Joseph Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin ( Russian : Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин ; born Ioseb Besarionis dze Dzhugashvili , Georgian : იოსებ ბესარიონის ძე ჯუღაშვილი ; 18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953 ) was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 until his death in 5 March 1953 . Among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the Russian Revolution in 1917 , Stalin held the position of General Secretary of the party ' s Central Committee from 1922 until his death . While the office was initially not highly regarded , Stalin used it to consolidate more power after the death of Vladimir Lenin in 1924 , gradually putting down all opposition . This included Leon Trotsky , the principal critic of Stalin among the early Soviet leaders . Whereas Trotsky advocated world permanent revolution , Stalin ' s concept of socialism in one country became primary policy as he emerged the leader of the Soviet Union . In 1928 , Stalin replaced the decade ' s New Economic Policy with a highly centralised command economy and Five - Year Plans , launching a period of industrialization and collectivization in the countryside . As a result , the USSR was rapidly transformed from an agrarian society into an industrial power , the basis for its emergence as the world ' s second largest economy after World War II . However , the rapid changes saw millions of people sent to correctional labour camps , and deported and exiled to remote areas of the Soviet Union . The initial upheaval in agriculture disrupted food production and contributed to the catastrophic Soviet famine of 1932 – 1933 . In 1937 – 38 , a campaign against alleged enemies of the Stalinist regime culminated in the Great Purge , a period of mass repression against the population in which hundreds of thousands of people were executed . Major figures in the Communist Party such as Trotsky and Red Army leaders , were killed , convicted of participating in plots to overthrow the Soviet government and Stalin . In August 1939 , after Stalin ' s attempts to establish an Anglo - Franco - Soviet Alliance failed , Stalin entered into a pact with Nazi Germany that divided their influence in Eastern Europe and allowed the USSR to regain some of its lost territories . Germany violated the pact by invading the Soviet Union in 1941 , opening the bloodiest theatre of war in history , the Eastern Front . The Soviet Union joined the Allies and despite heavy human and territorial losses in the initial period of war , it stopped the Axis advance in the decisive battles of Moscow and Stalingrad . Eventually , the Red Army drove through Eastern Europe and captured Berlin in May 1945 . Having played a decisive role in the Allied victory against Germany , the USSR emerged as a recognized superpower after the war . Stalin attended the delegations at the Yalta and Potsdam Conferences , which drew the map of post - war Europe . State communist governments loyal to the Soviet Union were installed in the Eastern Bloc , as satellite states . Stalin intended these to be a buffer in case of another war , as the USSR was beginning to enter a struggle for global dominance with the Western world . In Asia , Stalin fostered relations with Mao Zedong in China and Kim Il - sung in North Korea , and his rule served as a model for their newly formed respective governments . In power until his death in 1953 , Stalin led the USSR during the period of post - war reconstruction , marked by the dominance of Stalinist architecture . The successful development of the Soviet nuclear program enabled the country to become the world ' s second nuclear weapons power ; the later Soviet space program began as a spin - off of the nuclear project . Stalin also launched the Great Construction Projects of Communism and the Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature . Stalin and his regime have been condemned on numerous occasions , the most significant being in 1956 , when Stalin ' s successor Nikita Khrushchev denounced his legacy and initiated a process of de - Stalinization . Modern views of Stalin in the Russian Federation and the world remain mixed , with some viewing him as a tyrant and mass murderer , others as a capable and necessary leader for the time .