[522] Churchill flew to Moscow to visit Stalin in August 1942 and again in October 1944. It comprised the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, the Ukrainian Social Republic, the Belorussian Soviet Socialist Republic and the Transcaucasian Soviet Socialist Republic. [183] Stalin's office was based near to Lenin's in the Smolny Institute,[184] and he and Trotsky were the only individuals allowed access to Lenin's study without an appointment. [588] Although Stalin publicly described the British and U.S. governments as aggressive, he thought it unlikely that a war with them would be imminent, believing that several decades of peace was likely. [915] Stalingrad was renamed Volgograd. [45] He had a light workload and therefore had plenty of time for revolutionary activity. [648] There, he emphasised what he regarded as leadership qualities necessary in the future and highlighted the weaknesses of various potential successors, particularly Molotov and Mikoyan. The third and final part shows how, through an overt co-option of Lenin's legacy, Stalin 'manufactured' a charismatic bond with the Soviet people. Initially, Lenin's death was blamed on a series of strokes. [569] The NKVD recorded that between 26 and 27 million Soviet citizens had been killed, with millions more being wounded, malnourished, or orphaned. 18 April 2019. [832] Stalin was sociable and enjoyed a joke. He was captured by the German Army and then committed suicide. "[870] These deaths occurred as a result of collectivisation, famine, terror campaigns, disease, war and mortality rates in the Gulag. Not the Last Word", "The Personality Cult of Stalin in Soviet Posters, 19291953", "Ukraine Court Finds Bolsheviks Guilty of Holodomor Genocide", Stalin Library (with all 13 volumes of Stalin's, Library of Congress: Revelations from the Russian Archives, Electronic archive of Stalin's letters and presentations, Joseph Stalin Newsreels // Net-Film Newsreels and Documentary Films Archive, Stalin Biography from Spartacus Educational, A List of Key Documentary Material on Stalin, Stalinka: The Digital Library of Staliniana, Electronic archive of Stalins letters and presentations, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Stalin&oldid=1133956104, This page was last edited on 16 January 2023, at 08:16. [334] Although he and Stalin had been close for many years,[335] Bukharin expressed concerns about these policies; he regarded them as a return to Lenin's old "war communism" policy and believed that it would fail. [939], Yevstafy Zhakov, a pastor of St. Olga Strelna near St. Petersburg, caused an uproar after he hung a portrait of Stalin among sacred images, stating: "I remember him [Stalin] on appropriate occasions, the day of his birthday, his death and that of Victory. [557] His armies controlled Central and Eastern Europe up to the River Elbe. Fairness is based on someone's cultural background, religious affiliation, cognitive biases/dissonance and prejudices, promotes healthy workplace culture. [333] Stalin responded to the uprisings with an article insisting that collectivisation was voluntary and blaming any violence and other excesses on local officials. [290], In late 1924, Stalin moved against Kamenev and Zinoviev, removing their supporters from key positions. [499] They achieved high levels of industrial productivity, outstripping that of Germany. Like with the order 227, everyone in the high command called it a stupid order and for Stalin to remove it. [472] He increasingly focused on appeasement with the Germans to delay any conflict with them. [271] During the 13th Party Congress in May 1924, "Lenin's Testament" was read only to the leaders of the provincial delegations. [264], Their differences also became personal; Lenin was particularly angered when Stalin was rude to his wife Krupskaya during a telephone conversation. [258] Lenin and Stalin argued on the issue of foreign trade; Lenin believed that the Soviet state should have a monopoly on foreign trade, but Stalin supported Grigori Sokolnikov's view that doing so was impractical at that stage. [170] Lenin returned to Petrograd and secured a majority in favour of a coup at a meeting of the Central Committee on 10 October. [269] It was incorporated into a growing personality cult devoted to Lenin, with Petrograd being renamed "Leningrad" that year. [412], Stalin often gave conflicting signals regarding state repression. [413] This mixed approach began to change in December 1934, after prominent party member Sergey Kirov was murdered. [74] Georgia was particularly affected. They moved the government from Petrograd to Moscow in March 1918. Since the 1920s, he'd ruled with an iron fist. [53], That month, Stalin travelled to the port city of Batum. In 1939, his regime signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, resulting in the Soviet invasion of Poland. [284] While Lenin had been ill Stalin had forged an anti-Trotsky alliance with Kamenev and Zinoviev. For this reason, he retained the Leninist view that world revolution was still a necessity to ensure the ultimate victory of socialism. [787] He was capable of self-righteous indignation,[788] and was resentful,[789] and vindictive,[790] holding on to grudges for many years. [765] According to historian Geoffrey Roberts, Stalin wasn't a psychopath. [378] Like its predecessor, this plan was repeatedly amended to meet changing situations; there was for instance an increasing emphasis placed on armament production after Adolf Hitler became German chancellor in 1933. [444] Yezhov was arrested in April 1939 and executed in 1940. These reasons build to why Stalin emerged as leader of the USSR by 1929. [92] In March 1907 she bore a son, Yakov. Hence he bore direct responsibility for the course of the war and its outcome. [475] Although de facto head of government for a decade and a half, Stalin concluded that relations with Germany had deteriorated to such an extent that he needed to deal with the problem as de jure head of government as well: on 6 May, Stalin replaced Molotov as Premier of the Soviet Union. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin[g] (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili;[d] 18 December[O.S. [716] He was of the view that if they became fully autonomous, then they would end up being controlled by the most reactionary elements of their community; as an example he cited the largely illiterate Tatars, whom he claimed would end up dominated by their mullahs. [741], During his youth, Stalin cultivated a scruffy appearance in rejection of middle-class aesthetic values. [356], Stalin desired a "cultural revolution",[357] entailing both creation of a culture for the "masses" and wider dissemination of previously elite culture. [683] Volkogonov believed that Stalin's Marxism was shaped by his "dogmatic turn of mind", suggesting that this had been instilled in the Soviet leader during his education in religious institutions. [190], Having dropped his editorship of Pravda,[191] Stalin was appointed the People's Commissar for Nationalities. [642] That same month, a much publicised trial of accused Jewish industrial wreckers took place in Ukraine. [795] He favoured historical studies, keeping up with debates in the study of Russian, Mesopotamian, ancient Roman, and Byzantine history. [553] Stalin pushed for reparations from Germany without regard to the base minimum supply for German citizens' survival, which worried Truman and Churchill who thought that Germany would become a financial burden for Western powers. [192] He took Nadezhda Alliluyeva as his secretary[193] and at some point married her, although the wedding date is unknown. [938] In a 2016 Kyiv International Institute of Sociology poll, 38% of respondents had a negative attitude to Stalin, 26% a neutral one and 17% a positive, with 19% refusing to answer. [914] In October 1961, Stalin's body was removed from the mausoleum and buried in the Kremlin Wall Necropolis, the location marked by a bust. Acknowledge. [881] Montefiore argued that while Stalin initially ruled as part of a Communist Party oligarchy, the Soviet government transformed from this oligarchy into a personal dictatorship in 1934,[882] with Stalin only becoming "absolute dictator" between March and June 1937, when senior military and NKVD figures were eliminated. [663] At the funeral on 9 March, Stalins body was laid to rest in Lenin's Mausoleum in Red Square; hundreds of thousands attended. [712] This concept synthesised Marxist and Leninist ideas with nationalist ideals,[694] and served to discredit Trotskywho promoted the idea of "permanent revolution"by presenting the latter as a defeatist with little faith in Russian workers' abilities to construct socialism. [55] He found employment at the Rothschild refinery storehouse, where he co-organised two workers' strikes. [167] During this raid, Stalin smuggled Lenin out of the newspaper's office and took charge of the Bolshevik leader's safety, moving him between Petrograd safe houses before smuggling him to Razliv. Stalin had nearly a million of his own citizens executed, beginning in the 1930s. Unrest soon spread across the Russian Empire in what came to be known as the Revolution of 1905. As a result Stalin was left as the ruler of the Ussr. [122] The new newspaper was launched in April 1912,[123] although Stalin's role as editor was kept secret. Stalin later implanted the use of fear, as well as the use of a secret police force to keep the people in check. I stand on the ground of the latter". Born: December 8, 1878 in Gori, Georgia. [600] He erroneously claimed that the initial German advance in the early part of the war was not a result of Soviet military weakness, but rather a deliberate Soviet strategic retreat. It contains a great deal of text, mostly dense exchanges between the player character and Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. [893] During Stalin's lifetime, his approved biographies were largely hagiographic in content. The Kremlin became home to Stalin, Trotsky, Sverdlov, and Lenin. Though Hitler and Stalin never met or even spoke on the telephone, their lives and fates were inextricably linked. [432], During the 1930s and 1940s, NKVD groups assassinated defectors and opponents abroad;[433] in August 1940, Trotsky was assassinated in Mexico, eliminating the last of Stalin's opponents among the former Party leadership. [536], In February 1945, the three leaders met at the Yalta Conference. One of the most controversial and enigmatic figures in Russian history, he is still the subject of fierce discussions and assessments. Demanding that Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev apologise to the Party for the errors when they lost votes at the Party Congress. Severe disruptions to food production contributed to the famine of 193033 that killed millions. [770] According to Volkogonov, "Stalin's private life and working life were one and the same"; he did not take days off from political activities. Some of the photos may be from earlier dates, but it is believed that this photo of Stalin was taken in 1893. [213], In December 1918, Stalin was sent to Perm to lead an inquiry into how Alexander Kolchak's White forces had been able to decimate Red troops based there. [303] According to Montefiore, at this point "Stalin was the leader of the oligarchs but he was far from a dictator". 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