Joseph Stalin: industrialization, terror and victory in war

Who Stalin was

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (real surname Dzhugashvili) was born in 1878 in the town of Gori in Georgia, into a poor family. He took the pseudonym "Stalin" — from the word for "steel" — during his revolutionary years. He studied at a theological seminary but left without finishing and became a professional Bolshevik revolutionary.

Stalin led the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. In those years the country passed through industrialization, collectivization, mass repression and the Great Patriotic War. He remains one of the most significant and most contested figures of the 20th century.

The road to power

From 1922 Stalin held the post of General Secretary of the party. After Lenin's death in 1924 a struggle for power began, and Stalin emerged the victor, pushing aside his rivals — Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev and later Bukharin. By the end of the 1920s he had become the sole ruler.

Industrialization and collectivization

From 1928 Stalin launched the Five-Year Plans — forced industrialization. Within a few years the USSR built thousands of factories and turned from an agrarian country into an industrial power. This achievement is often credited to him.

But the cost was enormous. At the same time came the forced collectivization of the countryside: millions of peasant households were driven into collective farms. Better-off peasants ("kulaks") were "dekulakized" — arrested, exiled, sent to camps. The policy of collectivization and grain seizure led to the terrible famine of 1932–1933, which killed millions. In Ukraine this famine is known as the Holodomor; Ukraine and many countries recognize it as a genocide, while some historians debate whether that term applies to the wider, Union-wide famine. Estimates of the number of victims differ widely.

The Great Terror

In 1936–1938 came the Great Terror (the Great Purge). A wave of arrests, show trials and executions swept the country. The repression fell on old Bolsheviks, the military, engineers, the intelligentsia, ethnic minorities and ordinary people.

• By historians' estimates, at least 750,000 people were executed (some cite considerably higher figures).
• Around 18 million people passed through the Gulag camp system during Stalin's rule; many died from executions, hunger, disease and brutal labour.
• The command staff of the Red Army was gutted on the eve of the war.

The exact number of the regime's victims is still contested: estimates of those who died from repression, famine, the camps and deportations vary enormously — most often a range of about 6 to 20 million is cited, depending on what is counted.

The war

In 1939 the USSR signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany. Despite this, in 1941 Germany invaded the Soviet Union. Under Stalin's leadership the country held out and in 1945 defeated Nazism — at the cost of about 27 million lives. Victory in the Great Patriotic War is a central part of his legacy and of popular memory.

After the war Stalin established control over the countries of Eastern Europe; the Cold War began. Repression continued until his death.

Death and "de-Stalinization"

Stalin died on 5 March 1953. As early as 1956, Nikita Khrushchev, in a famous speech, denounced Stalin's crimes and the cult of his personality — "de-Stalinization" had begun.

A contested legacy

Assessments of Stalin diverge sharply — and we show both sides.

• Most historians see him as one of the most brutal dictators in history: totalitarian power, mass repression and a man-made famine that killed millions.
• Others — and part of society in present-day Russia and Georgia — emphasize industrialization, the country's transformation into a superpower and the victory in the war; there is also nostalgia for a "strong hand."

We do not choose one verdict for the reader. But we also do not hide it: behind the achievements stood a system built on violence and fear, and millions of dead.

Related

• The founding of the USSR (1922) — the state he came to lead and transform.
• Khrushchyovki: how the country got its own flats — a symbol of the "Thaw" that followed his era.

Sources

The facts in this article can be verified against authoritative sources:

• Encyclopædia Britannica, "Joseph Stalin": https://www.britannica.com/biography/Joseph-Stalin
• Encyclopædia Britannica, "Great Purge": https://www.britannica.com/event/Great-Purge
• HISTORY, "Joseph Stalin": https://www.history.com/articles/joseph-stalin
• Wikipedia, "Joseph Stalin": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Stalin

Where the data are contested (the number of victims, the assessment of his legacy, the term "genocide" for the Holodomor), we give ranges and different positions rather than a single one.