Iosif Dzhugashvili was born on 18 December 1879 in Georgia, then part of the Russian empire. [18] Ekaterine worked as a house cleaner and launderer and was determined to send her son to school. [342] Large debts were accrued purchasing foreign-made machinery. [721] He remained proud of his Georgian identity,[722] and throughout his life retained a heavy Georgian accent when speaking Russian. [344] The last elements of workers' control over industry were removed, with factory managers increasing their authority and receiving privileges and perks;[345] Stalin defended wage disparity by pointing to Marx's argument that it was necessary during the lower stages of socialism. [129] Stalin returned to Saint Petersburg, where he continued editing and writing articles for Pravda. [737] He was born with a webbed left foot, and his left arm had been permanently injured in childhood which left it shorter than his right and lacking in flexibility,[738] which was probably the result of being hit, at the age of 12, by a horse-drawn carriage. A recent German film about Hitler has provoked a furious controversy in that country. [736] His mustached face was pock-marked from smallpox during childhood; this was airbrushed from published photographs. [743] He had few material demands and lived plainly, with simple and inexpensive clothing and furniture;[744] his interest was in power rather than wealth. The real motivation for the terror, according to Harris, was an excessive fear of counterrevolution. [797] He enjoyed music,[798] owning around 2,700 records,[799] and frequently attending the Bolshoi Theatre during the 1930s and 1940s. Around 40 people were killed, but all of his gang escaped alive. [693] In his book, Foundations of Leninism, he stated that "Leninism is the Marxism of the epoch of imperialism and of the proletarian revolution". [119] Shortly after the conference, Lenin and Grigory Zinoviev decided to co-opt Stalin to the committee. [217] When the Red Third Regiment defected, he ordered the public execution of captured defectors. [930], Some positive sentiment can also be found elsewhere in the former Soviet Union. [653] He was hand-fed using a spoon, given various medicines and injections, and leeches were applied to him. [458] Stalin saw this as an opportunity both for territorial expansion and temporary peace with Germany. [82] They launched attacks on the government's Cossack troops and pro-Tsarist Black Hundreds,[83] co-ordinating some of their operations with the Menshevik militia. [762] Stalin had a complex mind,[763] great self-control,[764] and an excellent memory. [376] Stalin's friends noted that he underwent a significant change following her suicide, becoming emotionally harder. [796] He protected several Soviet writers, such as Mikhail Bulgakov, even when their work was labelled harmful to his regime. [800] His taste in music and theatre was conservative, favouring classical drama, opera, and ballet over what he dismissed as experimental "formalism". We must close that gap in ten years. [406] At the Communist International's 7th Congress, held in July–August 1935, the Soviet government encouraged Marxist-Leninists to unite with other leftists as part of a popular front against fascism. [293] At the 14th Party Congress in December, they launched an attack against Stalin's faction, but it was unsuccessful. [302] Other important supporters on the Politburo were Voroshilov, Lazar Kaganovich, and Sergo Ordzhonikidze,[303] with Stalin ensuring his allies ran the various state institutions. [333], Armed peasant uprisings against dekulakisation and collectivisation broke out in Ukraine, northern Caucasus, southern Russia, and central Asia, reaching their apex in March 1930; these were suppressed by the Red Army. Stalin was named “Uncle Joe” by Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his propaganda. A 2012 survey commissioned by the Carnegie Endowment found 38% of Armenians concurring that their country "will always have need of a leader like Stalin. [384] Government policies—including the focus on rapid industrialisation, the socialisation of livestock, and the emphasis on sown areas over crop rotation—exacerbated the problem;[389] the state had also failed to build reserve grain stocks for such an emergency. [619] With this accomplished, Marxist governments now controlled a third of the world's land mass. [229] The Red Army retook Kyiv on 10 June and soon forced the Polish troops back into Poland. His talents, moreover, were not confined to murder and administration. [483] The German Wehrmacht pushed deep into Soviet territory;[484] soon, Ukraine, Byelorussia, and the Baltic states were under German occupation, and Leningrad was under siege;[485] and Soviet refugees were flooding into Moscow and surrounding cities. [421], Stalin orchestrated the arrest of many former opponents in the Communist Party as well as sitting members of the Central Committee: denounced as Western-backed mercenaries, many were imprisoned or exiled internally. He acted out of an inner compulsion to get even with his perceived enemies. Conversely, his totalitarian government has been widely condemned for overseeing mass repression, ethnic cleansing, wide-scale deportation, hundreds of thousands of executions, and famines that killed millions. Allilueva also admires his poetical juvenilia, and gave me a copy of them in a modern edition. [541] The Red Army withheld assistance to Polish resistance fighters battling the Germans in the Warsaw Uprising, with Stalin believing that any victorious Polish militants could interfere with his aspirations to dominate Poland through a future Marxist government. [280] In his private life, he divided his time between his Kremlin apartment and a dacha at Zubalova;[281] his wife gave birth to a daughter, Svetlana, in February 1926. [524] Stalin scarcely left Moscow throughout the war,[525] with Roosevelt and Churchill frustrated with his reluctance to travel to meet them. [898] Historian and archival researcher Stephen G. Wheatcroft and Michael Ellman attribute roughly 3 million deaths to the Stalinist regime, including executions and deaths from criminal negligence. [68] He called for the Georgian Marxist movement to split from its Russian counterpart, resulting in several RSDLP members accusing him of holding views contrary to the ethos of Marxist internationalism and calling for his expulsion from the party; he soon recanted his opinions. [888] Since his death many more biographies have been written,[889] although until the 1980s these relied largely on the same sources of information. [58] Stalin organised another mass demonstration on the day of their funeral,[59] before being arrested in April 1902. [86] At the conference Stalin met Lenin for the first time. He trained until his 21st year to become a priest, of all things. [652] He was moved onto a couch and remained there for three days. [865] In under three decades, Stalin transformed the Soviet Union into a major industrial world power,[866] one which could "claim impressive achievements" in terms of urbanisation, military strength, education and Soviet pride. Born to a poor family in Gori in the Russian Empire (now Georgia), as a youth Stalin joined the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. [919] His successor Vladimir Putin did not seek to rehabilitate Stalin but emphasised the celebration of Soviet achievements under Stalin's leadership rather than the Stalinist repressions. [726] Montefiore was of the view that "after 1917, [Stalin] became quadri-national: Georgian by nationality, Russian by loyalty, internationalist by ideology, Soviet by citizenship. [360] Socialist realism was promoted throughout arts,[361] while Stalin personally wooed prominent writers, namely Maxim Gorky, Mikhail Sholokhov, and Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy. [268], Lenin died in January 1924. [94] By that year — according to the historian Robert Service — Stalin had established himself as "Georgia's leading Bolshevik". [28] He joined 600 trainee priests who boarded there,[29] and he achieved high grades. [890] After the dissolution of the Union in 1991, the rest of the archives were opened to historians, resulting in much new information about Stalin coming to light,[891] and producing a flood of new research. [520] When Stalin learned that people in Western countries affectionately called him "Uncle Joe" he was initially offended, regarding it as undignified. [504], In April 1942, Stalin overrode Stavka by ordering the Soviets' first serious counter-attack, an attempt to seize German-held Kharkov in eastern Ukraine. [428], Repressions further intensified in December 1936 and remained at a high level until November 1938, a period known as the Great Purge. Seated in her plain flat in north Moscow, she refused to entertain the notion that Stalin had been a monster. But if he had made enemies, why did he deal with them so brutally? [723] According to Montefiore, despite Stalin's affinity for Russia and Russians, he remained profoundly Georgian in his lifestyle and personality. [626] The U.S. went to the UN Security Council—which the Soviets were boycotting over its refusal to recognise Mao's government—and secured military support for the South Koreans. [168] 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. [150] In or about December 1914, Pereprygia gave birth to Stalin's child, although the infant soon died. Tsar Nicholas II gives his survival tips to survive through the extremes of Russia . [40] Stalin devoted himself to Marx's socio-political theory, Marxism,[41] which was then on the rise in Georgia, one of various forms of socialism opposed to the empire's governing tsarist authorities. [870], Stalin's Soviet Union has been characterised as a totalitarian state,[871] with Stalin its authoritarian leader. The Return of Uncle Joe Crisis-Stricken Russians Nostalgic for Stalin Moscow plans to celebrate the Soviet Union's victory over Hitler's Germany with a spectacular parade on Sunday. [578] He demoted Molotov,[579] and increasingly favoured Beria and Malenkov for key positions. [256] Residing at his Gorki dacha, Lenin's main connection to Sovnarkom was through Stalin, who was a regular visitor. [255], In May 1922, a massive stroke left Lenin partially paralyzed. [264] A compromise was reached, in which the federation would be renamed the "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" (USSR). [881], McDermott nevertheless cautioned against "over-simplistic stereotypes"—promoted in the fiction of writers like Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, Vasily Grossman, and Anatoly Rybakov—that portrayed Stalin as an omnipotent and omnipresent tyrant who controlled every aspect of Soviet life through repression and totalitarianism. In 2006, the Ukrainian Parliament declared it to be such,[904] and in 2010 a Ukrainian court posthumously convicted Stalin, Lazar Kaganovich, Stanislav Kosior, and other Soviet leaders of genocide. Marxism too had an influence. [607] In September 1947, a meeting of East European communist leaders was held in Szklarska Poręba, Poland, from which was formed Cominform to co-ordinate the Communist Parties across Eastern Europe and also in France and Italy. [777] He lacked compassion,[783] something Volkogonov suggested might have been accentuated by his many years in prison and exile,[784] although he was capable of acts of kindness to strangers, even amid the Great Terror. [508] While Red Army generals saw evidence that Hitler would shift efforts south, Stalin considered this to be a flanking move in a renewed effort to take Moscow. [618] Across Eastern Europe, the Soviet model was enforced, with a termination of political pluralism, agricultural collectivisation, and investment in heavy industry. [860], The historian Robert Conquest stated that Stalin perhaps "determined the course of the twentieth century" more than any other individual. [564], Despite his strengthened international position, Stalin was cautious about internal dissent and desire for change among the population. [478] Although intelligence agencies had repeatedly warned him of Germany's intentions, Stalin was taken by surprise. Terror campaigns continued in the Second World War and afterwards. [865] Service suggested that the country might have collapsed long before 1991 without Stalin. [691] Stalin respected Lenin, but not uncritically,[696] and spoke out when he believed that Lenin was wrong. [216] During the war, he proved his worth to the Central Committee, displaying decisiveness, determination, and willingness to take on responsibility in conflict situations. [30] He continued writing poetry; five of his poems, on themes such as nature, land and patriotism, were published under the pseudonym of "Soselo" in Ilia Chavchavadze's newspaper Iveria (Georgia). [475] To demonstrate peaceful intentions toward Germany, in April 1941 the Soviets signed a neutrality pact with Japan. [225] In February 1920, he was appointed to head the Workers' and Peasants' Inspectorate;[226] that same month he was also transferred to the Caucasian Front. [252] For Lenin, it was advantageous to have a key ally in this crucial post. These terms trip off the tongue, and it is easy to see why. The Russian Empire became a de facto republic, headed by a Provisional Government dominated by liberals. [488], Going against the advice of Zhukov and other generals, Stalin emphasised attack over defence. [710] This concept synthesised Marxist and Leninist ideas with nationalist ideals,[692] and served to discredit Trotsky—who promoted the idea of "permanent revolution"—by presenting the latter as a defeatist with little faith in Russian workers' abilities to construct socialism. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin[g] (born Ioseb Besarionis dzе Jughashvili;[h] 18 December [O.S.