History

Sharon Maultsby

Brian Yarbrough

HIS200

10 July 2014

Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin was born in Gori, Georgia on December 18, 1878. Early on Joseph Stalin showed signs of leadership or what he may have considered to be leadership abilities. According to the Old Style Julian calendar, Joseph’s birthday is December 6, 1878. However, Joseph changed it to December 21, 1879 as he did with his name from Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili to Joseph Stalin meaning “man of steel”. He was an only child with a shoemaker alcoholic father and a mother who was a laundress. He came from a poor family where his father used to beat him and his face was left with scars from smallpox. Joseph was teased and treated cruelly as a child by the other children. This is when he began his journey for respect and greatness.

By the time Joseph Stalin was a teen, he received a scholarship to study priesthood in the Georgian Orthodox Church. His mother sent him away but he never completed his education. Stalin instead became interested in the revolutionary movement against the Russian monarchy. Shortly later, Joseph Stalin was expelled from school and instead of returning home, he decided to become an underground political agitator. He joined a militant wing of the Marxist Social Democratic movement called Bolsheviks that was led by Vladimir Lenin and was arrested several times for various criminal activities. Joseph Stalin, because of his many arrest between 1902 and 1913 found himself facing imprisonment and exile in Siberia. When Joseph Stalin escaped from exile, the tsar’s secret police (Okhranka) had him marked as an outlaw. However, Joseph Stalin continued his work underground. He supported the revolution organization by raising money through robbing banks, kidnapping people and extorting money from them. Of the many banks he robbed, he gained infamy from the 1907 Tiflis bank robbery. During this robbery, many people lost their life to his hands and 250,000 rubles was stolen. In US dollars that is approximately $3.4 million.  

Joseph Stalin’s life plagued him with difficulties in the political playing field as well as in his personal life. In his personal life, John married twice in his lifetime and fathered several children in and out of wedlock. His first wife Ekaterina Svanidze died from typhus when his son was an infant. That son died a prisoner during World War II. John’s second wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva borne him two children and later committed suicide in her early 30’s.

Joseph Stalin didn’t have much say-so in the Bolshevik’s struggle for power but he quickly rose to power. In 1922 he started off as the general secretary of the Communist Party taking over the appointments, organizing meetings, publishing pamphlets, and constructing strikes and demonstrations; which gave him the insight to meet other people and build a support base. By the time anyone realized just how much control Joseph Stalin gained, it was too late. Vladimir Lenin had become ill and was helpless in trying to regain control of the Soviet Union from Joseph Stalin. When Vladimir Lenin died in 1924, Joseph out-thought, out-maneuvered, and promoted himself to the Soviet Union’s dictator above his rivals. He became a dictator of terror.