Joseph
Stalin
(1879-1953)
Stalin, a political name adopted when he was
34, meaning Man of Steel, studied for the
priesthood under his real name, Dzhugashvili.
Son of a shoe maker, he joined the Social
Democratic party after being expelled from a
theological school for insubordination. After
the RSDLP split in 1903, Stalin became a member
of the Bolshevik party.
In Stalin's early years he was continually in
trouble with the local authorities. During this
period he took the nickname Koba, after the
famous Georgian outlaw and the name of a
character in the romance "Nunu", by the
Georgian author Kazbek. The celebrated brigand
Koba was known as a fighter for the the rights
of the people, while the fictional Koba was
depicted as sacrificing everything in his
struggle against the Tsarist authorities on
behalf of his people, but unsuccesful, freedom
was lost.
Koba escaped prison exile several times, at his
last escape he fled to St. Petersburg, where he
became a member of the editorial staff of
Pravda in 1912. Within a year, Stalin was
arrested again and exiled to Siberia. He was
released from exile by general amnesty after
the February Revolution of 1917, and went back
to the editorial staff of Pravda in Petrograd .
After the October Revolution Stalin was elected
to the post of commissar for nationalities.
Throughout the following civil war, Stalin
ascended the ranks of the government through
extensive bureaucratic manoeuvering and in
1922, received the majority vote to become the
General Secretary of the Communist party. In
the same year Lenin called for his removal,
explaining that Stalin had amassed to much
power, in what was to become known as Lenin's
last testament .
Following Lenin's death in 1924, a wave of
reaction swept through the Soviet government.
Stalin introduced his theory of socialism in
one country , where he explained that Socialism
could be achieved by a single country.
Unlike former inner-party debates, where the
positions of either side were written in
newspapers, talked about in public meetings and
soviets ; the reaction and practices of the
long and devastating civil war, caused a
'debate' that was completely hidden from the
public, in order to 'establish the appearance'
of a healthy, stable, government.
In 1927, after years of bureaucratic
manoeuvering, the members in the government
that were part of the Left Opposition were
deported on a wide scale. Immediately
following, Stalin announced his theory of
social fascism , describing that the theories
of Social-Democracy and Fascism were
essentially the same. Following this new
theory, members of Social-Democratic
organisations (of which Bolsheviks were once a
part) were arrested or deported. In 1929 the
right-wing of the Communist party, led by
Bukharin , was removed from the so-called
"soviet" government by the Stalinists.
In late 1928, Stalin introduced methods of
productively advancing the Soviet Union via
forced industrialisation and collectivisation.
These efforts were tasked out in five year
plans, the first of which included a widescale
campaign of mass executions, arrests, and
deportations of the kulak class.
Russia advanced tremendously from the draconian
measures implemented to ensure that "socialism
in one country" could survive. Russia moved
from complete devastation and destruction after
WWI and the Civil War, to become a nation that
was one of the most powerful in the world:
achieving such goals that 30 years previous
would have been viewed as wholly impossible.
From 1934 to 1939 Stalin ordered a series of
executions and imprisonments, largely directed
towards people within the Soviet government.
Half of the members of the first Council of
Peoples Commissars were executed in 1938 (A
quarter of them had died natural deaths before
hand, of the remaining quarter only Stalin
lived past 1942). Some government officials
executed were thought to be Nazi agents or
sympathisers, while others were accused for
planning to overthrow the Soviet government.
Members of the Left Opposition who were allowed
to return to the party after accepting
Stalinism were soon executed, those who
remained abroad were hunted down and killed.
Also executed were people belonging to the
right-wing of the party (Bukharin and others).
The exact number of people executed is not
known, estimates range from thousands to
millions.
During WWII Stalin organised and lead the
Soviet Union to victory over the invading Nazi
armies.
Source:
http://www.marxists.org/glossary/people/s/t.htm#stalin