Read the full biography of Stalin. Post-war economy of the USSR

Disputes over the life of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin still do not subside. This is a man who was 2 generations ahead of all other people in his understanding of not only the state apparatus, but also global sociology. Stalin’s nationality even now evokes many opinions; as a result, a lot of versions have been put forward, several of which will now be considered.

Mystery of origin

Exploring a large number of archives, you can stumble upon various references and facts that may speak in favor of one or another theory. Thus, the Armenian version says that Stalin’s nationality is directly connected with his mother, who, due to her poverty, was forced to work as an ordinary laundress for a rich merchant. After she became pregnant, she was quickly married off to But this version still does not provide enough facts to understand what nationality Stalin was.

Georgian theory says that its roots go back to one prince named Egnatoshvili. By the way, already at the time when Stalin came to power, he maintained contacts with his brothers.

Russian version

According to Russian theory (if it can be considered such), Stalin's father was a nobleman from Smolensk, and his name was Nikolai Przhevalsky. He traveled a lot and was a fairly famous scientist. In 1878, he became very ill, for which he was treated in Gori, in the Caucasus. Here Przhevalsky meets a distant relative of the prince, her name is Ekaterina, who went bankrupt and was supposed to marry an ordinary shoemaker Vissarion Dzhugashvili. He, in turn, was a fairly respected man, but there was grief in his family, which slightly overshadowed the entire existence of their couple. The fact is that their three very young children died. Against this background, Vissarion began to drink a lot and often raised his hand to his wife. But even despite all the hardships of her life, Catherine was still able to charm the scientist, who was so imbued with her beauty that he continued to send her money.

It is worth noting that this version, which should shed light on Stalin’s nationality, is in fact quite vulnerable. I would also like to add that she is not as Russian as it might seem at first glance, since Przhevalsky has roots from Belarus.

It seemed that Stalin understood perfectly well that the entire society was convinced of his illegal origin. Then my father's drunkenness explains a lot. Most likely, he knew, but he just couldn't accept it. So, in one of the drunken fights he was killed, but 11-year-old Soso did not experience any feelings about this.

Life

Of course, Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich was and remains a cult personality. Despite the fact that there are constantly various debates about his life, more and more questions appear in his biography than answers. His personality continues to give rise to many myths, which biographers and researchers are trying to understand. You can even start with the birthplace of the dictator. According to some sources, the first entry speaks of the city of Gori, although it is possible that Stalin could well have been born not far from Batumi. Next is this famous blood connection with his father and resemblance to the traveler Przhevalsky.

The date of birth also causes a lot of controversy. Historians managed to find the accounting book of the Gori Assumption Cathedral Church, in which the birth record differed from the date that is generally considered official. According to the old style, it was December 6, 1878, and the exact same number is on the certificate of graduation from theological school.

Initially everything official documents contained the true date of birth of Stalin, but in 1921, by his personal order, these numbers were changed in all documents, and they began to indicate not 1878, but 1879. As political scientists say, this was a necessary measure in order to hide not only his noble origin, but also his illegitimacy.

Every year it becomes more and more difficult to explain why the biography indicates two dates of birth, what nationality Stalin was, and a large number of different nuances from his life. Despite the fact that he independently surrounded himself with a certain halo of obscurity, there was a small circle of people especially close to him who knew a lot about him. This is probably why they did not die a natural death and under rather mysterious circumstances.

Stalin's life is replete with many pseudonyms, of which there are a total of up to 30.

Governing body

The period of his tenure as the first person of the state was marked by a huge number of executions, collectivization and one of the most terrible wars, which carried away the mass human lives worldwide. Naturally, the USSR should have appeared to everyone as a country in which progress, harmony and devotion to its leader were developed.

Portraits of Stalin were hung everywhere, and his era became the time of the fastest economic development. Thanks to propaganda, absolutely all the undertakings of the “father of nations” were praised, this was especially true regarding the great infrastructure projects that were built very quickly, turning an agricultural country that was at its peak of backwardness into an industrial state. This was the main goal, but in order to achieve it, it was necessary to expand the volume of agricultural production to meet the needs of the working class. So collectivization was a great solution for this. Private farmers were literally taken away from their lands and forced to work in large enterprises Agriculture state type.

The whole truth about the period of the leader’s reign is still impossible to find. This is due to the fact that in fact neither modern world, much less during his life they did not talk about it publicly. The entire period of Stalin (while he was head of state) was determined not only by repression and harsh dictatorship. We can confidently note a large number of positive nuances that have largely influenced the current development of the Russian people:

• Work conscientiously in order to benefit society first of all.
• Victory of 1945.
• The dignity of an engineer and an officer.
• Independent country.
• The innocence of high school girls.
• Moral.
• Heroine mothers.
• Chastity media.
• Prohibited abortions.
• Open churches.
• Prohibitions on: Russophobia, pornography, corruption, prostitution, drug addiction and homosexuality.
• Patriotism.

The name of Stalin is associated with his desire not only to unite, but subsequently to strengthen the country into the most short term, and thanks to his energy and will to win, no one had the impression that he was unable to translate his plans into reality.

Family

Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich very carefully hid all information about himself, and his personal life was no exception. He very carefully destroyed all kinds of documents that in one way or another spoke about his family and love affairs. Thus, the modern generation can present a far from complete picture, which consists of a small number of verified facts and testimonies of several eyewitnesses, whose stories are replete with errors and inaccuracies.

The first, when he was only 26 years old, was Ekaterina (Kato) Svanidze. At that time, he did not yet have his own significant party nickname, nor any special “political weight” in society, but, despite this, he was already famous for his reputation as an inveterate revolutionary who strove for the universal idea of ​​equality. But at the same time, I would like to add that even those bloody methods and means by which goals were achieved gave the Bolsheviks a certain flair of romanticism. This is how the famous pseudonym Koba appeared. It was literary hero like Robin Hood, who robbed the rich and gave everything to the poor.

Kato was only 16 years old when they got married and began to live in a shabby room, having practically no means of subsistence. Her father was as much a revolutionary as Soso himself, so he was even happy about their marriage, since Koba already had sufficient authority among the Caucasian freedom fighters. Despite the fact that huge amounts of money passed through his hands almost every day, not a penny of it went towards improving the family life and hearth.

Due to his busy revolutionary life, he practically did not appear at home, so his wife spent most of her time alone. In 1907 they were born common son, who is given the name Yakov. Thus, the life of the poor woman becomes much more difficult, and she falls ill with typhus. Since there are no extra money they didn’t have it (due to the fact that everything went to the needs of the party), it dies. As eyewitnesses say, Soso was very upset by the death of his beloved woman and even began to fight his enemies with redoubled fury. Yakov, meanwhile, began to live with Kato’s parents, where he stayed until he was 14 years old.

The very young Nadya Alliluyeva became Soso’s second lover. They sincerely loved each other, despite the fact that the manifestation of tender feelings in those years, especially for such a fierce fighter for the revolution, was considered weakness. So, already in 1921, Stalin’s second son was born, who was named Vasily. At the same time, he takes Yakov too. Thus, Koba finally finds a full-fledged family. But it repeats itself again old story, when he has absolutely no time for any ordinary human joys on the path to revolution. In 1925, little Svetlana appeared in the family.

Very little is known about the relationship between the spouses; a large number of mysteries remain to this day, not only about their life together, but also about death.

It is worth noting that life with a man who has one like Stalin was inexplicably difficult. It is known that he could remain silent for three days, being in deep thought. It was difficult for Nadezhda not only because her husband was a tyrant - she had no way of communicating. She had no friends, and men were simply afraid to even start dating her friendly relations, because they feared the wrath of her husband, who might think that his woman was being pursued and “shoot.” Hope needed ordinary, human, homely, warm relationships.

Suspicious death of wife

On November 8, 1932, Nadezhda Aliluyeva, Stalin’s wife, died under strange circumstances, whose nationality cannot be established unambiguously, since her mother was a true German and her father was half Gypsy. The official version was that it was a suicide; she allegedly took the fatal shot to the head on her own. As for the media reports about the death of Nadezhda, Stalin only allowed it to be said that she suddenly left this world, but what was the cause of death was not indicated.

Another point that deserves attention is Koba’s attempts to attribute everything to the fact that his wife died due to appendicitis, but two (and according to some sources - three) experts who arrived at the scene were supposed to give an opinion on death, but refused to give your signature on such a document. Her death still causes a lot of controversy, and therefore this moment There are several options for this incident.

Several versions of the death of Stalin's wife

At the time of her death, Nadezhda was only 31 years old, and there are a lot of rumors about this. As for some conspiracy theory of what is happening, it is worth noting such a figure as Trotsky. At one time he was disliked by the government and Stalin personally, so through a certain Bukharin he tried to put emotional pressure on the leader’s wife. They tried to convince her that her husband was pursuing too aggressive a policy, organizing a deliberate famine in Ukraine, collectivization and mass executions. Trotsky thought that thanks to the political scandal that Nadezhda was about to create, Stalin could be overthrown without resorting to violence. Thus, his wife could simply shoot herself from the information she received, which she could not accept.

According to another version, at the celebration of the 15th anniversary October revolution, during a banquet in the Kremlin, Stalin said something insulting to his wife, after which she defiantly left the table and went to her apartment, and then the servants heard a shot.

There is also a version that was confirmed by the head of Joseph Vissarionovich’s security. According to his story, after the banquet Stalin did not go home, but went to one of his dachas and took the general’s wife with him. Nadezhda, in turn, was very worried and called the house security phone. The officer on duty confirmed that her husband was indeed there, and not alone, but with a woman. Thus, the wife, having learned about this, could not survive the betrayal and committed suicide. Stalin never visited Nadezhda's grave.

Chief's Mother

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, whose nationality and origin are shrouded in mystery, as well as everything connected with his personal life, raises many questions. Stalin's relationship with his own mother was also strange. Many facts spoke about this, and even the fact that he introduced her to his grandchildren only when the eldest turned 15. Ekaterina Georgievna had practically no education, she could not write, she spoke only Georgian. Stalin's mother, whose nationality was not controversial, was a fairly sociable woman and was never afraid to express her personal opinion on any matter, even sometimes on political topics. She was not at all hampered by her lack of education. Some conclusions can be drawn from their correspondence, which can hardly be called letters, but most likely more like notes. It is worth noting that, despite such dryness of communication, it cannot be said that the son did not care about his mother. She was under constant and close surveillance the best doctors, but despite this, due to age, her health did not improve. So, in May 1937, she fell ill with pneumonia, which is why she died on July 4th. The relationship was so bad that he could not even attend her funeral, but limited himself to a wreath with an inscription.

Death of the "Father of Nations"

The year was 1953. Stalin's death has already for a long time many wanted. On March 1, he spent the whole day in his office; he did not look at important government mail and did not even have lunch. Without his permission, no one had the right to go to him, but already at 11 o’clock in the evening one of the duty officers went there at his own peril and risk, and before his eyes arose scary picture. After walking through several rooms, he saw Stalin lying on the floor and could not utter a word. For several days doctors fought for his life.

Thus, the year of Stalin's death was marked by conflicting opinions in society. Some were glad that the days of the dictator and tyrant had come to their logical end. Some, on the contrary, considered the leader’s inner circle to be traitors who, in one way or another, were involved in his death.

It is impossible to be 100% sure that conspirators from the top of the Politburo were involved in his death. Judging by some of the memoirs of Comrade Khrushchev himself and a number of close people, the leader in this year no longer had the opportunity to govern the state, he was showing insanity and paranoia, which meant the inexorable approach of death. Despite the fact that he is no longer there, Stalin’s famous quotes have reached us, like “Shoot!” or “It doesn’t matter how they voted, it’s important how they counted.” They will be relevant for a long time, because the period of the life of the “father of nations” is forever included in all textbooks and remains in the memory of many people.

Stalin: Russian man of Georgian nationality

In order to understand his personality, it is necessary to draw your conclusions solely based on the few facts that are known from the direct speech of the leader himself. One thing is certain: Joseph Stalin, whose nationality can cause a lot of controversy, is a rather ambiguous personality. But, be that as it may, his assessment will always have several elements of subjectivity, which is based on everyone’s personal understanding of world and Soviet history.

In the modern world, Stalin’s nationality may cause some controversy, this is all due to a certain aura of mystery of his birth and origin, but, as the leader himself liked to say: “I am not a European, but a Russified Georgian-Asian.”

From Stalin's biography it is clear that he was an ambiguous, but bright and strong personality.

Joseph Dzhugashvili was born on December 6 (18), 1878, in the city of Gori, into a simple poor family. His father, Vissarion Ivanovich, was a shoemaker by profession. Mother , Ekaterina Georgievna, worked as a charwoman.

In 1888, Joseph became a student at the Gori Orthodox Theological School. Six years later he was enrolled in a seminary in Tiflis. As a student, Dzhugashvili became acquainted with the basics of Marxism and soon became close to underground revolutionaries.

In the 5th year of his studies he was expelled from the seminary. The certificate issued to him stated that he could apply for a position as a teacher in a public school.

Life before the revolution

Anyone who is interested short biography Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich , should know that before the revolution he served in the newspaper Pravda and was one of its most prominent employees. During his activities, Dzhugashvili was persecuted by the authorities more than once.

The work “Marxism and the National Question” gave weight to the future Generalissimo in Marxist society. After this, V.I. Lenin began to entrust him with the solution of many important issues.

During the civil war, Stalin proved himself to be an excellent military organizer. On November 29, 1922, he, along with Lenin, Sverdlov and Trotsky, entered the Bureau of the Central Committee.

When Lenin, due to illness, retired from political activity, Stalin, together with Kamenev and Zinoviev, organized the “troika”, which was in opposition to L. Trotsky. In the same year he was elected General Secretary of the Central Committee.

Against the backdrop of a difficult political struggle, at the XIII Congress of the RCP, Stalin announced that he wanted to resign. He was retained as Secretary General by a majority vote.

Having gained a foothold in power, Stalin began to pursue a policy of collectivization. Under him, heavy industry began to actively develop. Against the backdrop of the formation of collective farms and other changes, a policy of severe terror was pursued.

Role in WWII

According to some historians, Stalin was to blame for the USSR's poor preparation for war. He is also blamed for huge losses. It is believed that he ignored intelligence reports about an imminent attack by Nazi Germany, even though he was told the exact date.

At the very beginning of the Second World War, Stalin showed himself to be a bad strategist. He made illogical, incompetent decisions. According to G. K Zhukov, the situation changed after Battle of Stalingrad when a turning point occurred in the war.

In 1943, Stalin decided to create atomic bomb. In February 1945, He took part in the Yalta Conference, at which a new world order was established.

Personal life

Stalin was married twice. The first wife was E. Svanidze, the second was N. Alliluyeva. He had three children of his own and an adopted son, A.F. Sergeev.

The fate of his second wife and his own sons was tragic. The daughter of Joseph Vissarionovich, Svetlana, spent her entire life in exile.

According to A.F. Sergeev, at home Stalin was good-natured, affectionate, and joked a lot and often.

Other biography options

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On May 17, 1874, Stalin's parents, 22-year-old Vissarion (Beso) Dzhugashvili and 17-year-old Ekaterina (Keke) Geladze, got married in the Assumption Cathedral in the Georgian town of Gori. Beso was a respected artisan from Baramov's workshop and was considered among Keke's friends eligible bachelor. Keke later wrote in her memoirs, compiled in August 1935 against the wishes of her son, that she, too, “stood out among her friends, was desirable and beautiful girl».

The main of the groom's two friends was Yakov Egnatashvili (Koba), a wealthy merchant and wrestler, local hero. Keke later recalled that he always tried to help her and Beso create a family.” The local priest, Father Christopher Charkviani, a friend of the family, sang so well at the ceremony that Yakov Egnatashvili gave him ten rubles, a considerable sum at that time.

The parents of both the bride and groom were serfs of local princes freed by Tsar Alexander II. Beso's grandfather, Zaza, an Ossetian, a serf of Prince Badur Machabeli, took part in the uprising of Prince Elizbar Eristavi against Russia in 1804. Zaza's grandson, Beso, went to work at the shoe factory of the Armenian Joseph Baramov, which prepared shoes for local detachments of the Russian army.

Catherine-Keke's father, Glakha Geladze, was once a serf of Prince Amilakhvari. He worked as a potter and gardener, but died young. After this, the Keke family moved to Gori.

Ekaterina (Keke) Geladze, mother of Stalin

Stalin's formal father, Beso Dzhugashvili, at first seemed to be a good family man. He believed in God and always went to church. Beso was a thin and dark man with black eyebrows and a mustache, wearing a Circassian burka, a pointed hat and baggy pants. Intelligent, proud, although gloomy, Beso spoke four languages ​​(Georgian, Russian, Turkish and Armenian) and recited “The Knight in the Skin of the Tiger” by heart. Soon after marrying Keke, he left Baramov’s workshop and, with the help of his patron Egnatashvili, opened his own shoe shop. The family where Stalin was soon born lived quite prosperously.

9 months after the wedding, the newlyweds had a son, Mikhail. Egnatashvili, who continued to be “very helpful” to the family, became the boy’s godfather. But two months later the baby died. Beso started drinking out of grief. On December 24, 1876, a second son, Georgy, was born into the family of Stalin’s parents. Egnatashvili again became the godfather, however, Georgiy also died of measles on June 19, 1877.

Beso started drinking even harder. An icon of St. George was brought into the house. Keke and Beso went to pray at a church located on the nearby Gorijvari mountain. Keke became pregnant for the third time and vowed that if the child survived, she would go on pilgrimage. On December 6, 1878, she gave birth to her third son.

According to Simon Montefiore, December 6, 1878 appeared as the date of Stalin’s birth in all information about him until 1920. But in 1920, Stalin gave a Swedish newspaper a different date - December 21, 1879. In 1925, he instructed his secretary Tovstukha to consider it official. For what purpose he did this is unclear. Perhaps, back in tsarist times, Stalin changed his birth date in some documents in order to avoid military service. But this is only one possible explanation.

On December 17, the boy, who would later be recognized under the name Stalin, was christened Joseph, diminutively Soso. Soso was weak, fragile, thin, and was often sick. The second and third toes on his left foot were fused. Yakov Egnatashvili did not take part in the baptism ceremony this time (after the death of two children, Stalin’s parents began to fear that he had an “unlucky hand”). However, later Soso and his mother invariably called the family patron “Godfather Yakov.”

The young parents made the promised pilgrimage. Keke did not have enough milk, and Egnatashvili’s wife helped feed the child. Her children and Soso became foster brothers.

Soso learned to speak early. He loved flowers and Georgian melodies. Beso's small enterprise flourished - he hired apprentices and ten employees. The wealth of young Stalin's family, of course, was quite relative. However, Khrushchev later took advantage of rumors about him to expose the “cult of personality.” “There was a rumor that [Stalin’s] father was not a worker at all,” Khrushchev wrote. - [He] had a shoe shop that employed ten or more people. At that time it was considered an enterprise.” Soon Keke became friends with Maria and Arshak Ter-Petrosyan. Arshak was a wealthy army supplier, and his son Kamo later became a famous bank robber.

Keke adored her son and thanked God that he did not die like her two firstborns. But Beso's commercial success soon turned out to have an unpleasant downside for the family. Clients of Stalin's father often paid him according to Georgian custom - with wine. Beso's addiction to alcohol grew and grew. His hands began to shake, and he could no longer sew boots himself. Priest Charkviani became Beso's bosom drinking buddy. Almost every day, a couple of them returned from the dukhan (tavern) completely drunk. It is possible that Beso was also driven to drunkenness by rumors widely spread among the residents of Gori.

Official image of Mad Beso Dzhugashvili, shoemaker, alcoholic. It is still unknown whether he was Stalin's father

They were that Beso was not in fact the parent of his sons. Many townspeople attributed their paternity to Yakov (Koba) Egnatashvili or the head of the Gori police Damian Davrishevi. Frustrated, Dzhugashvili began to get involved in drunken fights every now and then and earned the nickname Mad Beso. It is difficult to say to what extent the rumors were grounded. But the constant and generous patronage of the wealthy Egnatashvili to the initially poor family of Stalin’s parents cannot but lead to reflection. Yakov-Koba lived large, owned several profitable dukhans (taverns), and was engaged in winemaking. He was fond of wrestling and was a champion in a city where many athletes lived. A phrase from Keke’s memoirs: Egnatashvili “always tried to help us create our family” - perhaps contains some hidden hint...

Yakov (Koba) Egnatashvili, wrestler, owner of several dukhans (taverns). Possibly Stalin's father

Another candidate for Stalin’s father, policeman Damian Davrishevi, also constantly helped Keke when she complained about her husband’s drunkenness. According to the recollections of fellow countrymen, “everyone in Gori knew about Damian’s connection with Soso’s beautiful mother.”

Joseph, son of the chief of the Gori police, Damian Davrishevi. Possibly Stalin's paternal brother

Stalin himself once said that his father was actually a priest. Thus, we get a third candidate for parents - Father Charkviani. Keke, in her memoirs, clearly took pride in being a “desirable and beautiful girl.” They say that already in old age she advised Nina Beria, the wife of the famous Lavrenty, to have lovers and indulged in very frank conversations about sex: “In my youth I ran a household in the same house and, having met handsome guy, didn’t miss hers.” Stalin did not reject rumors about his own mother either. When in last years In his life, he talked with his Georgian protégé Mgeladze, who “gave the impression that... Stalin is the illegitimate son of Yakov Egnatashvili.” And at one reception in 1934, he said: “My father was a priest.” Another thing that speaks in favor of the candidacy of a priest is that only children of the clergy were accepted into the theological school, and, according to his mother, Stalin was married off to the son of a priest.

In the absence of the Beso family, all three possible fathers helped in raising young Soso: he lived with Charkviani, he was protected by the Davrishevis, and he spent half of his time with Egnatashvili. But the version of Beso’s paternity cannot be completely rejected. At Kremlin drinking parties, Stalin boasted to Khrushchev and other associates that he had inherited his parents’ craving for alcohol. When little Stalin was still lying in the cradle, Beso dipped his fingers in wine and let him suck. Stalin did the same with his children, which horrified his wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva. Perhaps Keke became Egnatashvili’s mistress only when her family with Beso finally broke up. Be that as it may, Egnatashvili appears in her memoirs as often as her husband, and she remembers him with much more warmth. No authentic photographs of Beso Dzhugashvili have survived, but some fellow countrymen testified that Stalin was very similar to him.

The article is summary one of the chapters of Simon Sebag Montefiore's book "Young Stalin". All data is narrated in it as reported by Montefiore, who collected a lot of new material in Russian and Georgian archives. His book was highly praised in world science. All possible inaccuracies must be attributed to the author.

Biography and episodes of life Joseph Stalin. When born and died Stalin, memorable places and dates important events his life. Politician Quotes, Photo and video.

Years of life of Joseph Stalin:

born December 21, 1879, died March 5, 1953

Epitaph

"In this hour of greatest sorrow
I won't find those words
So that they fully express
Our nationwide misfortune."
Alexander Tvardovsky on the death of Stalin

Biography

Joseph Stalin remains to this day one of the strongest and most controversial rulers of the 20th century. The entire biography of Joseph Stalin is shrouded in many theories, interpretations and opinions. It is difficult, years later, to say with certainty whether he was the “father Soviet people"or a dictator, a Moloch or a savior. Nevertheless, the significance of Stalin’s personality in the history of the USSR and Russia cannot be denied.

He was born in Gori in 1879 into a poor family. Joseph's father was a shoemaker, and his mother was the daughter of a serf. According to the stories of Stalin himself, the father often beat his son and wife, and then completely went on the street, leaving the family in poverty. At the age of seven, Joseph entered the theological school in Gori - his mother saw in him a future priest. Having graduated with honors, he brilliantly passed the entrance exams to the Tiflis Theological Seminary, but was expelled five years later for promoting Marxism. Stalin later admitted that he became a revolutionary and supporter of Marxism out of protest against the regime of the theological seminary in which he studied.

During his life, Stalin was married several times - Stalin's first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, who gave birth to Joseph's son Yakov, died of tuberculosis after three years of marriage. Stalin's second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, who gave birth to Stalin's two children, Svetlana and Vasily, committed suicide after thirteen years of marriage, when the couple were already living in a Kremlin apartment. Born in Turukhansk exile illegitimate son Stalin, Konstantin Kuzakov, but Joseph did not maintain relations with him.

After expulsion from the seminary, political biography Stalin - he entered the Social Democratic organization of Georgia, arrests, exiles and escapes from these exiles began. In 1903, Joseph joined the Bolsheviks - and his path to the post of head of state began; a few years later he was elected general secretary of the party's Central Committee. After Lenin's death, Stalin was able to retain power, despite Vladimir Ilyich's “Letter to the Congress” written in 1922, where he criticizes Joseph and proposes to remove him from office. Thus began the era of Stalin’s reign, an ambiguous time filled with victories and tragedies. During the years of Stalin, the USSR turned into world power, won the Great Patriotic War, a breakthrough was made in national economic development, in the military-industrial complex. But all these successes during the years of Stalin’s rule were accompanied by large-scale repressions, deportation of peoples, famine as a consequence of collectivization and, finally, the cult of Stalin’s personality, according to which the people had to believe that all the merits of the country were the merits of its ruler alone. Busts and monuments to Stalin were erected throughout the country, becoming a symbol of that time in the USSR.

In the post-war years, Comrade Stalin lived in his official residence - in the Near Dacha. On March 1, Stalin’s guard found him lying on the floor; doctors who arrived at Stalin’s dacha the next morning diagnosed him with paralysis. Stalin's death occurred on the evening of March 5. The cause of Stalin's death was a cerebral hemorrhage. The death of Joseph Stalin is still shrouded in a halo of mystery and possible conspiracies - so, according to one version, Beria, as well as Stalin’s associates who were in no hurry to call doctors, could have contributed to Stalin’s murder. Stalin's funeral took place on March 9. So many people wanted to say goodbye to the “father of the people” and honor the memory of Stalin that there was a crush. The number of victims numbered in the thousands. Stalin's body was placed in the Lenin Mausoleum. Years later, it was reburied, and now Stalin’s grave is located near the Kremlin wall. After the death of Stalin, the so-called thaw period began, the new leadership of the country decided to move away from the “Stalinist model” and follow the path of liberalization, however, this period in the history of the country was not without contradictions and excesses.

Joseph Stalin in his youth

Life line

December 21, 1979 Date of birth of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Dzhugashvili).
1894 Graduation from the Gori Theological School.
1898 Member of the RCP(b).
1902 First arrest, exile to Eastern Siberia.
1917-1922 Work as People's Commissar for Nationalities Affairs as part of the first Soviet government.
1922 General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
1939 Receiving the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
August 23, 1939 Signing of a non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany.
May 1941 Chairman of the Government of the USSR.
June 30, 1941 Chairman State Committee defense
August 1941 Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the USSR.
1943 Receiving the rank of marshal Soviet Union.
1945 Receiving the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
March 2, 1953 Paralysis.
March 5, 1953 Date of death of Joseph Stalin.
March 6, 1953 Farewell to Stalin in the House of Unions.
March 9, 1953 Funeral of Joseph Stalin.
November 1, 1961 Reburial of Stalin's body near the Kremlin wall.

Memorable places

1. Stalin Museum in Gori, in front of which is Stalin’s house, where he lived as a child.
2. House-monument to political exiles in Solvychegodsk, located in Stalin’s house, where he served his exile in 1908-1910.
3. Museum “Vologda exile” in Stalin’s house, where he served exile in 1911-1912.
4. Museum "Stalin's Bunker".
5. Near Dacha, or Kuntsevskaya Dacha, where Stalin died.
6. House of Unions, where Stalin’s body was laid out for farewell.
7. Lenin Mausoleum, where Stalin was buried.
8. The Kremlin wall, where Stalin is buried (reburied).

Episodes of life

Stalin's son from his first marriage, Yakov, was captured by the Germans during the Great Patriotic War. According to one version, when the Germans offered to exchange the leader’s son for their field marshal Paulus, Joseph Stalin replied: “I don’t exchange a soldier for a field marshal.” According to another, he took Yakov’s captivity very hard and even blamed his wife Julia for the fact that his son was captured. Yulia spent two years in prison on charges of passing information to the Germans. In 1943, Yakov was shot and killed while trying to escape from a German concentration camp.

According to the stories of Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin’s daughter, the day before her mother Nadezhda’s suicide, her parents had a little quarrel - and the quarrel was minor, but apparently served as a trigger for her mother’s act. Nadezhda locked herself in her room and shot herself in the heart with a pistol. Stalin was shocked because he did not understand why? He perceived his wife’s action as a desire to punish him for something and did not understand why. In the first days after his wife's death, he was so depressed that he even said that he did not want to live. Stalin's daughter claims that her mother left her father a letter that was full of not only personal, but also political reproaches, which shocked Stalin even more. After reading it, he decided that all this time his wife had been on the side of the opposition, and not at one with him.

In 1936, information appeared abroad that Stalin had died. A correspondent for an American news agency sent a letter to the Kremlin addressed to Stalin, asking him to refute or confirm the rumors. A few days later he received a response from the Soviet leader with the words: “Dear Sir! As far as I know from messages foreign press, I have long since left this sinful world and moved to the next world. Since it is impossible not to trust the reports of the foreign press, if you do not want to be erased from the list of civilized people, then I ask you to believe these reports and not disturb my peace in the silence of the other world. Sincerely, Joseph Stalin."

Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin

Covenant

“When I die, a lot of rubbish will be placed on my grave, but the wind of time will mercilessly sweep it away.”

Documentary story from the series “ Soviet biographies» about Joseph Stalin

Condolences

“It is difficult to express in words the feeling of great sorrow that our party and the people of our country, all progressive humanity, are experiencing these days. Stalin, the great comrade-in-arms and brilliant successor of Lenin’s work, passed away. The person closest and dearest to everyone has left us. to the Soviet people, to millions of workers around the world."
Lavrenty Beria, Soviet politician

“In these difficult days, the deep sorrow of the Soviet people is shared by all advanced and progressive humanity. The name of Stalin is immensely dear to the Soviet people, to the broadest masses of people in all parts of the world.”
Georgy Malenkov, Soviet politician

“These days we are all experiencing severe grief - the death of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, the loss of a great leader and, at the same time, a close, dear, infinitely dear person. And we, his old and close friends, and millions and millions, like the working people of all countries, all over the world, say goodbye today to Comrade Stalin, whom we all loved so much and who will always live in our hearts.”
Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet politician

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin ( real name Dzhugashvili) was born on December 21 (9 old style), 1879 (according to other sources, December 18 (6 old style), 1878), in the Georgian city of Gori in the family of a shoemaker.

After graduating from the Gori Theological School in 1894, Stalin studied at the Tiflis Theological Seminary, from where he was expelled for revolutionary activities in 1899. A year earlier, Joseph Dzhugashvili joined the Georgian social-democratic organization Mesame Dasi. Since 1901 he has been a professional revolutionary. At the same time, the party nickname “Stalin” was assigned to him (for his inner circle he had another nickname - “Koba”). From 1902 to 1913, he was arrested and expelled six times, and escaped four times.

When in 1903 (at the Second Congress of the RSDLP) the party split into Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, Stalin supported the Bolshevik leader Lenin and, on his instructions, began creating a network of underground Marxist circles in the Caucasus.
In 1906-1907, Joseph Stalin participated in organizing a number of expropriations in Transcaucasia. In 1907, he was one of the leaders of the Baku Committee of the RSDLP.
In 1912, at the plenum of the Central Committee of the RSDLP, Stalin was in absentia introduced into the Central Committee and the Russian Bureau of the Central Committee of the RSDLP. Participated in the creation of the newspapers Pravda and Zvezda.
In 1913, Stalin wrote the article “Marxism and the National Question,” which brought him the authority of an expert national question. In February 1913, he was arrested and exiled to the Turukhansk region. Due to a hand injury suffered in childhood, in 1916 he was declared unfit for military service.

From March 1917, he participated in the preparation and conduct of the October Revolution: he was a member of the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RSDLP (b), and was a member of the Military Revolutionary Center for the leadership of the armed uprising. In 1917-1922 he was People's Commissar for Nationalities Affairs.
During Civil War carried out important assignments of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) and the Soviet government; was a member of the Council of Workers' and Peasants' Defense from the All-Russian Central Executive Committee, was a member of the Revolutionary Military Council (RVS) of the Republic, a member of the RVS of the Southern, Western and Southwestern Fronts.

When on April 3, 1922, at the plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), a new position was established - general secretary Central Committee, Stalin was elected the first general secretary.
This initially purely technical position was used and turned by Stalin into a post with high powers. Its hidden strength lay in the fact that it was the general secretary who appointed the lower party leaders, thanks to which Stalin formed a personally loyal majority among the middle ranks of party members. In 1929, his 50th anniversary was celebrated for the first time on a state scale. Stalin remained in the position of General Secretary until the end of his life (from 1922 - General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP (b), from December 1925 - CPSU (b), from 1934 - Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU (b), from 1952 - CPSU).

After Lenin's death, Stalin declared himself the sole successor to the work of the late leader and his teachings. He proclaimed a course towards “building socialism in one single country.” In April 1925, at the XIV Conference of the RCP (b), a new theoretical and political position was formalized. Stalin, quoting a number of Lenin's statements from different years, emphasized that it was Lenin, and not anyone else, who discovered the truth about the possibility of the victory of socialism in one country.

Stalin carried out accelerated industrialization of the country and forced collectivization of peasant farms, which was. The kulaks were liquidated as a class. The department of the central registry of the OGPU in the certificate of eviction of kulaks determined the number of special settlers as 517,665 families with a population of 2,437,062 people. The death toll during these relocations to areas poorly suited for living is estimated at at least 200 thousand people.
In his foreign policy activities, Stalin adhered to the class line of fighting the “capitalist encirclement” and supporting the international communist and labor movement.

By the mid-1930s, Stalin had concentrated in his hands the entirety of state power and actually became the sole leader of the Soviet people. Old party leaders - Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Bukharin, Rykov and others, who were part of the anti-Stalinist opposition, were gradually expelled from the party, and then physically destroyed as “enemies of the people.” In the second half of the 1930s, a regime of severe terror was established in the country, which reached its climax in 1937-1938. The search and destruction of “enemies of the people” affected not only the highest party bodies and the army, but also broad layers of Soviet society. Millions of Soviet citizens were illegally repressed on far-fetched, unsubstantiated charges of espionage, sabotage, and sabotage; exiled to camps or executed in the basements of the NKVD.
With the beginning of the Great Patriotic War Stalin concentrated in his hands all political and military power as Chairman of the State Defense Committee (June 30, 1941 - September 4, 1945) and Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the USSR Armed Forces. At the same time, he took the post of People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR (July 19, 1941 - March 15, 1946; from February 25, 1946 - People's Commissar of the Armed Forces of the USSR) and was directly involved in drawing up plans for military operations.

During the war, Joseph Stalin, together with US President Roosevelt and British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, initiated the creation anti-Hitler coalition. He represented the USSR in negotiations with countries participating in the anti-Hitler coalition (Tehran, 1943; Yalta, 1945; Potsdam, 1945).

After the end of the war, during which Soviet army liberated most of the countries of Eastern and Central Europe, Stalin became an ideologist and practitioner of the creation of a “world socialist system,” which was one of the main factors in the emergence of " cold war"and the military-political confrontation between the USSR and the USA.
On June 27, 1945, Stalin was awarded the title of Generalissimo of the Soviet Union.
On March 19, 1946, during the restructuring of the Soviet government apparatus, Stalin was confirmed as Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the USSR and Minister of the Armed Forces of the USSR.
After the end of the war in 1945, Stalin's regime of terror resumed. Totalitarian control over society was again established. Under the pretext of fighting “cosmopolitanism,” Stalin carried out purges one after another, and anti-Semitism actively flourished.
However, Soviet industry developed at a fast pace, and by the early 1950s the level industrial production already twice the level of 1940. Standard of living rural population remained extremely low.
Special attention Stalin paid attention to increasing the defense capability of the Soviet Union and the technical re-equipment of the army and navy. He was one of the main initiators of the implementation of the Soviet " nuclear project", which contributed to the transformation of the USSR into one of the two "superpowers". refused to return to the USSR. The move to the West and the subsequent publication of "Twenty Letters to a Friend" (1967), in which Alliluyeva recalled her father and Kremlin life, caused a world sensation. she stayed in Switzerland for some time, then lived in the USA. In 1970, she married the American architect Wesley Peters, gave birth to a daughter, and soon divorced, but...

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