იოსებ ბესარიონის ძე ჯუღაშვილი
16 min read
Reading time
3,167
Words
Published
145
Film credits
10
Books
33
Awards
Joseph Stalin, the Soviet dictator who transformed the USSR into a global superpower, was responsible for the deaths of millions through his purges and famines. He led the country through World War II, forming the Grand Alliance with Roosevelt and Churchill. After his death in 1953, he was denounced by Khrushchev for his cult of personality and crimes.
Names, aliases, and relatives of Joseph Stalin — birth name, kin, and personal ties.
Joseph Stalin by the numbers — life, work, and family.
Joseph Stalin — early life, career, personal life, and legacy.
Joseph Stalin was born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili on December 18, 1878, in Gori, Georgia, then part of the Russian Empire. His father, Besarion Jughashvili, was a cobbler and an abusive alcoholic who left the family when Stalin was young. His mother, Keke Geladze, worked as a washerwoman to support them and managed to enroll him at the Gori school, then at Tbilisi Theological Seminary, hoping he would become a priest. In 1899, he was expelled for propagating communist ideas.
Stalin became active in the Communist underground in 1898, organizing armed robberies to fund the party. He was arrested seven times and exiled to Siberia before the revolutions. In 1917, his Bolshevik ring played a leading role in the Russian Revolution. Lenin appointed him People’s Commissar for Nationalities and a member of the Politburo. In 1922, he became General Secretary, a post he held until his death. After Lenin’s death in 1924, Stalin consolidated power, eliminating rivals like Trotsky. He launched the Great Terror from 1934 to 1939, purging millions of perceived enemies. During World War II, he assumed the title of Generalissimus and attended the Tehran 1943, Yalta 1945, and Potsdam 1945 conferences, securing Soviet influence over Eastern Europe. After the war, he intensified repression and contributed to the Cold War.
Stalin married Ekaterina Svanidze around 1904; she died of tuberculosis three years later, leaving a son, Yakov Dzhugashvili. His second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, whom he married in 1919, committed suicide in 1932 after growing disillusioned with his policies. They had a daughter, Svetlana Alliluyeva, and a son, Vasili Stalin. Stalin also had several mistresses. His first wife’s relatives were later executed on his orders. Yakov was captured by Nazis in 1941 and died in a POW camp after Stalin refused to exchange him for German officers. Nadezhda’s death deepened Stalin’s paranoia and isolation.
Stalin’s economic policies led to rapid industrialization but also forced collectivization and the deaths of up to 10 million peasants between 1926 and 1934. His regime established the Gulag system and carried out mass executions of intellectuals, military officers, and political opponents. After his death, he was denounced by Nikita Khrushchev in 1956 for building a cult of personality and committing crimes. In 1961, his body was removed from Lenin’s Mausoleum and buried near the Kremlin Wall. Stalin remains a controversial figure, remembered both for leading the Soviet Union to victory in World War II and for his brutal repression.
The complete filmography of Joseph Stalin — every film, TV show, and documentary credit, ranked by popularity.
Every award, honor, and recognition received by Joseph Stalin — Grammys, hall-of-fame inductions, civic honors, lifetime achievements.
Joseph Stalin's bibliography — every authored, edited, and co-written book, ranked by edition count.
A wall of memorable lines from Joseph Stalin — lyrics, interviews, and off-the-cuff remarks captured over a lifetime.
A Single Death Is a Tragedy. a Million Deaths Is a Statistic.
Death Solves All Problems.
If You’re Afraid of Wolves, Don’t Go into the Woods.
Those Who Cast the Vote Decide Nothing. Those Who Count the Vote Decide Everything.
I Trust No One, Not Even Myself.
It Is Enough That the People Know There Was an Election. the People Who Cast the Votes Decide Nothing. the People Who Count the Votes Decide Everything.
In the Soviet Army It Takes More Courage to Retreat Than Advance.
Gratitude Is a Sickness Suffered by Dogs.
Mankind Is Divided into Rich and Poor, into Property Owners and Exploited; and to Abstract Oneself from This Fundamental Division; and from the Antagonism Between Poor and Rich Means Abstracting Oneself from Fundamental Facts.
Ideas Are More Powerful Than Guns. We Would Not Let Our Enemies Have Guns, Why Should We Let Them Have Ideas.
Every Jewish Nationalist Is the Agent of the American Intelligence Service. Jewish Nationalists Think That Their Nation Was Saved by the United States There You Can Become Rich, Bourgeois, Etc. They Think They’re Indebted to the Americans. Among Doctors, There Are Many Jewish Nationalists.
Ivan the Terrible Was Extremely Cruel. It Is Possible to Show Why He Had to Be Cruel. One of the Mistakes of Ivan the Terrible Was That He Did Not Completely Finish off the Five Big Feudal Families. If He Had Destroyed These Five Families Then There Would Not Have Been the Time of Troubles. If Ivan the Terrible Executed Someone Then He Repented and Prayed for a Long Time. God Disturbed Him on These Matters … It Was Necessary to Be Decisive.
Our Job Was to Enter Prague Before the Americans. the Americans Were in a Great Hurry, but Owing to Konev’s Attack We Were Able to Outdistance the Americans and Strike Prague Just Before Its Fall. the Americans Bombed Czechoslovakian Industry. They Maintained This Policy Throughout Europe, for Them It Was Important to Destroy Those Industries Which Were in Competition with Them. They Bombed with Taste.
Of Course, We Are Not Good Christians but to Deny the Progressive Role of Christianity at That Particular Stage Is Impossible. This Incident Had a Very Great Importance Because This Turned the Russian State to Contacts with the West, and Not to an Orientation Towards the East.
A Problem Can Be Represented as the Person: Get Rid of the Person and You Get Rid of the Problem.
You Do Not Lament the Loss of Hair of One Who Has Been Beheaded.
I Want to Tell You What, from the Russian Point of View, the President and the United States Have Done for Victory in This War. the Most Important Things in This War Are the Machines … the United States Is a Country of Machines. Without the Machines We Received Through Lend Lease, We Would Have Lost the War.
You Are Blind Like Kittens. Without Me the Imperialists Will Throttle You.
Little-known facts about Joseph Stalin — origins, oddities, and behind-the-scenes details from a public life.
When his son Yakov Dzhugashvili attempted suicide, Stalin reportedly mocked him, saying Ha! He couldn’t even shoot straight! reflecting their strained relationship.
The first time Lenin mentioned Stalin in a 1917 memo, he forgot his name, guessed at it, then scribbled it out and just called him that Georgian guy.
Stalin loved the Tarzan movies and once ordered an expedition to Africa that gathered over 100 apes for breeding experiments aimed at creating obedient soldiers; after years with no results, he had the principal scientists executed and lost interest.
During a meeting, Stalin asked Winston Churchill if he ever had subordinates shot; Franklin D. Roosevelt thought it was a joke, but Churchill was so terrified he allegedly never spoke openly to Stalin again.
Despite being an anti-Communist symbol, Stalin was a huge fan of John Wayne movies, Hollywood’s most vocal anti-Communist.
He could be kind to strangers: once he ensured a man was freed from the Gulag after receiving a letter from the man’s young daughter, another time he compensated an elderly woman for letting him stay in her cottage.
When Stalin entered the Politburo, people would applaud for hours because everyone was afraid to stop first.
Stalin’s adopted revolutionary name means Man of steel in Russian; his mother called him Soso, and his underground party nickname was Koba.
Time Magazine named him Man of the Year in 1939.
He raised money for the Communist Party by committing several armed robberies.
Stalin was known for erasing people from history; ironically, after Khrushchev’s 1956 secret speech, he himself was partially erased from Soviet history.
He has been portrayed in movies by F. Murray Abraham, Michael Caine, Robert Duvall, José Ferrer, Bernard Hill, and Andro Kobaladze.
Much early archive footage of Stalin is actually an actor from the film October Ten Days that Shook the World 1928.
He ordered the assassination of Lev Trotskiy in 1940.
His mother was a washerwoman and seamstress who wanted him to become a priest.
Lenin’s testament, written shortly before his death, denounced Stalin’s ambitions, but Stalin managed to blunt its effect and seized power.
Although known for a stoic demeanor, he was prone to explosive rages and crushing depressions in private.
Stalin did not officially build extermination camps, but the gulags were death camps where prisoners were worked to death.
The rate of industrialization under his rule was the fastest in history, and healthcare and education improved dramatically.
His first wife died of tuberculosis; his second wife committed suicide.
He once stated that the happiest time of his life was when he was in exile in Siberia, where he felt the true spirit of Russia resided.
Smallpox in childhood badly disfigured his face.
His body was moved from Lenin’s Mausoleum to the Kremlin Wall in 1961.
His trademark hat sat atop his coffin at his funeral.
U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt referred to him as Uncle Joe.
His mother and his first wife shared the same name, Ekaterina.
Some historians believe his lust for power stemmed from childhood fantasies of controlling the country to escape his abusive father.
At the end of World War II, Stalin wanted to invade Spain but was persuaded to settle for an economic blockade.
Vladimir Putin made unlawful any published mention of Stalin’s cruelties, banning books that describe Red Army atrocities.
His real birthday was December 18, 1878, but he changed it to December 21, 1879 for unknown reasons.
Two sons, Yakov died 1943 in Nazi camp and Vasili died 1962 in exile, and one daughter, Svetlana defected to USA in 1967.
In 2001, a previously unknown grandson, Yuri Davydov, was discovered in Novokuznetsk.
At his first wife’s funeral, Stalin said any warm feelings he had died with her, as she was the only person who melted his heart; later he ordered her relatives shot.
As a youth, a runaway carriage almost killed him and left him with a stiff left shoulder for life.
His coffin had a bubble top so passersby could see it was really him.
Stalin was not ethnically Russian but a native of Georgia; he spoke Russian with a heavy Georgian accent.
He ordered revisionist history that removed Trotsky from photographs.
Even after his rise to power, his mother refused to leave her home in the Caucasus.
His health deteriorated after WWII due to atherosclerosis from heavy smoking; he had a mild stroke around the time of the Victory Parade and a severe heart attack in October 1945.
In 1933, Stalin added Article 121 to the criminal code, making homosexuality a crime punishable by up to five years of hard labor; it was repealed in Russia in 1993.
He staunchly believed Hitler would honor the nonaggression pact; when Germany invaded, he locked himself in his rooms and refused to believe it for several days.
Documents released after the Cold War showed Stalin was preparing to attack German forces, but he thought Hitler would not invade until the war in the West ended.
He admired Polish author Boleslaw Prus and his novel The Pharaoh and the Priest.
He was called Old Whiskers behind his back, usually by Gulag prisoners.
He was a voracious reader with a personal library of 20,000 books, checking out an average of 500 per year from state libraries.
Although at war with the European Axis from June 22, 1941, he did not declare war on Japan until August 9, 1945, when he also invaded Manchuria.
He signed the German-Soviet Commercial Agreement on February 11, 1940.
He had Czech Foreign Minister Vladimír Clementis executed in 1952 for participating in a Trotskyite-Titoite-Zionist conspiracy.
He gradually repealed Lenin’s laws ending discrimination against Jews and homosexuals.
After a severe heart attack in autumn 1945, he was forced to take a two-month vacation.
Quick answers to the questions readers ask most about Joseph Stalin.
Celebrities similar to Joseph Stalin — same craft, ranked by reach.
🇩🇪 Germany
🇬🇧 United Kingdom
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🌍 Republic of Ireland
🇺🇸 United States
🇺🇸 United States
🇩🇪 Germany
🇦🇷 Argentina
🇨🇳 China
🇸🇮 Slovenia
🇺🇸 United States
