Joseph Stalin Timeline

December 18, 1878

Joseph Stalin was born as Ioseb Dzhugashvili in Gori, a small town in the Caucasus. He was born into poverty with a father who was a cobbler and a mother who washed clothes to help provide for the family. Once he became more active politically, he changed his name to Stalin which means "man of steel."

Image Source - Fox Photos

1897

Stalin earned a scholarship to go to a nearby seminary to study to become a priest in the Georgian Orthodox Church. While at this seminary, Stalin secretly read Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and became interested in a revolutionary movement against the Russian monarchy. He was later expelled from the school in 1899; allegedly for his interest in these ideas.

Image Source - De Agostini Picture Library

1898

Stalin joined a secret Marxist revolutionary group but did not have a lot of status in this group. After joining it, Stalin was arrested 7 times for revolutionary activities.

Image Source - R. Vepkhvadze

November 1901

Stalin was accepted into the Russian social democratic (Marxist) party. This party eventually split with the social democrats to form the Bolshevik communist party.

Image Source - The Granger Collection

1906

Stalin married his first wife Ekaterina Svanidze. Their first son Yakov was born a year later and died in 1943 as a prisoner in Germany during World War II. Ekaterina died in 1907 due to typhus fever.

Image Source - Wikimedia

February 1912

Stalin was promoted to serve on the first central committee of the Bolshevik party. This was a large stepping stone in his political career.

Image Source - Stringer

November 1917

Stalin played an important role in the overthrow of the Mensheviks (Russian government). This helped him become a political-military leader during the civil war (1918-1921) that occurred after the Mensheviks were overthrown.

Image Source - akg-images

1919

Stalin married his second wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva whom he had two children with. They allegedly had some issues in their marriage later on. On November 9, 1932, she committed suicide.

Nadezhda Alliluyeva in the back of a Rolls Royce driven by Stalin

Image Source - akg Images

1922

Stalin served as secretary-general for the Bolshevik party’s central committee from 1922 until his death. This was a seat with a lot of power that helped him become more powerful than his political opponents.

Image Source - TASS

1923

Stalin and Lenin

The current Russian leader Vladimir Lenin wrote a letter a year before he died stating that Stalin should be stripped of his position as secretary-general. However, Stalin was able to get others to disregard this note and overcame this criticism by using his many political offices to gain alliances and outmaneuver Lenin’s heirs to become the dictator of the Soviet Union after Lenin died.

Inage Source - The Granger Collection

1929

Stalin started passing many 5 year plans to try to industrialize Russia’s agricultural economy. These plans included seizing farms from Russian citizens so that the government had control of all agriculture. This policy caused millions of deaths due to starvation because of the lack of food that this policy created.

Image Source - RIA NOVOSTI

1935 - 1940

Stalin started the Great Purge which sought to eliminate all of his political enemies. He also was in control of a secret police force that killed millions of citizens who were seen as a threat to his regime.

Image Source - Sovfoto

August 23, 1939

Signing of the Hitler-Stalin pact

Stalin and Hitler signed a nonaggression pact which the Germans broke in June of 1941 by invading the Soviet Union. This was the main reason why the USSR helped the allies at the end of World War II instead of the Germans.

Image Source - akg-images

August 1942 - February 1943

Stalin practiced a “scorched earth” (ruining all available resources) defensive policy to combat the Germans. The Soviet army officially drove the Germans out of the Soviet Union with the battle of Stalingrad.

Image Source - TASS

1943 - 1945

During the last years of World War II, Stalin worked alongside the US and UK to defeat Germany (the big three - USSR, UK, and the US). They ended up defeating the Germans in 1945.

Image Source - akg-images

1946-1991

After World War II, Stalin began to turn many eastern European countries into communist countries and cut off most connection with the Western world. Many Western countries banded together to stop this spread of communism. This struggle is known as the cold war.

Image Source - akg-images

1949

Stalin started a soviet nuclear age by exploding an atomic bomb. This was done after discussing how nuclear energy should only be used peacefully with American officials on April 09, 1947.

Image Source - Sovfoto

1950

Stalin gave North Korea's communist leader permission to invade South Korea. South Korea was backed by the US. This action started the Korean War.

Image Source - Bert Hardy

March 5, 1953

Stalin died from a stroke. He was buried in a nice grave next to the former leader Vladimir Lenin but was later moved to a simple grave during the destalinization movement led by Stalin’s successor. He is now known as one of the cruelest dictators in history who ruled his empire with an iron fist.

Image Source- TASS