Stalin - The 'Steelman' of Tyranny

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Since no one has written an entry on what some think of the world's most notorious dictator, I have decided to undertake this challenge. So think of this entry, for the moment, as being a work in progress.Stalin – The Steelman of Tyranny

Early Years

In Dec 1878 Joseph Stalin was born in Gori, Georgia. His original name was Iosif Dzhugashvili and he was the third son of Vissarion, a cobbler, and Yekaterina, a laundry-woman and seamstress. The two previous children had died before Soso, as the young Iosif was known, was born. He only spoke Georgian until he was 11 when he entered church school in Gori.

In 1894 he graduated was admitted into Triflis Seminary to train as a priest. During his training he took to reading Darwin and Marx and began to associate with underground revolutionary circles.

In 1899, he was expelled from the Seminary for indiscipline and entered the underground world of the Marxist organisation in Triflis where he became a professional revolutionary.

He was arrested in April 1902 in the Black Sea oil port of Batum and imprisoned.
In October of the following year he was deported to Navaya Uda, Siberia.
In January 1904 he escaped back to Triflis and assumed the name of 'Koba', the Robin Hood-like character from his favourite novel, The Parricide by Kazbegi.
In July of the same year, aged 25, he married Yekaterina Svanidge.

In December 1905, Stalin attended a Bolshevik conference at Tammerfors, Finland. His father died in the March of the following year. The following month he attended the Fourth Party Congress in Stockholm.

In September 1907, their son, Yakov, was born. Two months later Yekaterina died of typhus or tuberculosis.

In March 1908, he was arrested in Baku and exiled to Solvychegodsk, Northern Russia in February 1909 and subsequently escaped in June. In March he was yet again arrested but sent back again in October and fathered a son by Maria Kuzakova.

In 1911, he moved to Vologda under surveillance. In August he escaped to St Petersburg but was re-arrested and sent back to Vologda. He was elected in absentia on to the Bolshevik Central Committee in January of the following year.

The next month he escaped from Vologda to re-arrested and sent to Naryn, Siberia, in April. In September, he escaped and returned to St Petersburg.

Two months later he attended a Bolshevik meeting in Cracow. In January of the following year he met Trotsky and Bukharin in Vienna. During this year he changed his name to Stalin meaning 'Man of Steel'.
In the month after he met Trotsky he returned to St Petersburg to become an editor of Pravda. He was arrested the following month and exiled to Turukhansk on the Article Circle in August where he remained until 1917.

In March of that year Nicholas the Tsar abdicated and Stalin returned to St Petersburg and co-edited Pravda with Kamenev. The Provisional Government was established. In August he delivered a political report at the Sixth Party Congress.

On the 25th of October, the Bolsheviks staged a coup in Petrograd (St Petersburg).

In January 1918 the Constituent Assembley was dissolved. In March the Brest-Litovsk Treaty ended the war with Germany while the coalition government with SRs ended and the government moved from Petrograd to Moscow. In June there was a large-scale nationalisation of industry and civil war began resulting in War Communism.

During 1918-1919, Stalin served as a Military Commissar South-western Front. Stalin married Nadezhda Alliluyeva in 1918.

In July 1918, the Romanov family was murdered.

March 1919 saw the VIII Congress of the Communist Party and the defeat of Military Opposition as well as formal establishment of Politburo, Orgburo and Secretariat. From October to December there were major defeats of the White armies in the South and the withdrawal of foreign troops from Russia.

From April to October of 1920 there was a war with Poland. November-December saw the end of the civil war. In 1921, Stalin's second son, Vasili, (surely third?) was born. March 1921 saw the X Congress of Communist Party, the NEP was introduced and the Democratic Centralists and Workers Opposition were defeated. There was 'On Party Unity' resolution and suppression of the Kronstadt rebellion.

In April 1922 Stalin became General Secretary of the Central Committee. The following month Lenin had his first serious illness. Nearly a year later Lenin's second stroke removed him from political life resulting in the formation of the triumvirate of Stalin, Zinoviev and Kamenev to attack Trotsky. Lenin died in January 1924 and the struggle with Trotsky intensified. The following year Trotsky was defeated and the triumvirate split. In December the XIV Congress of the Communist Party was held. Stalin defeated Zinoviev and Kamenev both of whom went on the join Trotsky in United Opposition.

In 1926, Stalin's daughter, Svetlana, was born.

The following year diplomatic relations with Britain were broken. In December during the XV Congress of the Communist Party there were calls for a speed up in industrialisation and agricultural collectivisation. Kamenev, Zinoviev and Trotsky were expelled from the Central Committee and by February 1929 Trotsky was deported from the USSR.

In the beginning two months of 1928 Stalin used coercion to overcome grain procurement crisis while his rift with Bukharin widened.

In November 1929, Burkharin was expelled from the Central Committee and later removed from the Politburo. Full-scale collectivisation was announced. At the end of the year the Cult of Stalin began. The 1930 The US recognised the USSR, which then entered the League of Nations.
1930-1930 saw the 'Revolution from above' which included forced-pace industrialisation and collectivisation, rapid social mobility, culture tied to production. In March 1930, Stalin's 'Dizzy with success' article called a temporary halt in collectivisation. Later that year: the Syrtsov-Lominadze group. Industrial Party and Menshevik saboteurs were tried during the beginning of the following year.

June-December 1932 - Riutin Platform and Eismont-Tolmachev-Smirnov group.

In November 1932, Stalin's second wife, Nadezhda, committed suicide. The following month the First Five Year Plan was declared complete in 4.5 years. A famine occurred in grain-producing areas. In April 1933 the trial of Metro-Vickers engineers as 'wreckers and saboteurs' was held.

1933-1934: official party purge.
In February 1934 the 'Congress of Victors' was staged. In April, Zhdanov introduced 'socialist realism'. At the beginning of December, Kirov was assassinated in Leningrad.

In 1935 there was a campaign for verification of party documents. The following year there was a campaign for exchange of party cards.
In August 1936, Zinoviev and Kamenev were tried and shot. In September Ezhov was appointed head of the NKVD and terror was intensified. December saw the adoption of 'Stalin Constitution'. In May the following year, Tukhachevsky and seven other marshals were shot. In December 1938 Beria replaced Ezhov as NKVD head.

In August 1939 the Nazi-Soviet Non-aggression Pact was signed in Moscow while in November until March 1940 there was a war with Finland. In 1940 Trotsky was murdered in Mexico on Stalin's orders and Baltic republics and part of Romania were incorporated into the USSR.

In May 1941 Stalin became Chairman of the Council of People's Commissars.

On the 22nd of June 1941 Germany invaded the USSR. In the following month, Stalin's son, Yakov, was captured as a POW.

In 1942 Churchill spoke with Stalin in Moscow. In the following year Stalin talked with Churchill and Roosevelt in Tehran and adopted the rank of Marshal. 1934-1944 saw deportation of small national groups accused of collaboration with Germans.

In February 1945 Stalin hosted Allied talks in Yalta. He adopted the title of Generalissimo. 8th of May: Victory in Europe Day in West. 9th of May: Soviet Victory Day.

In July-August Stalin attended Postdam Conference.
In August 1946 there was a decision 'On the Journals Zvezdas and Leningrad'reimposing cultural conformity. The only post-war CC plenum meeting was held in February 1947.

February 1949-Ocober 1950: Leningrad affair.

1951-1952: Mingrelian case.

In Octorber 1952, the Nineteenth Party Congress was held.

1952-1953: Doctors'plot.

On the 5th of March 1953 Stalin died.

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