IÓSIF STALIN: BIOGRAPHY - HISTORY - 2024

Iósif Stalin (1878-1953) was the top leader of the Soviet Union from Lenin's death in 1924, until his own, in 1953. His real name was Iósif Vissariónovich Dzhugashvili, although he has gone down in history under his pseudonym, Stalin, which means "made of steel."

After a rather unhappy childhood, Stalin entered the seminary in order to study. There, he began to associate with some revolutionary groups, who were trying to overthrow the absolutist regime of the tsars.

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After the October Revolution, Stalin accumulated power and, after Lenin's death, replaced him as head of state. His ways were brutal, not hesitating to get rid of opponents or anyone who might appear a threat to him. In return, he managed to turn the Soviet Union into one of the great world powers.

The Second World War caused him to be considered one of the world's leaders, participating in the post-war geostrategic organization. Their positions faced with the western bloc gave way to the so-called Cold War.

Stalin died in 1953, the victim of a stroke. Years later, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union condemned his repressive regime, which caused millions of deaths.

Biography

Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, who would go down in history with the nickname of Iósif Stalin, was born on December 18, 1879, in Gori, Georgia, then in the hands of the Russian tsars.

Stalin belonged to a humble family. His father was a shoemaker and his mother a laundress. Young Iosif was quite fragile and the smallpox that he suffered at the age of 7 left scars on his face.

Childhood

According to biographers, Stalin's childhood was very difficult. His father was an alcoholic and abused both his wife and his son. That was turning the boy into a very cold and calculating person, with little empathy for others.

His father's problem with alcohol worsened from 1883. He began to get into fights in his town and, in addition, he was in a state of paranoia due to rumors that his wife was unfaithful to him and that Iósif was not his son.

The following year, Stalin's father, drunk, attacked the chief of police. That earned him being expelled from Gori and he had to go to Tbilisi to work. Stalin and his mother stayed in their village and the young man entered the church school, where he learned Russian to perfection.

Studies

In 1888, Stalin began Georgia's compulsory educational program, which lasted two years. His intelligence, however, allowed him to do it in just one. Thus, in 1889, the next level of education began, lasting four years. Thanks to his good work, he won a scholarship that allowed him to pay for his education.

At the age of 15, in 1894, he graduated. His next destination was the Orthodox seminary in the capital Tbilisi. It was there that the young Iósif made contact with some revolutionary groups.

He joined the Georgian Social Democratic movement and began training in political theory. Likewise, she was related to Messame Dassy, a group that wanted the independence of their country.

In 1899 he left the seminary and focused on political activism. Some historians claim that he was expelled as a rebel, while others say he left it voluntarily. If it is known that you tried to edit an underground newspaper.

Siberia

After leaving school, Stalin worked as a tutor and later as an employee at the Tbilisi Observatory. In 1901, he approached the Social Democratic Labor Party, devoting all his time to the revolution.

The following year, when he was trying to coordinate a strike, he was arrested. Stalin ended up in Siberia, in what was the first of the exiles he suffered during those years.

Upon returning, he learned that the tsarist secret police (Okhrana) had him in their sights. For that reason, he went underground, committing robberies and kidnappings to finance the movement.

Revolution of 1905

It was after the revolutionary attempt in 1905 that Stalin became convinced that Lenin was right in claiming that revolutionaries should be professionals. However, after one of his robberies, he was again arrested by the police and deported again to Siberia.

When he escaped from his confinement, he returned to his struggle and began to publish several texts of Marxist ideology. It was at this time that he adopted the nickname Stalin, "made of steel."

As early as 1912, Lenin wanted the Bolshevik Central Committee to elect Stalin as one of its members. He did not achieve his purpose on that occasion, although shortly thereafter he introduced him as an unelected member. From there until the outbreak of the Revolution, Stalin accumulated more internal power.

Revolution of 1917

When 1917 came, Lenin and the rest of the leaders were in exile. Stalin, for his part, had been appointed editor of the party's newspaper, Pravda. With this situation came the February Revolution, which brought Kerensky and his followers to the government.

The Bolsheviks seemed to split. Stalin, in principle, supported the new government and even seems that he did not publish some articles by Lenin calling for his overthrow.

With the strength that the newspaper gave him, Stalin managed, in April of that year, to be elected to the Central Committee, remaining in the voting only behind Lenin and Zinoviev. Later, he was appointed secretary of the Committee's Politburo, a position he would hold until his death.

Stalin's role during the October Revolution has never been too clear. Some affirm that it was very small, although others point out that each member of the Committee had their assigned tasks and could not get out of them.

After the victory of the revolutionaries, civil war broke out and, immediately, war with Poland. Stalin was a political commissar in the Red Army. He also held the People's Commissariat for National Affairs, his first post in government.

Accumulation of power

Little by little, Stalin became stronger within the party. In April 1922, he was appointed General Secretary of the All-Russian Communist Party, initially a lesser position, but one that Stalin was loading with political content.

This accumulation of power took Lenin by surprise. Already ill, near death, the Bolshevik leader tried to maneuver so that Stalin was not his substitute. In his own words, he was "brusque" and not suitable for the position.

However, Lenin's writings in this regard did not reach the Central Committee, as Stalin took it upon himself to conceal them.

Lenin's death

After Lenin died, a power struggle took place in the Party. It pitted Stalin against Trotsky and Bukharin. The main ideological difference between Stalin and Trotsky was that the former advocated consolidating the revolution in the USSR, while the latter called for "permanent revolution."

Each of the contenders tried to claim Lenin's legacy. Stalin even proceeded to organize the funeral, promising eternal loyalty. At the same time, he managed to prevent Trotsky from attending.

Finally, Stalin achieved his purpose and Trotsky had to go into exile. Later, he began to purge his most powerful rivals, who tried to save themselves by forming the "united opposition" together with Lenin's widow.

As early as 1929, during the XV Congress of the CPSU, it was seen that Stalin's strategy had worked. Both Trotsky and Zinoviev were expelled from the organization and Bukharin was retaliated.

Five-year plans

With his hands free and without rivals in sight, Stalin began to develop his economic policy, especially focused on the collectivization and industrialization of the country.

Stalin, in his quest to achieve his goals, stopped at nothing. Thus, many lands were expropriated, which caused a reduction in cereal production in the first years.

This, together with the environmental problems that arose at the time, caused a great famine in Ukraine, with millions of fatalities.

Other measures taken were the compulsory collectivization of agriculture and the transfer of entire villages to try to solve nationalist problems. The entire production system was subjected to strict discipline, following the central planning designed by the government.

With great human losses, the Soviet Union achieved rapid economic growth with the five-year plans. These prioritized accelerated industrialization, with a great weight of heavy industry and energy sectors.

International and internal consolidation

Stalin developed an international policy during those years aimed at avoiding the isolation of the country. Thus, he applied for membership in the League of Nations in 1934 and approached France and Great Britain.

Internally, his politics were brutal. Between 1936 and 1938 he organized the so-called Moscow Trials, in which he tried and deported a good part of the military commanders and the Party elite. It is estimated that more than 1,300,000 people were arrested and more than half were shot.

However, part of the people supported their leader. The economic and social advances compared to the time of the tsars were remarkable, which made Stalin maintain some popular support.

Non-Aggression Pact with Germany

At the gates of World War II, the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany signed a non-aggression treaty. In addition, there was a secret article in which Eastern and Central Europe were divided into areas of influence.

It was during this period that the Soviet intervention in Poland took place, at the suggestion of the head of the NKVD (secret police), Beria. Numerous prisoners were executed, something always denied by the Russians until Gorbachev recognized it in 1990.

Entry into the war

Historians agree that Hitler never intended to abide by the Non-Aggression Pact and the same can be said for Stalin. After controlling almost all of Europe in a single year, the Nazi leader set his sights on the Soviet Union.

On June 22, 1941, the so-called Operation Barbarossa began, the German attempted to invade the USSR. More than three million soldiers entered Soviet territory, without Stalin having prepared an adequate defense.

Stalin, upon learning of the invasion, shut himself up in his dacha on the outskirts of Moscow. According to biographers, he suffered from severe depression, not knowing what initiative to take. This inaction lasted about ten days, when he firmly took command of the resistance.

One of his first measures was to cancel his campaign against the Orthodox Church. She needed believing Soviets to join the fight, something they did fiercely and without hesitation.

The conflict

The Moscow Trials had left the Red Army very weakened, as a good part of its leaders had been deported. This caused the Germans to quickly gain ground at first. Hitler thought that the war would be short and that the Soviets themselves would end up overthrowing Stalin.

Despite the Soviet leader's attempts, the Red Army failed to stop the Nazi advance. Stalin, appointed himself commander-in-chief of the Army, tried to find quick solutions. Despite this, he gave his generals a lot of autonomy, something Hitler did not do.

In addition, he called in some of his best generals and thousands of troops stationed in Siberia and with experience after the war against Japan.

The victory

The situation began to change with the arrival of winter. Stalin, from Moscow, managed to stop the Germans when they were only 42 kilometers from the city. Then he organized the counterattack.

Similarly, the Soviets defended Stalingrad from the Nazi siege. The importance of this defense lay in the fact that it was the last defense of the Caucasus oil zone, one of Hitler's main objectives.

As early as 1943, the Soviets defeated the Germans at Kursk and they proceeded to withdraw from the country, pursued by the Red Army. Finally, Soviet soldiers were the first to enter Berlin in May 1945.

From there, as the leader of one of the victorious powers, Stalin held frequent meetings with the other "greats", Churchill and Roosevelt.

In these meetings, the Soviets managed to consolidate their area of ​​influence, which included several countries in Eastern Europe. According to the British negotiator, Stalin was a fantastic negotiator.

This, according to experts, does not remove the "cult of personality" policy that Stalin established. In fact, he granted himself the honor of Hero of the Soviet Union, something reserved for those who had entered combat.

Cold War

Victory in the World War allowed Stalin to present himself as the savior of the Soviet Union. The so-called Great Patriotic War in the USSR provided him with a good propaganda base for his people.

From that moment on, it is true that the repression exerted by Stalin decreased considerably, without approaching that of the 1930s.

Abroad, the Soviet leader surrounded his country with like-minded governments, as a defense against a possible Western attack. The United States did something similar, with the creation of military alliances.

One of the turning points in international relations was the blockade of Berlin, ordered by Stalin in 1948. His intention was to take full control of the city, then divided between the victorious powers. Westerners built an airlift to supply the city and Stalin was forced to leave.

In 1952, elderly and ill, Stalin tried to retake the initiative abroad. Stalin's Note was a plan to reunify Germany without the superpowers intervening, but the United States undid the plan by not trusting the Soviet leader.

Last years

Stalin's health began to deteriorate from 1950, at the age of seventy. His memory was failing and he was showing signs of exhaustion. His personal physician recommended that he leave office.

Two years later, at the XIX CPSU Congress, Stalin was, for the first time, publicly overruled. The leader gave an anti-war speech, but Malenkov affirmed the need for the USSR to participate in the different international conflicts to maintain its position. On that occasion, Congress voted against Stalin.

His illness and that setback increased the paranoia of Stalin, who tried to carry out massive purges again. A letter, sent by a doctor, accused the Soviet leader's doctors of prescribing the wrong drugs to end her life, and Stalin's reaction was immediate.

With no other proof than that letter, he ordered the doctors to be tortured. Obviously, all but two who died, ended up confessing everything they were accused of.

Apart from what happened to his doctors, the chief of the bodyguards was executed and his private secretary disappeared. Politburo members began to fear that it would turn to them at some point.

Death

Given this atmosphere of fear, it is not surprising that there are two different versions of Stalin's death. The first, the official one, relates how on February 28, 1953, Stalin met with several of his closest collaborators: Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev and Bulganin. After dinner, they all went to sleep.

The second version maintains that the meeting existed, but affirms that it ended in a big fight between all of them. Finally, Stalin, very excited, retired to his bedroom.

The reality is that Stalin did not appear the next morning, nor did he call his servants or guards. Until ten o'clock on the night of March 1, no one dared to enter the leader's bedroom. It was his butler who finally did, finding him on the ground barely able to speak.

For whatever reason, no one called a doctor until 24 hours later. Doctors, upon arrival, ruled that Stalin had suffered a fulminant stroke. His agony lasted several days.

On March 5, Joseph Stalin's heart stopped without being able to revive it.

References

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