Educated at the Gori church school and the Tbilisi Theological Seminary, Stalin (who adopted the pseudonym in 1910) began his political career in the Social Democratic party, a Marxist revolutionary group, in 1899 as a propagandist. In 1903, he joined the Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democrats. From 1902 to 1917, he was arrested nine times and spent a number of years in Siberian exile. Stalin edited the party newspaper, Pravda, and in 1912 wrote his first major work, Marxism and the Nationality Question. From 1917 to 1923 Stalin served as commissar for nationalities and from 1919 to 1923 commissar for state control, a position that allowed him to gather a great deal of power within the party. In 1922 he became the secretary general of the Bolshevik central committee. After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin formed a leadership together with Zinovyev and Kamenev, and immediately acted against his arch-rival, Leon Trotsky, by expelling him and his followers from the party and then sending them into exile. By 1929, Stalin had consolidated his position and became the overall leader of the Soviet Union. That year he also organized the infamous collectivization programme which resulted in the displacement and death of millions of people. By the mid-1930's, his regime was based on political terror that eliminated all who opposed him, or who he felt posed a threat to his power base, including the wholesale purge of the Russian Army officer staff. In 1939, he signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler, but was caught off guard when Germany invaded the USSR in 1941. Joining with Great Britain and the USA, the USSR under Stalin was eventually victorious over Germany and her allies. After the war, the countries which had been occupied by Soviet forces came under Communist domination which led to Churchill's "Iron Curtain" reference and the beginnings of the Cold War. He continued his repressive regime until his death which occurred while he was planning another purge, this time of the medical profession. Among Stalin's other works are Leninism (1928-33), Problems With Leninism (1934), The Great Patriotic War of the Soviet Union (1945), and numerous essays on Communism, Marxism, etc. |
Chrysoma Associates Limited
