Who Was Stalin?
One of the most powerful and murderous dictators in human history, Stalin was the supreme ruler of the Soviet Union for a quarter of a century. His regime of terror caused the death and suffering of tens of millions of his subjects, but he was also in charge of the war machine that played a significant role in the defeat of Hitler's armies during World War II.
A Georgian by birth, Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili grew up in modest circumstances and only learned Russian at school. He studied at a theological seminary but never graduated, instead embarking on a life as a professional revolutionary. This included robbing banks to fill the Bolshevik party chest and spending years in Siberian exile. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin promoted himself as his political heir and gradually outmanoeuvred rivals. Unlike Trotsky, Stalin believed that socialism could be introduced in one country without being accompanied by a world revolution. By the late 1920s, Stalin was effectively the dictator of the Soviet Union.
After World War II, the Soviet Union entered the nuclear age and ruled over an empire which included most of Eastern Europe. Increasingly paranoid, Stalin himself became a victim of the fear he had induced in his subjects. Having suffered a stroke at night, he lay helpless on his floor for many hours, because no one dared disturb him. He died on 5 March 1953.
A large part of the Soviet population reacted to his death with hysterical grief, but soon his former comrades-in-arms denounced his policies of terror and persecution. Today, Stalinism is a symbol of totalitarian rule and limitless personal power. His birth home in Gori forms part of the Stalin Museum, a bizarre and somewhat eerie Soviet monument to one of history's most bloodthirsty tyrants.
