Stalin, Joseph

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Stalin, Joseph (1879–1953) ( Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili) Leader of the Soviet Union (1924–53). He supported Lenin and the Bolsheviks from 1903, adopting the name Stalin (‘man of steel’) while editing Pravda, the party newspaper. Exiled to Siberia (1913–17), Stalin returned to join the Russian Revolution (1917), and became secretary of the central committee of the party in 1922. On Lenin's death in 1924, he achieved supreme power through his control of the party organization. Stalin outmanoeuvred rivals such as Trotsky and Bukharin and drove them from power. From 1929, he was virtually dictator. Stalin enforced collectivization of agriculture and intensive industrialization, suppressing all opposition, and, in the 1930s, he exterminated all possible opponents in a series of purges of political and military leaders. During World War 2, Stalin controlled the armed forces and negotiated skilfully with the Allied leaders, Churchill and Roosevelt After the war he reimposed severe repression and forced puppet communist governments on the states of Eastern Europe.

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin

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