Joseph Stalin

October Revolution

* Russian Civil War

Battle of TsaritsynSoviet-Georgian warPolish–Soviet War

* August uprising
* Sino-Soviet War
* Xinjiang Wars

Kumul RebellionSoviet invasionIslamic Revolt

* First Soviet-Japanese War
* Winter War
* World War II (Great Patriotic War)

Operation BarbarossaAnglo-Soviet invasion of IranBattle of MoscowBattle of StalingradContinuation WarBerlin OffensiveSecond Soviet-Japanese War

* Iran Crisis
* Xinjiang Wars

Ili Rebellion

* Eastern European anti-Communist insurgencies
* Korean War

**Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin** (born **Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili**; 18 December [O.S. 6 December] 1878 – 5 March 1953), was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who served the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953.

Stalin initiated a command economy, replacing the New Economic Policy of the 1920s with five-year plans, ushering in a period of rapid industrialization and economic collectivization. The upheaval in the agricultural sector disrupted food production, causing widespread famine, including the catastrophic famine in the Soviet Union in 1932-33 (known in Ukraine as the Holodomor).

## Early Life

Stalin was born in Georgia to an Ossetian family in Didi Lilo near the city of Gori. His father Visarion Dzhugashvili was a shoemaker by profession. His mother Ekaterina Geladze was a serf from birth. Their three children died young: Joseph, called "Soso" (Joseph of Mercy in Georgian) was the only child. Vissarion Ivanovich Dzhugashvili was also a serf but was freed and became a shoemaker. He had his own shoe shop, but it soon went bankrupt, forcing him to work in a shoe factory in Tiflis and declare himself Georgian. In the rare moments when he came home drunk, he usually beat his son and wife. One of Stalin's childhood friends, Yosif Iremashvili, wrote: "Those undeserved and terrible beatings made the boy as heavy and strong as his father." The same friend also wrote that he had never seen him cry. Another of his friends from this period, Iremashvili, believed that the beatings he received from his father created in Stalin a hatred of authority. He also stated that anyone who had power over others reminded Stalin of his father. According to Iremashvili, Stalin was an Ossetian and his real name was "Soslan Dzhugayev". Since the family, in order to survive, aspired to assimilate into Georgian society, Stalin's name was translated into Georgian as "Ioseb Besarionis dse Dzhugashvili" (Georg. יосеб бесарионис дзе джугашвили), from there later the Russian version "Josif Visarionovich Dzhugashvili". (Stalin und die Tragödie Georgiens, Stalin and the tragedy of Georgia, Berlin 1932, Dr. Josif Iremashvili)

One of the people for whom Ekaterina did laundry and cleaned the house was a Jewish merchant from Gori, David Papismedov. Papismedov gave little Jozef, who helped his mother in these tasks, money and books to read and supported him. Decades later, Papismedov came to the Kremlin to see for himself what little Soso had become. To the surprise of his associates, Stalin not only received the elderly Jewish gentleman for a visit, but also stayed in a cordial conversation with him.

### Death

On March 5, 1953, Joseph Stalin died at the age of 74 after suffering a stroke. After four days of national mourning, Stalin was given a state funeral and buried in Lenin's Mausoleum on March 9. Nikita Khrushchev, Georgy Malenkov, Vyacheslav Molotov and Lavrentiy Beria presided over the funeral procession.