[39] He also read Capital, the 1867 book by German sociological theorist Karl Marx. [910] Within Ukraine, ethnic Poles and Bulgarians died in similar proportions to ethnic Ukrainians. [357], Stalin desired a "cultural revolution",[358] entailing both the creation of a culture for the "masses" and the wider dissemination of previously elite culture. [649] In 1952, he also eliminated the Politburo and replaced it with a larger version which he called the Presidium. [82] They launched attacks on the government's Cossack troops and pro-Tsarist Black Hundreds,[83] co-ordinating some of their operations with the Menshevik militia. [328] [911] Despite any lack of clear intent on Stalin's part, the historian Norman Naimark noted that although there may not be sufficient "evidence to convict him in an international court of justice as a genocidaire [...] that does not mean that the event itself cannot be judged as genocide". [614] When the US and UK remained opposed to this, Stalin sought to force their hand by blockading Berlin in June 1948. [292] In 1925, the two moved into open opposition to Stalin and Bukharin. [700] After Lenin's death, Stalin relied heavily on Lenin's writings—far more so than those of Marx and Engels—to guide him in the affairs of state. [549] On 8 August, in between the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet army invaded Japanese-occupied Manchuria and defeated the Kwantung Army. Initially Stalin refused to repeal the Sino-Soviet Treaty of 1945, which significantly benefited the Soviet Union over China, although in January 1950 he relented and agreed to sign a new treaty between the two countries. Stalin and fellow senior Bolshevik Leon Trotsky both endorsed Lenin's plan of action, but it was initially opposed by Kamenev and other party members. Churchill was concerned that this was the case and unsuccessfully tried to convince the U.S. that the Western Allies should pursue the same goal. A communist ideologically committed to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism, Stalin formalised these ideas as Marxism–Leninism, while his own policies are known as Stalinism. [735] To appear taller, he wore stacked shoes, and stood on a small platform during parades. [373] His relationship with Nadya was also strained amid their arguments and her mental health problems. [894], Official records reveal 799,455 documented executions in the Soviet Union between 1921 and 1953; 681,692 of these were carried out between 1937 and 1938, the years of the Great Purge. [471] One of the most noted instances was the Katyn massacre of April and May 1940, in which around 22,000 members of the Polish armed forces, police, and intelligentsia were executed. [582], In the post-war period there were often food shortages in Soviet cities,[583] and the USSR experienced a major famine from 1946 to 1947. [423] The second Moscow Show Trial took place in January 1937,[424] and the third in March 1938, in which Bukharin and Rykov were accused of involvement in the alleged Trotskyite-Zinovievite terrorist plot and sentenced to death. [363] The government's anti-religious campaign was re-intensified,[364] with increased funding given to the League of Militant Atheists. [406] At the Communist International's 7th Congress, held in July–August 1935, the Soviet government encouraged Marxist-Leninists to unite with other leftists as part of a popular front against fascism. Son nom ne dit plus rien, ou presque. [451] He sought to maintain Soviet neutrality, hoping that a German war against France and Britain would lead to Soviet dominance in Europe. Par Philippe Manche. [455], As Britain and France seemed unwilling to commit to an alliance with the Soviet Union, Stalin saw a better deal with the Germans. [85] On arrival, he met Lenin's wife Nadezhda Krupskaya, who informed him that the venue had been moved to Tampere in the Grand Duchy of Finland. [392] The Soviet government believed that food supplies should be prioritized for the urban workforce;[393] for Stalin, the fate of Soviet industrialisation was far more important than the lives of the peasantry. [432] During these years, approximately 1.6 million people were arrested,[433] 700,000 were shot, and an unknown number died under NKVD torture. [763] Other historians linked his brutality not to any personality trait, but to his unwavering commitment to the survival of the Soviet Union and the international Marxist–Leninist cause. [538] Roosevelt and Churchill conceded to Stalin's demand that Germany pay the Soviet Union 20 billion dollars in reparations, and that his country be permitted to annex Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in exchange for entering the war against Japan. [872] Various biographers have described him as a dictator,[873] an autocrat,[874] or accused him of practicing Caesarism. [858] One of them, Konstantin Kuzakov, later taught philosophy at the Leningrad Military Mechanical Institute, but never met his father. [659] The body was embalmed,[660] and then placed on display in Moscow's House of Unions for three days. [290] He was supported in this by Bukharin, who like Stalin believed that the Left Opposition's proposals would plunge the Soviet Union into instability. By 1937, he had complete personal control over the party and state. [552], Stalin attended the Potsdam Conference in July–August 1945, alongside his new British and U.S. counterparts, Prime Minister Clement Attlee and President Harry Truman. [437] Party functionaries readily carried out their commands and sought to ingratiate themselves with Stalin to avoid becoming the victim of the purge. [717] The socio-economic nature of Stalin's Soviet Union has also been much debated, varyingly being labelled a form of state socialism, state capitalism, bureaucratic collectivism, or a totally unique mode of production. [502] The Internationale was dropped as the country's national anthem, to be replaced with a more patriotic song. It is hard for me to reconcile the courtesy and consideration he showed me personally with the ghastly cruelty of his wholesale liquidations. [55] His militant rhetoric proved divisive among the city's Marxists, some of whom suspected that he might be an agent provocateur working for the government. [473] He increasingly focused on appeasement with the Germans to delay any conflict with them. [173] In the early hours of 25 October, Stalin joined Lenin in a Central Committee meeting in the Smolny Institute, from where the Bolshevik coup—the October Revolution—was directed. L’URSS de Staline peut donc être considérée comme un État totalitaire. [308] In 1927, there was some argument in the party over Soviet policy regarding China. [108], In March 1908, Stalin was arrested and interned in Bailov Prison in Baku. [617] Monarchy was abolished in Bulgaria and Romania. [846] Nadezdha suspected that this was the case,[847] and committed suicide in 1932. [604] The Soviets invaded Finland in November 1939, yet despite numerical inferiority, the Finns kept the Red Army at bay. [603], After the war, Stalin sought to retain Soviet dominance across Eastern Europe while expanding its influence in Asia. [148] In March 1914, concerned over a potential escape attempt, the authorities moved Stalin to the hamlet of Kureika on the edge of the Arctic Circle. [878] The biographer Dmitri Volkogonov characterised him as "one of the most powerful figures in human history",[879] while McDermott stated that Stalin had "concentrated unprecedented political authority in his hands",[880] and Service noted that by the late 1930s, Stalin "had come closer to personal despotism than almost any monarch in history". [516] Germany attempted an encirclement attack at Kursk, which was successfully repulsed by the Soviets. We have fallen behind the advanced countries by fifty to a hundred years. Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dzе Jughashvili, 18 December [O.S. He grew increasingly concerned that senior political and military figures might try to oust him; he prevented any of them from becoming powerful enough to rival him and had their apartments bugged with listening devices. [611] At the second Cominform conference, held in Bucharest in June 1948, East European communist leaders all denounced Tito's government, accusing them of being fascists and agents of Western capitalism. [243] In taking this view, some Marxists accused him of bending too much to bourgeois nationalism, while others accused him of remaining too Russocentric by seeking to retain these nations within the Russian state. [647] In October 1952, Stalin gave an hour and a half speech at the Central Committee plenum. Il poursuit son action en Géorgie et en Russie : arrêté de nombreuses fois, il est déporté par la police du tsar, chaque fois soit il s'évade, soit i… [299] Some of those United Opposition members who were repentant were later rehabilitated and returned to government. [262] Stalin believed this would encourage independence sentiment among non-Russians, instead arguing that ethnic minorities would be content as "autonomous republics" within the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic. [714] Stalin argued that the Jews possessed a "national character" but were not a "nation" and were thus unassimilable. [796] He protected several Soviet writers, such as Mikhail Bulgakov, even when their work was labelled harmful to his regime. Le régime cherche à imposer son idéologie à l'ensemble de la société aussi bien dans la vie publique que privée. [556] Various East European communists also visited Stalin in Moscow. [90] Lenin and Stalin disagreed with this decision[91] and later privately discussed how they could continue the robberies for the Bolshevik cause. "Joseph Stalin: National hero or cold-blooded murderer? À quatorze ans, il est envoyé dans un monastère orthodoxe à Tiflis pour y devenir prêtre comme le souhaite sa mère, qui était une femme très pieuse. [528] At Tehran, the trio agreed that to prevent Germany rising to military prowess yet again, the German state should be broken up. [789] By the 1920s, he was also suspicious and conspiratorial, prone to believing that people were plotting against him and that there were vast international conspiracies behind acts of dissent. [575] Capital punishment was abolished in 1947 but reinstalled in 1950. [431] He also initiated "national operations", the ethnic cleansing of non-Soviet ethnic groups—among them Poles, Germans, Latvians, Finns, Greeks, Koreans, and Chinese—through internal or external exile. [208] He befriended two military figures, Kliment Voroshilov and Semyon Budyonny, who would form the nucleus of his military and political support base. Illness and Inhumanity in Stalin's Gulag", "Reactions of Chinese Citizens to the Death of Stalin: Internal Communist Party Reports", "Stalin, the Pact with Nazi Germany, and the Origins of Postwar Soviet Diplomatic Historiography", "Natural Disaster and Human Actions in the Soviet Famine of 1931–1933", "The Scale and Nature of German and Soviet Repression and Mass Killings, 1930–45", "Victims of Stalinism and the Soviet Secret Police: The Comparability and Reliability of the Archival Data. [698] Stalin biographer Oleg Khlevniuk nevertheless believed that the pair developed a "strong bond" over the years,[699] while Kotkin suggested that Stalin's friendship with Lenin was "the single most important relationship in Stalin's life". [159] Stalin was in the city when the February Revolution took place; uprisings broke out in Petrograd—as Saint Petersburg had been renamed—and Tsar Nicholas II abdicated to escape being violently overthrown. His gang ambushed the armed convoy in Yerevan Square with gunfire and home-made bombs. [104] In Baku he had reassembled his gang, the Outfit,[105] which continued to attack Black Hundreds and raised finances by running protection rackets, counterfeiting currency, and carrying out robberies. There were mass expulsions from the party,[427] with Stalin commanding foreign communist parties to also purge anti-Stalinist elements. [408], When the Spanish Civil War broke out in July 1936, the Soviets sent 648 aircraft and 407 tanks to the left-wing Republican faction; these were accompanied by 3,000 Soviet troops and 42,000 members of the International Brigades set up by the Communist International. Despite initial setbacks, the Soviet Red Army repelled the German incursion and captured Berlin in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. [710] This concept synthesised Marxist and Leninist ideas with nationalist ideals,[692] and served to discredit Trotsky—who promoted the idea of "permanent revolution"—by presenting the latter as a defeatist with little faith in Russian workers' abilities to construct socialism. After the heist, Stalin settled in Baku with his wife and son. [717] Montefiore thought Stalin's brutality marked him out as a "natural extremist";[792] Service suggested he had tendencies toward a paranoid and sociopathic personality disorder. [86] At the conference Stalin met Lenin for the first time. [543] Many Soviet soldiers engaged in looting, pillaging, and rape, both in Germany and parts of Eastern Europe. Cette bureaucratisation a progressivement confisqué le pouvoir des mains des soviet… [75] Georgia was particularly affected. [239], The Soviet government sought to bring neighbouring states under its domination; in February 1921 it invaded the Menshevik-governed Georgia,[240] while in April 1921, Stalin ordered the Red Army into Turkestan to reassert Russian state control. [395], In 1935–36, Stalin oversaw a new constitution; its dramatic liberal features were designed as propaganda weapons, for all power rested in the hands of Stalin and his Politburo. [543] After receiving a complaint about this from Yugoslav communist Milovan Djilas, Stalin asked how after experiencing the traumas of war a soldier could "react normally? [721] He remained proud of his Georgian identity,[722] and throughout his life retained a heavy Georgian accent when speaking Russian. [288] Stalin built up a retinue of his supporters in the Central Committee,[289] while the Left Opposition were gradually removed from their positions of influence. [836] According to Service, Stalin "regarded women as a resource for sexual gratification and domestic comfort". [656] An autopsy revealed that he had died of a cerebral hemorrhage and that he also suffered from severe damage to his cerebral arteries due to atherosclerosis. [687] He also believed that this proletarian state would need to introduce repressive measures against foreign and domestic "enemies" to ensure the full crushing of the propertied classes,[688] and thus the class war would intensify with the advance of socialism. [589] In April 1949, the Western powers established the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), an international military alliance of capitalist countries. [657] It is possible that Stalin was murdered. In June 1945, Stalin adopted the title of Generalissimus,[559] and stood atop Lenin's Mausoleum to watch a celebratory parade led by Zhukov through Red Square. [513] The Soviet victory there marked a major turning point in the war;[514] in commemoration, Stalin declared himself Marshal of the Soviet Union. [382], The Soviet Union experienced a major famine which peaked in the winter of 1932–33;[383] between five and seven million people died. "[822] Conquest stated that although Stalin had Jewish associates, he promoted anti-Semitism. « Mais les distributeurs ont catégoriquement rejeté cette proposition », a dit le ministre. [341] The USSR underwent a massive economic transformation. Not the Last Word", Stalin Library (with all 13 volumes of Stalin's, Library of Congress: Revelations from the Russian Archives, Electronic archive of Stalin's letters and presentations, Joseph Stalin Newsreels // Net-Film Newsreels and Documentary Films Archive, Stalin Biography from Spartacus Educational, A List of Key Documentary Material on Stalin, Stalinka: The Digital Library of Staliniana, Electronic archive of Stalin’s letters and presentations, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Russian Revolution, Russian Civil War, Polish–Soviet War, 17th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 18th Congress of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship and Alliance, Sino-Soviet Treaty of Friendship, Alliance and Mutual Assistance, 19th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Aggravation of class struggle under socialism, National delimitation in the Soviet Union, Demolition of Cathedral of Christ the Saviour, Case of Trotskyist Anti-Soviet Military Organization, 1906 Bolshevik raid on the Tsarevich Giorgi, Declaration of the Rights of the Peoples of Russia, 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 22nd Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Political Administration of the Ministry of Defence, General Jewish Labour Bund in Lithuania, Poland and Russia, League of Russian Revolutionary Social Democracy Abroad, League of Struggle for the Emancipation of the Working Class, Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania, 19th Presidium of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, 18th Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 17th Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 16th Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 15th Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 14th Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 13th Politburo of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 12th Politburo of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 11th Politburo of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 10th Politburo of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 9th Politburo of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 8th Politburo of the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks), 1947–1948 Civil War in Mandatory Palestine, North Yemen-South Yemen Border conflict of 1972, Struggle against political abuse of psychiatry in the Soviet Union, Sovereignty of Puerto Rico during the Cold War, Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War, List of Eastern Bloc agents in the United States, American espionage in the Soviet Union and Russian Federation, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Joseph_Stalin&oldid=996008447, 19th-century poets from Georgia (country), 20th-century poets from Georgia (country), Russian Social Democratic Labour Party members, Heads of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, Politburo of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union members, Honorary Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences, People of World War II from Georgia (country), Recipients of the Order of the Red Banner, Recipients of the Order of Suvorov, 1st class, First convocation members of the Verkhovna Rada of the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, Articles containing Georgian-language text, Articles containing Russian-language text, Articles with Ukrainian-language sources (uk), Short description is different from Wikidata, Wikipedia indefinitely semi-protected pages, Wikipedia indefinitely move-protected pages, Pages using collapsible list with both background and text-align in titlestyle, Pages using multiple image with auto scaled images, Pages using Sister project links with wikidata mismatch, Pages using Sister project links with hidden wikidata, Articles with Encyclopædia Britannica links, Wikipedia articles with BIBSYS identifiers, Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with CINII identifiers, Wikipedia articles with MusicBrainz identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 24 December 2020, at 01:16. [719] In private he used coarse language, although avoided doing so in public. A Welsh journalist breaks the news in the … [430] That month, Stalin and Yezhov signed Order No. [216] During the war, he proved his worth to the Central Committee, displaying decisiveness, determination, and a willingness to take on responsibility in conflict situations. [887] Stalin ensured that these works gave very little attention to his early life, particularly because he did not wish to emphasise his Georgian origins in a state numerically dominated by Russians. [396] He declared that "socialism, which is the first phase of communism, has basically been achieved in this country". [320] In January 1930, the Politburo approved the liquidation of the kulak class; accused kulaks were rounded up and exiled to other parts of the country or to concentration camps. [101] In August 1907, he attended the Seventh Congress of the Second International—an international socialist organisation—in Stuttgart, Germany. [914] In 1956, Khrushchev gave his "Secret Speech", titled "On the Cult of Personality and Its Consequences", to a closed session of the Party's 20th Congress. [459] In August 1939, the Soviet Union signed the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact with Germany, a non-aggression pact negotiated by Molotov and German foreign minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. [612] It was aimed for economic autarky within the Eastern Bloc. [279] Stalin also developed close relations with the trio at the heart of the secret police (first the Cheka and then its replacement, the State Political Directorate): Felix Dzerzhinsky, Genrikh Yagoda, and Vyacheslav Menzhinsky.