Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovich

Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovich (1879-1953), Russian head of state.

Joseph Dzhugashvili, the son of a shoemaker, changed his name to Stalin (Man of Steel) and rose to be the head of the Communist Party in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Lenin, the first leader of the USSR, died in 1924, and a struggle for power followed.

Stalin's main rival, Leon Trotsky, was expelled from the USSR (and later murdered) and by 1929 Stalin was the head of the state.

He dealt ruthlessly with his rivals and anyone else who opposed him. They were put to death as enemies of the Soviet or sent away to prison camps.

In the Second World War (1939-45), the USSR fought with Britain and the United States against Germany. But after the war, Stalin lowered an 'Iron Curtain' between the West and the USSR, and most of the countries in Eastern Europe became Communist states.

Stalin remained head of the USSR up to the time of his death at the age of seventy-three. At that time, he controlled not only all the USSR (area 22 million square kilometers (14 million square miles); population 220 million) but also countries outside the USSR covering nearly 2 million square kilometers (1.2 million square miles) with a population amounting to 134,188,000.

See Stalin: The First In-depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives ~ Edvard Radzinskii