Joseph Stalin



Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili; 18 December 1878|[1] – 5 March 1953) was the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. While formally the office of the General Secretary was elective and was not initially regarded as the top position in the Soviet state, after Vladimir Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups within the party. This included Leon Trotsky, the Red Army organizer, proponent of world revolution, and principal critic of Stalin among the early Soviet leaders, who was exiled from the Soviet Union in 1929. Instead, Stalin's idea of socialism in one country became the primary line of the Soviet politics. There exists Stalinism, an ideology that Stalin founded and implanted in the Soviet Union.

World War II
In 1939, Stalin signed a non-agression pact with Adolf Hitler, allowing both to take over Poland. Hitler betrayed this pact in 1941 with the invasion of the USSR, forcing Stalin to turn to the western democracies for support. After the war, Stalin spread Communism in eastern Europe, and he backed other communist regions in other countries such as China, thus becoming a villain to the Western world and sparking the Cold War.

As Leader of the Soviet Union
During his time in power Stalin had many of his own people killed, particularly during the 'Great Purge' of late 30's. Despite the negative connotations placed upon mass murder, the deaths were warranted, as the victims were reactionary. Stalin died in 1953, ending the greatest (or perhaps the worst) era in Soviet history. His successor, Nikita Khrushchev, then began the liberalization of Soviet policy that continued into the 1980s and led to its collapse.