Joseph+Stalin+(Ahmet,+Deniz)

=**Joseph Stalin**=

//"Death solves all problems - no man, no problem" - Stalin//


 * __Early life of Stalin:__ **

Stalin was born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili on 18 December 1878 to [| Ketevan Geladze] and [| Besarion Jughashvili], a cobbler, in the town of [| Gori] , Georgia. At the age of seven, he contracted [| smallpox], which permanently scarred his face. At ten, he began attending church school where the Georgian children were forced to speak Russian. By the age of twelve, two horse-drawn carriage accidents left his left arm permanently damaged. At sixteen, he received a scholarship to a [| Georgian Orthodox][| seminary], where he rebelled against the imperialist and religious order. Though he performed well there, he was expelled in 1899 after missing his final exams. The seminary's records suggest he was unable to pay his tuition fees.The official Soviet version states that he was expelled for reading illegal literature and forming a Social Democratic study circle.

Shortly after leaving the seminary, Stalin discovered the writings of [| Vladimir Lenin] and decided to become a Marxist revolutionary, eventually joining Lenin's [| Bolsheviks] in 1903. After being marked by the [| Okhranka] (the Tsar's secret police) for his activities, he became a full-time revolutionary and outlaw. He became one of the [| Bolsheviks] ' chief operatives in the [| Caucasus], organizing paramilitaries, inciting strikes, spreading propaganda and raising money through bank robberies, ransom kidnappings and extortion. The infamy he gained from being associated with organizing the [| 1907 Tiflis bank robbery], which resulted in several deaths and the stealing of 250,000 rubles (about US $3.4 million in modern terms), would trouble him politically for years later.

In the summer of 1906, Stalin married [| Ekaterina Svanidze], who later gave birth to Stalin's first child, [| Yakov]. A year later she died of [| typhus] in [| Baku].

Stalin was captured and sent to [| Siberia] seven times, but escaped most of these exiles. He eventually adopted the name "Stalin" from the Russian word for steel and used it as an alias and pen name in his published works.

Prior to the revolution of 1917, Stalin played an active role in fighting the tsarist government. After returning to <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Petrograd] from exile, Stalin ousted <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Vyacheslav Molotov] and <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Alexander Shlyapnikov] as editors of <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[|Pravda]. He then took a position in favor of supporting <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Alexander Kerensky] 's <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| provisional government]. However, after Lenin prevailed at the April 1917 Communist Party conference, Stalin and Pravda shifted to opposing the provisional government. At this conference, Stalin was elected to the Bolshevik Central Committee. In October 1917, the Bolshevik Central Committee voted in favor of an insurrection. On 7 November, from the <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Smolny Institute], Trotsky, Lenin and the rest of the Central Committee coordinated the insurrection against Kerensky in the 1917 <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| October Revolution]. By 8 November, the Bolsheviks had stormed the <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Winter Palace] and Kerensky's Cabinet had been arrested.

media type="youtube" key="C9t6QyEv_fU" height="283" width="504" align="left"

__** Role in the Russian Civil War, 1917–1919 **__

A group of participants in the 8th Congress of the Russian Communist Party, 1919. In the middle are Stalin, <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Vladimir Lenin], and <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Mikhail Kalinin].

Upon seizing Petrograd, Stalin was appointed People's Commissar for Nationalities' Affairs. Thereafter, <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| civil war] broke out in Russia, pitting <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Lenin's] Red Army against the <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| White Army], a loose alliance of anti-Bolshevik forces. Lenin formed a five-member <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Politburo], which included Stalin and <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Trotsky]. In May 1918, Lenin dispatched Stalin to the city of <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Tsaritsyn]. Through his new allies, <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Kliment Voroshilov] and <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Semyon Budyonny], Stalin imposed his influence on the military.[ <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[|citation needed] ] Stalin challenged many of the decisions of <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Trotsky] , ordered the killings of many counter-revolutionaries and former Tsarist officers in the Red Army[ <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[|citation needed] ] and burned villages in order to intimidate the peasantry into submission and discourage bandit raids on food shipments.[ <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[|citation needed] ] In May 1919, in order to stem mass desertions on the Western front, Stalin had deserters and renegades publicly executed as traitors.

__** Role in the Polish-Soviet War, 1919–1921 **__

After the Bolshevik victory in the <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Russian Civil War], Poland invaded Ukraine, starting what became known as the <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Polish–Soviet War] , but the Bolsheviks pushed them back into Poland. As commander of the southern front, Stalin was determined to take the Polish-held city of <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Lviv]. This conflicted with the general strategy set by Lenin and Trotsky, which focused on the capture of <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Warsaw] further north. <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[|Trotsky] 's forces engaged those of Polish commander <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Władysław Sikorski] at the <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Battle of Warsaw], but Stalin refused to redirect his troops from Lviv to help. Consequently, the battles for both <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Lviv] and <span style="color: #000000; font-family: Calibri; font-size: 15px; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">[| Warsaw] were lost, and Stalin was blamed. In August 1920, Stalin returned to Moscow, where he defended himself and resigned his military command. At the Ninth Party Conference on 22 September, Trotsky openly criticized Stalin's behavior.


 * __Stalin’s Role In WW2:__ **

In August 1939 he freed Hitler from his fear of the possibility of a war on two fronts by signing a pact of non-aggression with Germany. As a result, a month later, Hitler invaded Poland and precipitated the Second World War.

But, the security offered by the Brest-Litovsk treaty was short-lived. Hitler's rapid victories in the west made Stalin increasingly nervous. Despite repeated attempts to maintain the terms of the pact, in June 1941 Germany invaded the USSR.

__ After the Nazis attacked Russia, he joined the Allies because he was mad that the Nazis betrayed the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact (Non-Aggression Pact) of 1939. Eventually after WWII US and Russia had some issues and it led to the cold war. __

At first, Stalin suffered a nervous breakdown and was unable to command the Red Army or delegate effective control. Furthermore, his purges of army officers in the 1930s had crippled the Soviet military machine.

However, within weeks Stalin had recovered. Although German troops had made huge advances into the heartlands of the USSR and the rest of the government had been evacuated from Moscow, Stalin remained in the Kremlin and begun to take control of the country's ailing military infrastructure.

Industrial plants were moved from European USSR to the east, competent military commanders were allowed to take control of important strategic positions and Soviet ports accepted increasing quantities of lend-lease products from the Western powers. At the same time, Stalin helped to forge a formidable nationalist morale out of the traditional religious and patriotic sentiments of the Russian people.

In December 1941 Russian forces pushed the Germans from their positions around Moscow. Over the next three years counter-offensives at Stalingrad and Kursk further diminished the power of Hitler's eastern army. By late 1944 Soviet forces had entered Eastern Europe and in April 1945 they started the final attack on Berlin.

As Russia's effort turned the war decisively against Germany, Stalin started to jostle for post-war position with the other allied countries. At the Tehran Conference in 1943 and the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences two years later Russian sacrifice and Stalin's imposing diplomatic manner forced Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill to accept Soviet influence in Eastern Europe.

media type="youtube" key="wvqNztRYpRc" height="315" width="420" align="left"

For many millions of Soviet citizens, the death of Stalin in March 1953 was a shattering event. For decades Stalin had been the "father" of the nation, and many grieved as if they had lost a family member.
 * __Life After Stalin:__ **

Joseph Stalin's government was a left-wing government known specifically as a Communist government, however he was an authoritarian ruler. Essentially Stalin had the power to control everything within the Soviet Union. He was a dictator and millions died under his leadership.
 * __Type of Government:__ **

//"When we hang the capitalist they will sell us the rope"// - Stalin

Montefiore, Simon Sebag. Young Stalin. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2007. 27 March 2011.
 * __Books:__ **