HEAD OF STATE OF THE SOVIET UNION
1879–1953

Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili was born December 21, 1879, to a peasant family in Georgia. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party in 1901 and adopted the name Stalin, meaning "man of steel." Stalin undertook a variety of Party tasks, including editing the Party's newspaper, Pravda. In 1913 he wrote the treatise Marxism and the National Question which became the basis of Bolshevik nationalities policy. Vladimir Lenin (1870–1924), leader of the Soviet government, rewarded Stalin by appointing him Commissar of Nationalities in 1917. Stalin became General Secretary in 1922 and used that platform to seize control upon Lenin's death in 1924.

Under the slogan "socialism in one country," Stalin sought to completely transform society by dragging a backward empire into Europe as a modern,

RUSSIAN DICTATOR JOSEPH STALIN SPEAKS IN MOSCOW. Though Stalin's tenure as Secretary General from 1922 to 1953 brought about the modernization of the USSR and...