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[[Image:stalin1.jpg|right|Stalin]]
'''Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin''' ([[Russian language|Russian]]: Ио́сиф Виссарио́нович Ста́лин), original name '''Ioseb Jughashvili''' ([[Georgian language|Georgian]]: იოსებ ჯუღაშვილი ''tentative'', [[Russian language|Russian]]: Ио́сиф Джугашви́ли) ([[December 21]] <nowiki>[</nowiki>[[December 9]], [[Julian Calendar|Old Style]]<nowiki>]</nowiki>, [[1879]] - [[March 5]], [[1953]]), was a [[Bolshevik]] [[Russian revolution|revolutionary]] and the second [[leader]] of the [[Soviet Union]]. Under Stalin, who replaced the [[New Economic Policy]] (NEP) of the [[1920s]] with [[Economy of the Soviet Union#Planning|five year plans]] (introduced in [[1928]]) and [[Economy of the Soviet Union#Agriculture|collective farming]], the Soviet Union was transformed from a [[peasant]] society to a major world industrial power; meanwhile Stalin consolidated his personal power and eliminated effective political opposition during the [[1930s]] through ruthless [[Great Purge|purges]] and repression (''See'' [[Gulag]]). Victory in [[World War II]] ([[1945]]) laid the groundwork for the formation of the [[Warsaw Pact]] and established the USSR as one of the two major [[superpower|world powers]], a position it maintained for nearly four decades following Stalin's death in 1953.
==Other names==
His first name is also [[transliterated]] as '''Josif'''. His surname is sometimes transliterated as '''Dzhugashvili''' and occasionally rendered as '''Djugashvili'''. ''Shvili'' is a Georgian suffix meaning "son of." Neither the word nor the name ''Jugha'' (or ''Dzhuga'') are known in Georgian.
He was also known as [[Koba (folk hero)|Koba]] (a revolutionary nickname, after a [[Georgia (country)|Georgian]] folk [[hero]], a [[Robin Hood]]-like brigand. The name ''Stalin'' (derived from combining Russian ''stal'', "[[steel]]" with the possessive suffix "-in") originally was a [[conspiracy|conspiratorial]] [[nickname]]; however, it stuck with him and he continued to call himself Stalin after the [[Russian Revolution]]. Stalin is also reported to have used at least a [[dozen]] other names for the purpose of [[secret]] [[communication]]s, but for obvious reasons most of them remain unknown. His other nicknames were '''Ivanovich''', '''Soso''', '''David''', '''Nijeradze''', and '''Chizhikov'''.
==Childhood and early years==
Stalin was born in the town of [[Gori]], [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]], to a [[cobbler]] named Vissarion (Beso) Dzhugashvili. His mother, Ekaterina, was born a [[serf]]. Ekaterina used to work doing laundry and housecleaning in rich peoples' houses, often taking Soso (as Stalin was then called) with her. The boy was bright, and a David Pismamedov, a [[Gori Jew]], used to give him books and money. (Years later, he reportedly came to the [[Kremlin]] to see what had happened to little Soso, and Stalin talked with him in public.) Soso, was often severely beaten by his father, which was not an unusual way of "teaching lessons" to children during these times. Eventually, Beso left for [[Tbilisi|Tiflis]], leaving the family without support. When Soso was 11, his mother enrolled him in the Gori [[seminary]]. He studied [[Russian Orthodox Church|Russian Orthodox Christianity]] until he was nearly twenty.
[[Image:stalin_exile_1915.gif|thumb|right|Stalin in exile, 1915]]
Stalin's involvement with the [[socialism|socialist]] movement began at seminary school, from which he was expelled in [[1899]] after failing to appear at scheduled examinations. He worked for a [[decade]] with the [[political]] underground in the [[Caucasus]], facing repeated [[arrest]] and [[exile]] to [[Siberia]] between [[1902]] and [[1917]]. He adhered to Vladimir Lenin's [[doctrine]] of a strong centralist party of "professional revolutionaries". His practical experience made him useful in Lenin's [[Bolsheviks|Bolshevik]] party, gaining him a place on its Central Committee in January [[1912]]. Some historians have argued that, during this period, Stalin was actually a [[Tsar]]ist [[spy]], who was working to infiltrate the Bolshevik party. In [[1913]] he adopted the name Stalin, which means "man of steel" in Russian.
His only significant contribution to the development of Marxist theory at this time was a treatise written while briefly exiled in Vienna, ''Marxism and the national question'', which presented an orthodox Marxist position on this important debate; compare Lenin's article ''On the right of nations for self-determination''. It is believed that due to it he was to become [[People's Commissar]] for Nationalities Affairs after the revolution.
==Rise to power==
Initially opposed to the overthrow of [[Aleksandr Kerensky]]'s [[Russian Provisional Government, 1917|Provisional Government]] in the [[Russian Revolution]] of [[1917]], Stalin was won over to Lenin's position following the latter's return from exile in April, but only played a minor role in the Bolsheviks' seizure of power on [[November 7]]. He was [[political commissar]] of the Soviet Army (Western front) during the [[Russian Civil War]] and [[Polish-Soviet war]]. Stalin's first government position was as [[People's Commissar]] of Nationalities Affairs. He held a number of senior administrative posts within the Soviet government and party apparatus, becoming in April [[1922]] general secretary of the ruling [[Communist Party]], a post which he subsequently built up into the most powerful in the country. This concentration of personal power increasingly alarmed the dying [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]], and in [[Lenin's Testament]] he famously called for the removal of the "rude" Stalin. However, this document was later suppressed by members of the [[Central Committee]], many of whom were also criticised by the Bolshevik leader.
After [[Vladimir Lenin|Lenin]]'s [[death]] in January [[1924]], a triumvirate of Stalin, [[Lev Borisovich Kamenev|Kamenev]], and [[Grigory Yevseyevich Zinoviev|Zinoviev]] governed the party, placing themselves [[ideology|ideologically]] between [[Leon Trotsky|Trotsky]] (on the [[left wing]] of the party) and [[Nikolay Ivanovich Bukharin|Bukharin]] (on the right).
During this period, Stalin abandoned the traditional Bolshevik emphasis on international revolution in favour of a policy of building [[Socialism in One Country]], in contrast to Trotsky's theory of [[Permanent Revolution]]. Stalin would quickly switch sides and join with Bukharin. Together, they fought a new opposition of Trotsky, Kamenev, and Zinoviev. By [[1928]] (the first year of the [[Five-Year Plan]]s) Stalin was supreme among the leadership, and the following year, Trotsky was exiled. Having also outmaneuvered Bukharin's [[Right Opposition]] and now advocating collectivisation and industrialisation, Stalin can be said to have exercised control over the party and the country. However, as the popularity of other leaders such as [[Sergei Kirov]] and the so-called Ryutin plot were to demonstrate, Stalin did not achieve absolute power until the [[Great Purge]] of [[1936]]-[[1938]].
==Stalin and changes in Soviet society==
=== Industrialisation ===
''Main article: [[History of the Soviet Union (1927-1953)#Stalinist industrialization|Industrialisation of the USSR]]''
[[World War I]] and the [[Russian Civil War]] had a devastating effect on the country's economy; industrial output in 1922 was 13% of that in 1914. Under Stalin's direction, the [[New Economic Policy]], which allowed a degree of market flexibility within the context of socialism, was replaced by a system of centrally-ordained Five-Year Plans in the late [[1920s]]. These called for a highly ambitious program of state-guided crash industrialisation and the collectivisation of [[agriculture]]. In spite of early breakdowns and failures, the first two Five-Year Plans achieved rapid industrialisation from a very low economic base. [[Russia]], generally ranked as the [[poverty|poorest]] nation in [[Europe]] in 1922, now industrialized at a phenomenal rate, far surpassing [[Germany]]'s pace of industrialisation in the [[19th century]] and [[Japan]]'s earlier in the [[20th century|20th]].
With no seed capital, little foreign [[trade]], and barely any modern [[industry]] to start with, Stalin's government [[finance]]d industrialisation by both restraining consumption on the part of ordinary Soviet citizens, to ensure capital went for re-[[investment]] into industry, and by ruthless extraction of [[wealth]] from the peasantry, both processes effectively amounting to the [[primitive accumulation of capital]] described by [[Karl Marx]] in ''[[Das Kapital]]''. [[#Collectivization|Collectivisation]] was instrumental in depriving peasants of the fruits of their labor.
In specific but common cases, the industrial labor was knowingly underpaid. First, there was the usage of the almost free labor of prisoners in forced [[labor camp]]s. Second, there was frequent "mobilization" of communists and [[Komsomol]] members for various construction projects.
<div style="float:right;width:310px;text-align:center;padding-left:12px">[[Image:Stalincult.jpg]]<br><small>''Stalin is often credited with creating the modern-day [[cult of personality]].''</small></div>
=== Collectivisation ===
''Main article: [[Collectivisation in the USSR]]''
Stalin's regime moved to force [[Collective farming|collectivisation]] of agriculture. The theory behind collectivisation was that it would replace the small-scale un-mechanised and inefficient [[farm]]s with large-scale mechanised farms that would produce [[food]] far more efficiently.
Collectivisation meant the destruction of a the way of life introduced after abolition of serfdom in [[1861]], and [[alienation]] from control of the land and its produce. Collectivisation also meant a drastic drop in living standards for many peasants, and it faced widespread and often violent resistance among the peasantry, and actually the productivity of agriculture dropped.
Stalin blamed this drop in food production on [[kulaks]] (Russian: ''fist''; rich peasants), who he believed were capitalistic parasites who were organising resistance to collectivisation. Those who resisted collectivisation were to be shot, transported to [[Gulag]] [[labor camp|labour camps]] or deported to remote areas of the country. In reality however, the term "kulak" was a loose term to describe anyone who opposed collectivisation, which included many peasants who were anything but rich.
Many historians agree that the disruption caused by forced collectivisation was largely responsible for major [[famine]]s which caused up to 5 million deaths in 1932-33, particularly in [[Ukraine]] and the lower [[Volga River|Volga]] region.
=== Science ===
Under Stalin's rule, sciences suffered from heavy ideological pressure. In the middle of the 1930s, the agronomist [[Trofim Lysenko]] started a campaign against [[genetics]] and was supported by Stalin. Between 1934 and 1940, many geneticists were executed (including Agol, Levit, Nadson) or sent to [[labor camp]]s (including the most well-known Soviet geneticist, [[Nikolai Vavilov]], who died in prison in [[1943]]). Genetics was stigmatized as a "fascist science". Some geneticists, however, survived and continued to work in genetics, dangerous as it was. In [[1948]], genetics was officially declared "a bourgeois [[pseudoscience]]"; all geneticists were fired from work (some were also arrested), and all genetic research was discontinued. The taboo on genetics continued even after Stalin's death. Only in the middle of 1960s was it completely waived. (See [[Lysenkoism]].)
[[Cybernetics]] was also outlawed. It was officially declared that "a machine cannot think", and any research in [[computer]]-related fields was prohibited. As with genetics, the taboo continued for several years after Stalin's death.
In the late 1940s, there were also attempts to outlaw [[special relativity|special]] and [[general relativity]], as well as [[quantum mechanics]]. However, top Soviet physicists made it clear that without using these theories, they would be unable to create a [[nuclear bomb]].
In fact, scientific research in nearly all areas was hindered by the fact that many scientists were sent to [[labor camp]]s (including [[Lev Davidovich Landau|Lev Landau]], later a [[Nobel Prize]] winner, who spent a year in prison in 1938-1939), or executed (like [[Lev Shubnikov]], who was shot in [[1937]]). They were persecuted for their (real or imaginary) [[dissident]] views, and seldom for "politically incorrect" research.
Prohibition of genetics and cybernetics caused serious harm to Soviet science and economics. Soviet scientists never won a [[Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine]] or [[Turing Award]]. (In comparison, they received seven [[Nobel Prize in Physics|Nobel Prizes in Physics]].) The USSR always suffered from severe lag in the fields of computers, [[microelectronics]] and [[biotechnology]].
=== Social services ===
Stalin's government placed heavy emphasis on the provision of basic [[medical]] services. Campaigns were carried out against [[typhus]], [[cholera]], and [[malaria]]; the number of [[doctor]]s was increased as rapidly as facilities and training would permit; and death and [[infant mortality]] rates steadily decreased. [[Education]] was also dramatically expanded, with many more Russians learning to read and write, and higher education expanded. The generation that grew up under Stalin also saw a major expansion in job opportunities, especially for women.
=== Purges and deportations ===
==== Purges of dissidents ====
''Main article: [[Great Purge]].''
Stalin consolidated near-absolute power in the [[1930s]] with the [[Great Purge]] against his suspected political and ideological opponents, culminating in the extermination of the majority of the original [[Bolshevik]] [[Central Committee]], and over half of the largely pliant delegates of the 17th Party Congress in [[January]] [[1934]]. Measures used against these victims ranged from imprisonment in [[labor camp|labour camps]] of [[Gulag]] to execution after show trials or assassination (such as that of Trotsky and, some allege, Leningrad party chief [[Sergei Kirov]]). Thousands of people merely suspected of opposing Stalin's regime were killed or imprisoned (often using [[Article 58]] in which people could be imprisoned for "anti-Soviet activities"). Initially, [[Politburo]], including Stalin, routinely signed death warrants for huge lists of [[enemies of the people]]. Over the time the persecution procedure was greatly simplified and delegated down the line of command. The Russian word <!-- WARNING: intentionally ambiguous link -->[[troika]] gained a new, horrible meaning: a quick, simplified trial by a committee of three.
Several show trials known as the [[Moscow Trials]] were held to serve as examples for the trials that local courts were expected to carry out elsewhere in the country. There were four key trials during this period: the Trial of the Sixteen (August [[1936]]); Trial of the Seventeen (January [[1937]]); the trial of [[Red Army]] generals, including Marshal [[Mikhail Nikolayevich Tukhachevsky|Tukhachevsky]] (June 1937); and finally the [[Trial of the Twenty One]] (including [[Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin|Bukharin]]) in March [[1938]].
Trotsky's August [[1940]] assassination in [[Mexico]], where he had lived in exile since 1936, eliminated the last of Stalin's opponents among the former Party leadership. Only two members of the "[[Old Bolshevik]]s" (Lenin's [[Politburo of the CPSU Central Committee|Politburo]]) now remained - Stalin himself and his foreign minister [[Vyacheslav Molotov]]. The fact so many of the original Bolshevik leaders were killed led Stalin's arch-critic [[Leon Trotsky]] to claim a "river of blood" separated his regime from that of Lenin.
==== Deportations ====
''Main article: [[Population transfer in the Soviet Union]]''.
<!-- Please add factual material to the main article, and keep only summary here. -->
Shortly before, during and immediately after [[World War II]], Stalin conducted a series of deportations on a huge scale which profoundly affected the ethnic map of the Soviet Union. Over 1.5 million people were deported to [[Siberia]] and the Central Asian republics. Separatism, resistance to Soviet rule and collaboration with the invading Germans were cited as the main official reasons for the deportations, although an ambition to [[ethnic cleansing|ethnically cleanse]] regions in a process known as "Russification" may have also been a factor.
The following nations were deported completely or partially: [[Polish minority in Soviet Union|Poles]], [[Koreans]],[[Volga Germans]], Crimean [[Tatar]]s, [[Kalmykia|Kalmyks]], [[Chechnya|Chechens]], [[Ingushetia|Ingush]], [[Balkars]], [[Karachay-Cherkessia|Karachay]]s, [[Meskhetian Turks]],[[Bulgaria|Bulgarians]], [[Greece|Greeks]], [[Armenia|Armenians]], [[Latvia]]ns, [[Lithuania]]ns, [[Estonia]]ns. Large numbers of [[kulak]]s regardless their nationality were resettled to [[Siberia]] and [[Central Asia]].
In February [[1956]], [[Nikita Khrushchev]] condemned the deportations as a violation of [[Leninism|Leninist]] principles, and reversed most of Stalin's deportations, although it was not until as late as [[1991]] that the Tatars, [[Meskh]]s and Volga Germans were allowed to return ''en masse'' to their homelands. The deportations had a profound effect on the peoples of the Soviet Union. The memory of the deportations played a major part in the separatist movements in the Baltic republics, [[Tatarstan]] and [[Chechnya]].
==== Death toll ====
About one million people were shot during the periods 1935-38, 1942 and 1945-50 and millions of people were transported to [[Gulag]] [[labor camp|labour camps]]. In [[Georgia (country)|Georgia]] about 80,000 people were shot during the periods 1921, 1923-24, 1935-38, 1942 and 1945-50 and more than 100,000 people were transported to Gulag camps.
On March 5, 1940, Stalin himself and other Soviet leaders signed the order to execute 25,700 Polish intelligentsia including 14,700 Polish POW. It became known as [[Katyn massacre]].
Some other famous massacres: [[massacre of prisoners]] 30,000-40,000 people.
It is believed by most historians that, including famines, prison and [[labor camp|labour camp]] mortality, and [[state terrorism]] (deportations and political purges), Stalin and his colleagues were directly or indirectly responsible for the deaths of millions. ''How'' many millions died under Stalin is greatly disputed. Although no official figures have been released by the Soviet or [[Russia|Russian]] governments, most estimates put the figure at between eight and twenty million. Comparison of the 1926-39 census results suggests 5-10 million deaths in excess of what would be normal in the period, mostly through famine in 1931-34. The highest estimates put the figure as high as 50 million from the 1920s to the 1950s.
==World War II==
<div style="float:right;width:270px;text-align:center">[[Image:Chrost.jpg|right|From left to right, Winston Churchill, Franklin D. Roosevelt, and Stalin]]<br><small>''From left to right, [[Winston Churchill|Churchill]], [[Franklin D. Roosevelt|Roosevelt]], and Stalin.''</small></div>
In his [[Stalin's speech on Aug 19, 1939|speech]] on [[August 19]], [[1939]], Stalin prepared his comrades on the general turn in Soviet policy, the [[Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact]] with [[Nazi Germany]] which divided [[Central Europe]] into the two powers' respective spheres of influence. In June [[1941]], however, [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler]] broke the pact and invaded the [[Soviet Union]] in [[Operation Barbarossa]]. Stalin had not expected this and the Soviet Union was largely unprepared for this invasion. Until the last moment, Stalin had sought to avoid any obvious defensive preparation which might provoke German attack, in the hope of buying time to modernise and strengthen his military forces. Even after the attack commenced Stalin appeared unwilling to accept the fact and, according to some historians, was too stunned to react appropriately for a number of days. A controversial new theory put forward by [[Victor Suvorov]] asserts that Stalin had been preparing an invasion of Germany and that the lack of preparations for defensive warfare left Soviet forces vulnerable despite their heavy concentration near the border.
The Nazis initially made huge advances, capturing or killing hundreds of thousands of Soviet troops. The earlier execution of many of the [[Red Army]]'s experienced generals had a severely negative effect on Russia's ability to organise defenses. In response on [[November 6]], [[1941]], Stalin addressed the Soviet Union for only the second time during his three-decade rule (the first time was earlier that year on [[July 2]]). He claimed that even though 350,000 troops were killed in German attacks so far, that the Germans have lost 4.5 million soldiers (a gross over-estimation) and that Soviet victory was near. The Soviet Red Army did in fact put up fierce resistance, but during the war's early stages was largely ineffective against the better-equipped and trained [[Nazi]] forces until the invaders were halted and then driven back before [[Moscow]] (December 1941).
Stalin's [[Order No. 227]] of [[July 27]], [[1942]] illustrates the ruthlessness with which he sought to stiffen army resolve: all those who retreated or otherwise left their positions without orders to do so were to be summarily shot. In the war's opening stages, the retreating Red Army also sought to deny resources to the enemy through a scorched earth policy of destroying the infrastructure and food supplies of areas before the Germans could seize them. Unfortunately, this, along with abuse by German troops, caused starvation and suffering among the civilian population that was left behind.
The Soviets bore the brunt of civilian and military losses in World War II. Between 21 and 28 million Soviets, most of them civilians, died in the "[[Great Patriotic War]]", as the Soviets called the German-Soviet conflict. The Nazis considered Slavs to be "sub-human", ranking the killings of them in the eyes of many as ethnically targeted mass murder, or [[genocide]]. This concept of Slavic inferiority was also the reason that Hitler did not accept many Russians who wanted to free their country from the Stalinist regime into his army until 1944 when the war was lost for Germany. In Russia, the conflict left a huge deficit of men of the wartime fighting-age generation. As a result of this huge struggle, to this day World War II is remembered very vividly in Russia, and [[May 9]], Victory Day, is one of its biggest national holidays.
<div style="float:right;width:310px;text-align:center;padding-left:12px">[[Image:Soviet_Union,_Stalin_(15).jpg]]<br><small>''Many elderly Russians are nostalgic for the Stalin era.''</small></div>
==Post-war era==
Following [[World War II]], the Red Army occupied much of the territory that had been formerly held by the Axis countries: there were [[Soviet occupation zone]]s in [[Germany]] and [[Austria]], and [[Hungary]] and [[Poland]] were under practical military occupation, despite the fact that the latter was formally an Allied country. Soviet-friendly governments were established in [[Romania]], [[Bulgaria]], [[Czechoslovakia]], and homegrown communist regimes existed in [[Yugoslavia]] and [[Albania]]. [[Finland]] retained formal independence, but was politically isolated and economically dependent on the Soviet Union. [[Greece]], [[Italy]] and [[France]] were under the strong influence of local communist parties, directed from Moscow. Stalin hoped that the withdrawal of Americans from Europe would lead to Soviet hegemony over whole continent. The foundation of [[Trizonia]] and American help for the non-communist side in the [[Greek Civil War]] changed the situation. [[East Germany]] was proclaimed a separate country in [[1949]], ruled by German communists. Moreover, Stalin made a decision to switch to direct control over his satellites in Central Europe: all of the countries were to be ruled by local communists parties that tried to implement the Soviet template locally.
This decision lead to Stalinist turn of 1948 in [[Poland]], [[Czechoslovakia]], [[Hungary]], [[Romania]] and [[Bulgaria]], the later "Communist Bloc". Communist [[Albania]] remained an ally, but Yugoslavia under [[Josip Broz Tito]] broke with the USSR. Stalin's friends in Western Europe explained Soviet consolidation of power in the region as a necessary step to protect itself by ensuring that it was surrounded by countries with friendly governments, to act as a buffer against any future invaders, a reversal of inter-war western hopes for a sympathetic [[Eastern Europe]]an ''cordon sanitaire'' against [[Communism]].
But this action confirmed the fears of many in [[the west]] that the Soviet Union still intended to spread communism across the world. The relations between the Soviet Union and its former World War II western allies soon broke down, and gave way to a prolonged period of tension and distrust between east and west known as the [[Cold War]]. See also [[Iron curtain]].
At home Stalin presented himself as a great wartime leader who had led the USSR to victory against the Germans. By the end of [[1940s]], an increase in Russian nationalism was noted. Some scientific discoveries were "reclaimed" by ethnic Russian researchers, for example,
[[Watt]]'s boiler engine - by father and son [[Cherepanov]]s,
[[Edison]]'s electric bulb - by [[Yablochkov]] and [[Ladygin]],
[[Marconi]]'s radio - by [[Popov]],
[[Wright brothers]]' airplane - by [[Mojaisky]],
etc.
Stalin's internal (including newly acquired territories) repressive policies continued and intensified, but never reached the extremes of the 1930s.
Following the establishment of [[Israel]] in 1948, Stalin's distrust of Jews grew. According to some witness accounts, the [[anti-Semitic]] campaigns of 1948-1953 (see [[Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee]], [[rootless cosmopolitan]], [[doctors' plot]]) were only the harbingers of larger hostilities to come, but if these plans did indeed exist, Stalin died before he could implement them.
On [[March 1]], [[1953]], after an all-night dinner with interior minister [[Lavrenty Beria]] and future premiers [[Georgi Malenkov]], [[Nikolai Bulganin]] and [[Nikita Khrushchev]], Stalin collapsed, having suffered a stroke that paralyzed the right side of his body. He died four days later, on [[March 5]], [[1953]], at the age of 73. Officially, the cause of death was listed as a [[cerebral hemorrhage]]. His body was left in state in [[Lenin's Mausoleum]] until [[October 31]], [[1961]], when de-Stalinisation was taking place in the Soviet Union. Stalin's body was then buried by the Kremlin walls. The political memoirs of [[Vyacheslav Molotov]], published in [[1993]], claimed Beria had boasted to Molotov that he poisoned Stalin.
Unless an autopsy is performed (his corpse is embalmed), the facts about his death will probably never be known with certainty. But in [[2003]], a joint group of Russian and American historians announced their view that Stalin ingested [[warfarin]], a powerful rat poison that thins the blood and causes strokes and hemorrhages. Since it is flavorless, warfarin is a plausible murder weapon.
==Policies and accomplishments==
Under Stalin the Soviet Union was industrialised to the point that by the time of [[World War II]] the Soviet industrial-military complex was able to help resist the German invasion, though at a great cost in human lives.
While the social and economic transformations over which he presided laid the foundations for the USSR's emergence as a global superpower, much of Stalin's conduct of Soviet affairs was subsequently repudiated by his successors in the Communist Party leadership, notably in his denunciation by Khrushchev in February [[1956]]. His immediate successors, though, continued to follow the basic principles on which Stalin based his rule -- the political monopoly of the Communist Party presiding over a command economy.
== Further reading ==
*Alan Bullock, ''Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives'', HarperCollins, 1991, ISBN 0679729941
*Walter Laqueur, ''Stalin'', Ediciones B, 2003, ISBN 8466613161
*Adam B. Ulam , ''Stalin : The Man and His Era'', Beacon Press, 1987, ISBN 080707005X
==Related topics==
*[[History of the Soviet Union]]
*[[Stalinism]]
*[[1936 Soviet Constitution]]
*[[Svetlana Alliluyeva]] (Stalin's daughter)
*[[Nadezhda Alliluyeva-Stalin]] (Stalin's second wife)
*[[Maxim Litvinov]]
*[[Anastas Mikoyan]]
*[[Vyacheslav Molotov]]
*[[Andrey Vyshinsky]]
*[[Stalin Peace Prize]]
==External links==
* [http://www.plp.org/books/Stalin/book.html ''Another view of Stalin''] - Progressive Labor Party
*[http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1936-rev/index.htm "The Revolution Betrayed" by Leon Trotsky]
* [http://dictatorstyrants.bravepages.com/stalin.html - Stalin nicknames]
* [http://www.indepthinfo.com/kirov/index.shtml An account of the Kirov Murder]
* [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1946stalin.html Modern History Sourcebook: Stalin's Reply to Churchill, 1946]
* [http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1956khrushchev-secret1.html Modern History Sourcebook: Nikita S. Khrushchev: The Secret Speech - On the Cult of Personality, 1956]
* [http://assets.cambridge.org/0521826284/sample/0521826284WS.pdf The political economy of Stalinism: evidence from the Soviet secret archives / Paul R. Gregory]
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| width="30%" align="center" | Preceded by:<br>[[Vladimir Lenin]]
| width="40%" align="center" | [[List of leaders of the Soviet Union]]
| width="30%" align="center" | Succeeded by<br>[[Georgy Malenkov]]
|}
[[Category:World War II people]]
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For places named after Joseph Stalin, see: [[List of places named after Stalin]]
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[[pl:Józef Stalin]]
[[ro:Iosif Stalin]]
[[ru:Сталин, Иосиф Виссарионович]]
[[sv:Josef Stalin]]
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