on the political situation.

As a member of the Central Committee, Stalin actively participated in the preparation and conduct of the Great October Socialist Revolution: he was a member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee, the Military Revolutionary Center - the party body for leading the armed uprising, and in the Petrograd Military Revolutionary Committee. At the 2nd All-Russian Congress of Soviets on October 26 (November 8), 1917, he was elected to the first Soviet government as People's Commissar for National Affairs(1917-22); at the same time in 1919-22 he headed People's Commissariat of State Control, reorganized in 1920 into the People's Commissariat Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate(RCT).

During the Civil War and foreign military intervention of 1918-20, Stalin carried out a number of important assignments of the Central Committee of the RCP (b) and the Soviet government: he was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, one of the organizers defense of Petrograd, member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Southern, Western, Southwestern Fronts, representative of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee in the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense. Stalin proved himself to be a major military-political worker of the party. By resolution of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee of November 27, 1919, he was awarded the Order of the Red Banner.

After the end of the Civil War, Stalin actively participated in the party’s struggle to restore the national economy, to implement the New Economic Policy (NEP), and to strengthen the alliance of the working class with the peasantry. During the discussion about trade unions imposed on the party Trotsky, defended Lenin's platform on the role of trade unions in socialist construction. On 10th Congress of the RCP (b)(1921) gave a presentation “The party’s immediate tasks in the national question”. In April 1922, at the Plenum of the Central Committee, Stalin was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee Party and held this post for over 30 years, but since 1934 he was formally Secretary of the Central Committee.

As one of the leading figures in the field of nation-state building, Stalin took part in the creation of the USSR. However, initially in solving this new and complex problem, he made a mistake by putting forward "autonomization" project(entry of all republics into the RSFSR with autonomy rights). Lenin criticized this project and justified the plan to create a single union state in the form of a voluntary union of equal republics. Taking into account the criticism, Stalin fully supported Lenin’s idea and, on behalf of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), spoke at 1st All-Union Congress of Soviets(December 1922) with a report on the formation of the USSR.

On 12th Party Congress(1923) Stalin made an organizational report on the work of the Central Committee and a report “National moments in party and state building”.

V.I. Lenin, who knew the party cadres excellently, had a huge influence on their education, sought the placement of cadres in the interests of the overall party cause, taking into account their individual qualities. IN "Letter to the Congress" Lenin gave characterizations to a number of members of the Central Committee, including Stalin. Considering Stalin one of the outstanding figures of the party, Lenin at the same time wrote on December 25, 1922: “Comrade. Stalin, having become Secretary General, concentrated immense power in his hands, and I am not sure whether he will always be able to use this power carefully enough” (ibid., vol. 45, p. 345). In addition to his letter, Lenin wrote on January 4, 1923:

“Stalin is too rude, and this shortcoming, quite tolerable in the environment and in communications between us communists, becomes intolerable in the position of Secretary General. Therefore, I suggest that the comrades consider a way to move Stalin from this place and appoint another person to this place, who in all other respects differs from Comrade. Stalin has only one advantage, namely, more tolerant, more loyal, more polite and more attentive to his comrades, less capriciousness, etc.” (ibid., p. 346).

By decision of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), all delegations were familiarized with Lenin’s letter 13th Congress of the RCP (b), held in May 1924. Considering the difficult situation in the country and the severity of the struggle against Trotskyism, it was considered advisable to leave Stalin as General Secretary of the Central Committee so that he would take into account criticism from Lenin and draw the necessary conclusions from it.

After Lenin's death, Stalin actively participated in the development and implementation of the policies of the CPSU, plans for economic and cultural construction, measures to strengthen the country's defense capability and the foreign policy of the party and the Soviet state. Together with other leading figures of the party, Stalin waged an irreconcilable struggle against the opponents of Leninism, played an outstanding role in the ideological and political defeat of Trotskyism and right-wing opportunism, in defending Lenin’s teaching on the possibility of the victory of socialism in the USSR, and in strengthening the unity of the party. The works of Stalin were important in the propaganda of Lenin’s ideological heritage "On the Foundations of Leninism" (1924), "Trotskyism or Leninism?" (1924), "On questions of Leninism" (1926), “Once again about the social-democratic deviation in our party” (1926), “On the right deviation in the CPSU (b)” (1929), “On issues of agricultural policy in the USSR”(1929), etc.

Under the leadership of the Communist Party, the Soviet people implemented Lenin’s plan for building socialism and carried out revolutionary transformations of gigantic complexity and world-historical significance. Stalin, together with other leading figures of the party and the Soviet state, made a personal contribution to the solution of these problems. The key task in building socialism was the socialist industrialization, which ensured the economic independence of the country, the technical reconstruction of all sectors of the national economy, and the defense capability of the Soviet state. The most complex and difficult task of the revolutionary changes was the reorganization of agriculture on a socialist basis. When conducting collectivization of agriculture mistakes and excesses were made. Stalin also bears responsibility for these mistakes. However, thanks to decisive measures taken by the party with the participation of Stalin, the mistakes were corrected. Of great importance for the victory of socialism in the USSR was the implementation cultural revolution.

In the conditions of impending military danger and in the years Great Patriotic War 1941-45 Stalin took a leading part in the multilateral activities of the party to strengthen the defense of the USSR and organize the defeat of fascist Germany and militaristic Japan. At the same time, on the eve of the war, Stalin made a certain miscalculation in assessing the timing of a possible attack by Nazi Germany on the USSR. On May 6, 1941 he was appointed Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR(from 1946 - Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR), June 30, 1941 - Chairman of the State Defense Committee ( GKO), July 19 - People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR, August 8 - Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the USSR.

As head of the Soviet state, he took part in Tehran (1943), Crimean(1945) and Potsdam (1945) conferences leaders of three powers - the USSR, the USA and Great Britain. In the post-war period, Stalin continued to work as General Secretary of the Party Central Committee and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR. During these years, the party and the Soviet government carried out a tremendous amount of work to mobilize the Soviet people to fight for recovery and further development National economy, carried out a foreign policy aimed at strengthening the international position of the USSR and the world socialist system, at uniting and developing the international labor and communist movement, at supporting the liberation struggle of the peoples of colonial and dependent countries, at ensuring the peace and security of peoples throughout the world.

In Stalin's activities, along with positive aspects, there were theoretical and political errors, and some traits of his character had a negative impact. If in the first years of work without Lenin he took into account critical remarks addressed to him, then later he began to retreat from the Leninist principles of collective leadership and the norms of party life, and to overestimate his own merits in the successes of the party and the people. Gradually formed Stalin's personality cult, which entailed gross violations of socialist legality and caused serious harm to the activities of the party and the cause of communist construction.

20th Congress of the CPSU(1956) condemned the cult of personality as a phenomenon alien to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism and the nature of the socialist social system. In the resolution of the CPSU Central Committee of June 30, 1956 “On overcoming the cult of personality and its consequences” the party gave an objective, comprehensive assessment of Stalin’s activities and a detailed criticism of the cult of personality. The cult of personality did not and could not change the socialist essence of the Soviet system, the Marxist-Leninist character of the CPSU and its Leninist course, and did not stop the natural course of development of Soviet society. The party developed and implemented a system of measures that ensured the restoration and further development of Leninist norms of party life and the principles of party leadership.

Stalin was a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) in 1919-52, the Presidium of the Central Committee of the CPSU in 1952-53, a member of the Executive Committee of the Comintern in 1925-43, a member of the All-Russian Central Executive Committee from 1917, the Central Executive Committee of the USSR from 1922, a deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR of the 1st-3rd convocations . He was awarded the titles of Hero of Socialist Labor (1939), Hero of the Soviet Union (1945), Marshal of the Soviet Union (1943), and the highest military rank - Generalissimo of the Soviet Union (1945). He was awarded 3 Orders of Lenin, 2 Orders of Victory, 3 Orders of the Red Banner, Order of Suvorov 1st degree, as well as medals. After his death in March 1953, he was buried in the Lenin-Stalin Mausoleum. In 1961, by decision of the XXII Congress of the CPSU, he was reburied on Red Square.

Soch.: Soch., vol. 1-13, M., 1949-51; Questions of Leninism, and ed., M., 1952: On the Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union, 5th ed., M., 1950; Marxism and questions of linguistics, [M.], 1950; Economic problems of socialism in the USSR, M., 1952. Lit.: XX Congress of the CPSU. Verbatim report, vol. 1-2, M., 1956; Resolution of the CPSU Central Committee “On overcoming the cult of personality and its consequences.” June 30, 1956, in the book: CPSU in resolutions and decisions of congresses. Conferences and plenums of the Central Committee, 8th ed., vol. 7, M., 1971; History of the CPSU, vol. 1-5, M., 1964-70: History of the CPSU, 4th ed., M., 1975.

Events during Stalin's reign:

• 1925 - adoption of a course towards industrialization at the XIV Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks).
• 1928 - the first five-year plan.
• 1930 - the beginning of collectivization
• 1936 - adoption of the new constitution of the USSR.
• 1939 –1940 - Soviet-Finnish war
• 1941 –1945 - The Great Patriotic War
• 1949 - creation of the Council for Mutual Economic Assistance (CMEA).
• 1949 - successful test of the first Soviet atomic bomb, which was created by I.V. Kurchatov under the leadership of L.P. Beria.
• 1952 - renaming the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) into the CPSU

Stalin's biography is one of the most interesting and frequently studied. After all, being from a simple family, he managed to become a leader, whom he ruled for 29 years.

Stalin carried out many reforms, boosted the economy and transformed the country in record time after the total devastation of World War II.

Under his rule, the Soviet Union emerged as a nuclear-armed superpower.

So, we present to your attention a biography of Joseph Stalin.

Biography of Stalin

During Soviet times, tons of books were written about Stalin. Today, interest in it still has not cooled down, since it plays one of the most important roles for the world of the 20th century.

In this article we will tell you about the key events in Stalin's biography that made him one of the most famous politicians in the history of mankind.

Childhood

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (real name Dzhugashvili) was born on December 9, 1879 in the Georgian city of Gori. He grew up in a poor, lower-class family.

15-year-old Joseph Dzhugashvili, 1894

His father, Vissarion, worked as a shoemaker and was a very despotic man.

Drunk to the point of unconsciousness, he brutally beat his wife, and sometimes even Joseph himself.

There was an episode in Stalin’s biography when he had to throw a knife at his father in order to protect himself and his mother from beatings.

According to local residents, one day his father beat little Joseph so badly that he almost broke his head.

Stalin's mother, Ekaterina Georgievna, came from a serf family and was poorly educated.

From a young age she had to earn a living through hard work.

Despite the fact that she also often beat her son, she, at the same time, loved him to the point of unconsciousness, and protected him from all everyday worries.

Stalin's appearance

Joseph Dzhugashvili had various physical defects. He had fused second and third toes on his left foot, and his face was covered in pockmarks.

When he was 6 years old, he was hit by the wheels of a phaeton (an open-body car), as a result of which he seriously injured his arms and legs.

Throughout his life, Stalin's left arm was not fully extended. In the future, due to these injuries, he will be declared unfit for military service.

Education

An interesting fact is that until the age of 8, Stalin did not know at all. Years of biography 1886-1888, Joseph, at the request of his mother, was taught Russian by the children of a local priest.

After that, he studied at the Gori Theological School, which he graduated in 1894. Then his mother sent him to the Tiflis Theological Seminary, because she really wanted her son to become a priest.

However, this never happened. It is interesting that it was in the seminary that Joseph first heard about Marxism.

The 15-year-old teenager was so captivated by the new political movement that he began to seriously engage in revolutionary activities. On May 29, 1899, in his fifth year of study, Stalin was expelled from the seminary “for failure to appear for exams for an unknown reason.”

In 1931, in an interview with the German writer Emil Ludwig, when asked “What prompted you to be an oppositionist?” Possibly mistreatment from parents? Stalin replied:

"No. My parents treated me quite well. Another thing is the theological seminary where I studied then. Out of protest against the mocking regime and the Jesuit methods that existed in the seminary, I was ready to become and actually became a revolutionary, a supporter of Marxism...”

Literally immediately after being expelled from the seminary, the young man decides to join the social democratic movement “Mesame Dasi”.

This led to him becoming a professional revolutionary in 1901.

Stalin's name

In the same year, Dzhugashvili took the pseudonym “Stalin”, under which he would go down in history. Why he took this particular pseudonym for himself is not known for certain.

Stalin Koba

Stalin's party friends gave him the nickname "Koba", which greatly flattered the young revolutionary.

Koba is a famous character in the adventure story of the Georgian writer Alexander Kazbegi. Koba was an honest robber fighting for justice.

Stalin at the age of 23, 1901

Revolutionary activities

The period of Stalin's biography of 1902-1913 was full of various events. He was arrested 6 times and sent into exile, from which he made successful escapes several times.

After a split occurred in the party into “Mensheviks” and “Bolsheviks” in 1903, Stalin supported the latter. This choice was made largely because Stalin, whom Stalin admired, was on the side of the Bolsheviks.

At the direction of Lenin, Koba managed to create quite a lot of underground Marxist circles in the Caucasus.

Since 1906, Stalin was a participant and organizer of various expropriations (deprivation of property). All the stolen money was intended for the needs of the party and to finance the underground activities of the revolutionaries.

In 1907, Stalin became one of the leaders of the Baku Committee of the RSDLP. Since he was a very literate and well-read person, he also participated in the creation of the newspapers Zvezda and Pravda.

Photo of Stalin after his arrest in March 1908

In 1913, Dzhugashvili wrote an article “Marxism and the National Question,” which received good reviews from his comrades.

In the same year, he was arrested and sent into famous exile in the Turukhansk region.

October Revolution of 1917

In the spring of 1917, Stalin was a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RSDR, and was also part of the Military Revolutionary Center for the leadership of the armed uprising.

In this regard, he took an active part in the preparation of the coup d'etat.

The party was pleased with his actions, since he coped with any tasks that were entrusted to him, and was absolutely devoted to the ideas of the Bolsheviks.

From the beginning of the Civil War until its end, Stalin held many responsible positions.

According to the recollections of his contemporaries, no matter what he did, he managed to do his job perfectly.

Party work

In 1922, a most important event took place in Stalin’s biography. He becomes the first Secretary General of the Central Committee. It should be noted that initially this position implied only the leadership of the party apparatus.

However, over time, it was turned by Stalin into a post with greater powers. The uniqueness of the position was that it was the Secretary General who had the right to appoint grassroots party leaders.

Thanks to this, the insightful and cautious Stalin selected the most devoted people for himself. In the future, this will help him create and lead a vertical of power.

Power struggle

In 1924, after Lenin's death, many communists from the Central Committee wanted to take his place. Dzhugashvili was among them. Wanting to become the new leader, he proclaimed a course toward “building socialism.”

In order for fellow party members to support this idea, he often quoted Lenin, emphasizing his commitment to socialism.

Stalin's main opponent in the struggle for power was. However, he managed to beat him. The majority of party members voted for Stalin's candidacy.

As a result of this, Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin became the first person in the country, and almost single-handedly ruled it from 1924 to 1953, until his death.

First of all, he focused his attention on the industrialization of the country and forced collectivization, which was canceled only in the spring of 1930.

In addition, he did everything possible to get rid of the kulaks. During the years of Stalin's rule, millions of people were evicted or sent into exile.

In the future, collectivization led to a wave of protests among peasants. Riots broke out in one place after another, many of which were suppressed by force of arms.

Father of Nations

In the mid-30s, Joseph Stalin became the sole leader of the Soviet people. Former party leaders such as Trotsky (see), Bukharin, Zinoviev, Kamenev and others were subject to repression because they took an anti-Stalinist position.

Researchers claim that the biographical period of 1937-1938 was the bloodiest in the entire history of Stalin's reign.

In a short period of time, millions of Soviet citizens of very different social status were repressed. Even more people ended up in labor camps.

At the same time, the cult of the leader’s personality began to actively develop. Stalin was called nothing less than the “father of nations.”

The Great Patriotic War

Joseph Stalin represented his country at negotiations with allied countries in Tehran (1943), Yalta (1945) and Potsdam (1945).

As a result of the bloodiest war in history, the losses of military personnel and civilians amounted to more than 26 million Soviet people.

The Soviet army made the greatest contribution to the victory over the Nazis, becoming the main victorious country. It was the soldiers of the USSR who liberated most of the European countries.

It is important to note that immediately after the war this fact could not be denied or disputed, so the Allies, at least verbally, expressed gratitude to the USSR.

However, today, unfortunately, the history of the Second World War is being actively rewritten.

Post-war years

In the post-war years, much changed in Stalin's biography. After all, he was the main country that defeated world evil.

In this regard, the “father of nations” wanted to create a world socialist system, which ran counter to the interests of Western countries.

As a result of this and other factors, the Cold War began, which affected politics, economics, military power of countries, etc. The main confrontation took place between the USSR and the USA.

On June 27, 1945, Joseph Stalin was awarded the title of Generalissimo of the Soviet Union. A year later, he was approved as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Minister of the Armed Forces of the USSR.

After the end of the war, totalitarianism resumed again in the Soviet Union. The autocratic regime did not allow people to have their own point of view, and freedom of speech was strictly controlled by official censorship.

By order of the leadership, constant purges were carried out affecting both the state apparatus and ordinary people. At the same time, anti-Semitic sentiments began to appear in society.

Achievements

At the same time, despite the fact that Stalin’s biography has many dark spots, it is fair to note his achievements.

During the reign of the “Father of Nations,” by the end of the 40s, it developed so quickly that by 1950 it exceeded its indicators by 100% in relation to 1940.

An interesting fact is that in 2009 he said that under Stalin’s leadership the country “turned from agrarian into”, which is simply impossible to argue with.

In addition, the leader attached great importance to increasing the military power of the USSR. He was also the initiator of the “atomic project”, thanks to which the Soviet Union became a superpower.

Personal life

Stalin's first wife was Ekaterina Svanidze, whom he married in 1906. In this marriage they had a son, Yakov.

However, the following year Catherine died of typhus. For Stalin, this was a real tragedy from which he could not recover for a long time.

Stalin's second wife is Nadezhda Alliluyeva. She gave birth to the leader two children: Vasily and Svetlana.

Stalin and his wife Nadezhda Sergeevna Alliluyeva
Stalin with his children

Death of Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin died on March 5, 1953 at the age of 74. There are still heated discussions regarding the causes of his death.

According to the official version, he died as a result of a cerebral hemorrhage. After his death, the leader’s body was exhibited in the Moscow House of Unions so that people could say goodbye to him.

After this, his body was embalmed and placed in the Mausoleum next to Lenin.

However, in 1961, at the 22nd Congress of the CPSU, party members decided that Stalin’s coffin could not be in the Mausoleum, since he “seriously violated Lenin’s covenants.”

Stalin's biography has caused a lot of controversy over the years. Some consider him “the devil in the flesh,” while others say that he was one of the best rulers of Russia, and even the world.

Today, many documents have been declassified that allow us to better understand the character and actions of the Soviet leader.

Based on this, everyone is able to independently draw conclusions about who Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili-Stalin really was.

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