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Known For
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Overseeing a reign of terror that resulted in the deaths of millions of real and perceived opponents of his policies
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Establishing the USSR as a modern economic and military power that repelled Hitler's armies in World War II and rivaled the United States during the Cold War period
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Milestones
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1899 Quit religious studies to join the revolutionary movement against the Russian monarchy
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1903 Joined Vladimir Lenin's militant Bolshevik faction after the split of the Social Democratic Labor Party (the Bolsheviks were later called Communists)
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1913 Exiled to Siberia for revolutionary activities, including the publication of Marxism and the National Question
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1922 Chosen general secretary of the Communist Party, a modest post that Stalin had developed into the USSR's most powerful office by 1930
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1924 Consolidated the power base within the Communist Party after Lenin's death
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1928-1929 Initiated a policy of violently taking the lands of farmers, liquidating agricultural wealth to support industrialization
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1934-1939 Purged political opponents, initially within Communist Party leadership, and later throughout the USSR, leading to arrests and executions estimated in the millions
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June, 1941 Assumed control of the military after Germany invaded the USSR during World War II
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1945 Participated in the Potsdam Conference after Germany surrendered
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Did You Know
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As a rebellious youth, Joseph Dzhugashvili was nicknamed Koba, the name of a notorious Georgian bandit and rebel, before he took the name Stalin.
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The Russian word stalin means 'man of steel.'
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The Russian city of Volgograd, renamed Stalingrad during Stalin's reign, was changed back to the former in 1961.
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