Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovich

Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovich
(1879-1953)
   Born Joseph Dzhugashvili in Georgia, Russia, the future leader of the Soviet Union assumed the name Stalin, meaning “man of steel,” in 1913. By then, he had become a communist and member of the Bolshevik movement. He was jailed and exiled several times between 1902 and 1917, but following the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, he increased his influence and was appointed general secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1922. He assumed power after Vladimir Lenin’s death in 1924 and gradually displaced his enemies, most notably Leon Trotsky in 1928. He consolidated his dictatorial rule with the “Great Purge” during the 1930s. Under Stalin’s Five-Year Plans launched in 1928, the Soviet Union went through rapid, enforced industrialization that cost some 10 million lives by execution or through famine.
   Isolated from the West, Stalin hoped to prevent an attack by Nazi Germany when he signed a Nonaggression Pact in August 1939. However, the Soviet Union was attacked in June 1941, and the USSR and Great Britain suddenly became unlikely Allies and were joined in December 1941 by the United States in World War II. Although German forces almost took Moscow, Stalin mobilized the Russian people in defense of “Mother Russia,” and the tide of battle turned at Stalingrad between August 1942 and February 1943. Soviet armies pushed into Poland and eventually Germany itself.
   Although Stalin was angered by apparent delays in opening a Second Front, agreement about the shape of the postwar world appeared to be reached in conferences where he met his counterparts, Winston Churchill and Franklin D. Roosevelt at Tehran and Yalta, and Harry S. Truman at Potsdam. However, after the war, Stalin announced in a speech launching another Five-Year Plan on 9 February 1946 that there were irreconcilable differences between communism and capitalism that would lead to war. Disagreements about the future of Germany and about governments in Eastern Europe, particularly Poland, led to growing hostility culminating in the onset of the Cold War in 1947. Stalin gradually increased communist control in Poland, East Germany (later the German Democratic Republic), Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Rumania, and Bulgaria. For many people in the West, he became a second Hitler, an example of totalitarianism and the personification of communist dictatorship. Soviet policy gradually became more flexible after his death in 1953, and there were denunciations of the “cult of personality” he had fostered.

Historical Dictionary of the Roosevelt–Truman Era . . 2015.

Игры ⚽ Нужна курсовая?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovich — (1879–1953)    After consolidating his dictatorship over the Soviet Union in 1929, Stalin introduced the first of his Five Year Plans to turn the country from an agrarian into an industrialized state. Toward this objective, he introduced a policy …   Historical dictionary of the Holocaust

  • Joseph Vissarionovich Djougachvili — Joseph Staline Joseph Vissarionovitch Staline Иосиф Виссарионович Джугашвили Secrétaire général du Parti communiste de l Union soviétique …   Wikipédia en Français

  • STALIN (Dzhugashvili), JOSEPH VISSARIONOVICH° — (1879–1953), Bolshevik revolutionary, ruler of the Soviet Union, and leader of world communism . Through his entire career, Stalin had to deal with the Jewish question, and as the autocratic ruler of the Soviet Union his policy had a profound… …   Encyclopedia of Judaism

  • Stalin, Joseph — orig. Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili born Dec. 21, 1879, Gori, Georgia, Russian Empire died March 5, 1953, Moscow, Russia, U.S.S.R. Soviet politician and dictator. The son of a cobbler, he studied at a seminary but was expelled for… …   Universalium

  • Stalin, Joseph — (1878–1953)    Real name: Ioseb Besarionis Jugashvili, also known as Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin. Politician. Born to a poor family in Gori, Georgia, Stalin rose through the Bolshevik ranks to become Vladimir Lenin’s successor. He assumed the… …   Historical Dictionary of the Russian Federation

  • Stalin,Joseph — Sta·lin (stäʹlĭn, stălʹĭn), Joseph. Originally Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. 1879 1953. Soviet politician. The successor of Lenin, he was general secretary of the Communist Party (1922 1953) and premier (1941 1953) of the USSR. His rule was… …   Universalium

  • Joseph Stalin — Stalin redirects here. For other uses, see Stalin (disambiguation). Joseph Stalin Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин Georgian: იოსებ ბესარიონის ძე სტალინი …   Wikipedia

  • Joseph Djougachvili — Joseph Staline Joseph Vissarionovitch Staline Иосиф Виссарионович Джугашвили Secrétaire général du Parti communiste de l Union soviétique …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Joseph Stalin — Joseph Staline Joseph Vissarionovitch Staline Иосиф Виссарионович Джугашвили Secrétaire général du Parti communiste de l Union soviétique …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Joseph Vissarionovitch Djougachvili — Joseph Staline Joseph Vissarionovitch Staline Иосиф Виссарионович Джугашвили Secrétaire général du Parti communiste de l Union soviétique …   Wikipédia en Français

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”