Joseph Stalin facts for kids

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Quick facts for kids Joseph Stalin


General secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
In office 3 April 1922 – 16 October 1952
Preceded by	Vyacheslav Molotov (as Responsible Secretary)
Succeeded by	Nikita Khrushchev (office reestablished)
Chairman of the Council of Ministers
In office 6 May 1941 – 5 March 1953
First Deputies	Nikolai Voznesensky Vyacheslav Molotov
Preceded by	Vyacheslav Molotov
Succeeded by	Georgy Malenkov
People's Commissar for Defense of the Soviet Union
In office 19 July 1941 – 25 February 1946
Premier	Himself
Preceded by	Semyon Timoshenko
Succeeded by	Nikolai Bulganin after vacancy

Personal details
Born	(1878-12-18)18 December 1878 Gori, Tiflis Governorate, Russian Empire
Died	5 March 1953(1953-03-05) (aged 74) Kuntsevo Dacha, Kuntsevo, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union
Resting place	Kremlin Wall Necropolis, Moscow (from 31 October 1961)
Nationality	Georgian
Political party	Communist Party of the Soviet Union
Spouses	Ekaterina Svanidze (1906–1907) Nadezhda Alliluyeva (1919–1932)
Signature

Joseph Stalin (born Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin; 18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the powerful leader of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death. He took over from Vladimir Lenin as the country's leader.

Stalin was a totalitarian ruler. This means he had complete control over the country and its people. He kept his power by removing anyone he saw as a threat. His ideas and plans helped turn the Soviet Union into a strong, modern nation. It became one of the largest countries on Earth. However, his rule also led to the deaths of millions of people. His way of governing was later called Stalinism.

Stalin's forces invaded Poland on 18 September 1939. During World War II, Stalin first signed a peace deal with Germany's leader Adolf Hitler. But then Germany attacked the Soviet Union. Stalin then led a difficult war against Germany. After the war, Stalin gained control of many parts of Eastern Europe, including a part of Germany. This helped the Soviet Union become a superpower.

Stalin's Name and Early Life
- Childhood and Education
Becoming a Revolutionary
Rise to Power
Changes to Food and Farming
The Great Purge
World War II and Later Life
Other Important People
Images for kids
See also

Stalin's Name and Early Life

Stalin was born as Ioseb Besarionis dze Jugashvili. He later chose the name "Stalin," which means "man of steel."

In Russian: Russian: Ио́сиф Виссарио́нович Ста́лин (Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin); born Джугашвили (Dzhugashvili)
In Georgian: Georgian: იოსებ ბესარიონის ძე ჯუღაშვილი (Ioseb Jughashvili)

Childhood and Education

Joseph Stalin as a young man in 1894.

Ioseb Vissarionovich Jugashvili was born in a small house in Gori, Georgia. His father made and fixed shoes. His father was often mean to his wife and son. He died in 1890.

When Joseph was young, he had smallpox. This left scars on his face. Later, his photographs were often changed to hide these scars. His left arm was also shorter because of an accident.

He went to school at the Gori church school. Stalin then studied to become a priest at a seminary (a school for priests) in Tbilisi. He was a very active student and read many books, especially those not allowed by the seminary. These included books by Karl Marx. In 1898, he joined a Marxist group called the Mesame Dasi, or Group Three.

Becoming a Revolutionary

Lenin and Stalin in 1922.

Stalin left school in 1899. He got a job at the Tbilisi Physical Institute. He joined groups that wanted to start a revolution to remove the Tsar (the emperor of Russia). They wanted a different kind of government.

In 1901, the police searched his house, looking for people who opposed the government. Stalin escaped and went into hiding. He organized activities against the government, like May Day marches and protests. He became a Bolshevik, a group that believed in a violent revolution. He did not support the Mensheviks, who wanted a more peaceful change.

The secret police caught him in April 1902. They sent him away without a trial to Siberia. He lived in the village of Novaya Uda. He soon escaped from Siberia. This led some people to later claim he was a police spy.

At the end of 1905, Stalin went to a meeting in Finland. There, he met Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Lenin was a very important leader of the Bolsheviks. The government arrested and exiled Stalin several more times over the next ten years. These arrests helped him gain more power in the Bolshevik party. In 1912, he was chosen to be part of the party's Central Committee. He was then given a job in St. Petersburg.

Rise to Power

Stalin was a member of the Bolshevik Party. However, he did not play a major role in the Russian Revolution of 1917. He spent his time writing and editing Pravda, the party newspaper.

He held several important jobs in the Communist Party. In 1922, he became the General Secretary. This position allowed him to give jobs to people he liked within the Communist Party. These supporters helped him become the leader after Vladimir Lenin died in 1924.

Changes to Food and Farming

Stalin tried to change farming in the Soviet Union. He wanted to collectivize farms. This meant taking land from individual farmers and combining it into large farms run by the government. Communist officials then let farmers work on these new farms. They told them to give all their crops to the government.

However, collectivization did not work well. There was a terrible famine (a time of extreme hunger) in 1932–33. Millions of people died during this time. Farmers were not paid much, and the government took most of what they grew. Because of this, workers did not try their best. The best farming happened on very small pieces of land given to peasants. On these small plots, farmers could keep what they grew. In 1938, these small plots were only 4% of Soviet farmland, but they produced 20% of the country's food.

There was another big famine in the Soviet Union in 1946–1947. This was caused by a drought (a long period without rain). It was made worse by the damage from World War II. The amount of grain harvested in 1946 was only about 40% of what it was in 1940.

The Great Purge

To get rid of people he called "enemies of the working class," Stalin started something called the "Great Purge." Between 1934 and 1939, over a million people were put in prison. At least 700,000 people were executed (killed).

Many of those executed were generals in the Red Army. Stalin saw them as a threat to his power. This greatly weakened the army. This weakness was a problem when Germany attacked the Soviet Union in 1941.

World War II and Later Life

A 1941 war poster showing Stalin.

Stalin first worked with German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler. However, Hitler hated communism. After taking over France, Germany attacked the Soviet Union in an operation called Operation Barbarossa. After this invasion, the USSR began working with the Western Allies (like the United States and Britain) to defeat Germany. In the end, Germany lost. The USSR had more people die during the war than any other country.

When World War II ended, the Soviet army took control of many countries in Europe. These included Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, and part of Germany. They brought their Marxism-Leninism ideas to these countries. This happened even though the American and British governments did not want it.

Stalin continued to rule the Soviet Union until he died. He also made Russia very strong militarily. He focused the country's time and energy on making weapons, vehicles, and building up the armed forces.

Stalin died on March 5, 1953. It was officially said he died from a stroke. However, in 2003, some historians from Russia and America said that Stalin might have been poisoned. They suggested he was given a powerful rat poison called warfarin. This might have been done by the men who took over the government after he died. These men included Lavrentiy Beria, Vyacheslav Molotov, and Georgy Malenkov.

Later, Nikita Krushchev started a process called "De-Stalinization." This meant taking apart much of the political system that Stalin had created. Stalin was called a tyrant (a cruel and oppressive ruler). After defeating his rivals, Krushchev gained a lot of personal control over the government, similar to Stalin's. However, he did not go as far as killing millions of people.

Stalin is a controversial figure in history. Many historians see him as a ruthless dictator. Others praise him as the "Father of the Soviet State." He has been criticized for his role in the Holodomor, a terrible famine. A poll in Russia in 2008 listed him as the third most popular person in Russian history. In 2006, almost half of adults in Russia thought Joseph Stalin was a good person.

Other Important People

Images for kids

In 1894 Stalin began his studies at the Tiflis Spiritual Seminary (pictured here in the 1870s).
Police photograph of Stalin, taken in 1902, when he was 23 years old.
Stalin first met Vladimir Lenin at a 1905 conference in Tampere, in the Grand Duchy of Finland. Lenin became "Stalin's indispensable mentor".
The first issue of Pravda, the Bolshevik newspaper of which Stalin was editor.
Stalin in 1915.
(From left to right) Stalin, Alexei Rykov, Lev Kamenev, and Grigori Zinoviev in 1925.
Stalin and his close friends Anastas Mikoyan and Sergo Ordzhonikidze in Tbilisi, 1925.
Aleksei Grigorievich Stakhanov with a fellow miner. Stalin's government started the Stakhanovite movement to encourage hard work. This helped increase production in the 1930s.
The 1931 demolition of the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour in Moscow. It was destroyed to make way for the Palace of the Soviets.
Areas most affected by the Soviet famine of 1932–33 are marked in black.
Soviet armored vehicles used by the Republican People's Army during the Spanish Civil War.
Stalin greeting the German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop in the Kremlin, 1939.
With men at the front, women dig anti-tank trenches around Moscow in 1941.
The center of Stalingrad after it was freed on 2 February 1943.
The Big Three: Stalin, U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill at the Tehran Conference, November 1943.
Soviet soldiers in Polotsk, 4 July 1944.
British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, U.S. President Harry S. Truman and Joseph Stalin at the Potsdam Conference, July 1945.
A banner of Stalin in Budapest in 1949.
Stalin at his 71st birthday celebration with (left to right) Mao Zedong, Nikolai Bulganin, Walter Ulbricht and Yumjaagiin Tsedenbal.
Stalin's casket on a howitzer carriage pulled by horses. This was filmed by US assistant army attaché Major Martin Manhoff from the embassy balcony.
Lavrenti Beria with Stalin's daughter, Svetlana, on his lap. Stalin is seated in the background. Photographed at Stalin's dacha near Sochi in the mid-1930s.
Chinese Marxists celebrate Stalin's seventieth birthday in 1949.
Stalin carrying his daughter, Svetlana.
A poster of Stalin at the 3rd World Festival of Youth and Students in East Berlin, East Germany, 1951.
Inside the Joseph Stalin Museum in Gori, Georgia.
Members of the Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist–Leninist) carrying a banner of Stalin at a May Day march through London in 2008.
Inside the Gulag Museum in Moscow.
Marxist–Leninist activists laying wreaths at Stalin's Moscow grave in 2009.