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Joseph Stalin

1878 – 1953 Georgian Dictator of the Soviet Union

The dictator who industrialized the Soviet Union and killed millions in terror and famine.

Religion
Trained for the Georgian Orthodox priesthood in his youth, he became a militant atheist and drove the Soviet campaigns to destroy organized religion.
Affiliations
Bolshevik Party; General Secretary from 1922; built a personal dictatorship through terror and the purges.

Stalin used the post of General Secretary to outmaneuver his rivals after Lenin's death and take sole power. He forced through crash industrialization and collectivization, which caused mass famine, and killed or imprisoned millions in the Great Purge. He led the Soviet Union to victory in the Second World War and ruled until his death in 1953.

Connections

  • rival of Adolph Joffe — His death was a protest against Stalin's victory over the opposition.
  • rival of Alexei Rykov — Stalin removed then destroyed him in the last great purge trial.
  • rival of Christian Rakovsky — Tried in 1938 and shot in 1941 on his orders.
  • influenced Enver Hoxha — Remained a devoted Stalinist long after de-Stalinization.
  • rival of Genrikh Yagoda — Ran Stalin's terror, then was consumed by it in 1938.
  • rival of Grigori Sokolnikov — Condemned in a show trial and killed in prison.
  • rival of Grigory Zinoviev — First his ally against Trotsky, then his victim.
  • rival of Grigory Zinoviev — Used then purged him in the first great show trial.
  • ally of Ho Chi Minh — Received Soviet backing for the Vietnamese revolution.
  • rival of Josip Broz Tito — Famously broke with Stalin in 1948.
  • rival of Karl Radek — Recanted and testified at a show trial but still died in the camps.
  • ally of Kim Il-sung — Installed with Soviet backing and approved his invasion of the South.
  • associate of Lavrentiy Beria — His feared enforcer in the final years of terror.
  • associate of Lavrentiy Beria — His secret-police chief and executor of the terror.
  • rival of Leon Trotsky — Drove him into exile and had him assassinated in 1940.
  • rival of Leon Trotsky — His great antagonist who ultimately had him killed.
  • rival of Lev Kamenev — An early ally destroyed in the Great Terror.
  • ally of Mao Zedong — Allied with then strained against the Soviet Union under Stalin.
  • rival of Mao Zedong — Nominal communist ally, but the wary relationship broke into the open Sino-Soviet split by 1960.
  • rival of Maria Spiridonova — Executed on his order during the 1941 Medvedev Forest massacre.
  • associate of Maxim Gorky — Returned to serve as the figurehead of Soviet literature under him.
  • associate of Mikhail Frunze — His death under the surgeon's knife was long rumored to be Stalin's doing.
  • associate of Mikhail Kalinin — Survived as figurehead by loyally deferring to Stalin.
  • rival of Mikhail Tomsky — Killed himself as Stalin's terror closed in.
  • rival of Nadezhda Krupskaya — Stalin clashed with and threatened her after Lenin's death.
  • successor of Nikita Khrushchev — A protege who later denounced his crimes.
  • successor of Nikita Khrushchev — Rose under Stalin, then denounced him after his death.
  • rival of Nikolai Bukharin — Allied with then destroyed by Stalin in the purges.
  • rival of Nikolai Bukharin — Allied with then destroyed him, having him shot in 1938.
  • associate of Nikolai Yezhov — Ran the height of the terror for Stalin, then was blamed and shot.
  • associate of Sergei Kirov — A Stalin ally whose murder Stalin turned into the trigger for the purges.
  • associate of Sergei Kirov — Kirov's 1934 murder became Stalin's pretext for the Great Purge.
  • associate of Vladimir Lenin — Promoted him but in his final testament urged the party to remove him.
  • successor of Vladimir Lenin — Succeeded Lenin as Soviet leader.
  • successor of Vladimir Lenin — Succeeded, after a power struggle, by Stalin.
  • ally of Vyacheslav Molotov — His most durable and loyal deputy.
  • associate of Vyacheslav Molotov — His most loyal and long-serving lieutenant.
  • associate of Vyacheslav Molotov — Longtime foreign minister and loyal deputy.
  • ally of Walter Ulbricht — Built the East German state under Stalin's direction.

In the timeline

Wikipedia