Joseph Stalin was born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili on December 21, 1879, in Gori, Georgia . Both his parents were peasants. His father, Vissarion Dzhugashvili, was a cobbler, hopping that one day his son will be apprenticed in the same trade; his mother, Yekaterina Geladze Dzhugashvili, worked as a house servant for various upper-class Georgian families. Stalin was rather sickly as a child; he was badly scarred by smallpox, and another illness crippled his left arm (later in his life, in 1916, this disability will prevent him from joining the Russian army). Nevertheless, he is described as having been in excellent physical shape as a teenager; throughout much of his life he was muscular and well built.

Sosso (Stalin's schoolboy nickname) was an excellent student. He graduated from the Gori Church School in 1894 with very high marks and managed to earn a full scholarship to the Tbilisi Theological Semin

In the face of the growing threats from Nazi Germany and Japan, Stalin reverted increasingly to traditional forms of foreign policy, seeking diplomatic alliances with the European powers. Thus in January 1932 the Soviet leader signed a non-aggression Pact with Finland, the constant opponent of the U.S.S.R in the west. In 1933 the United States diplomatically recognized the U.S.S.R. and the next year Russia entered the League of Nations, an organization that Lenin had earlier described as "an alliance of world bandits against the proletariat" (Goff, page 248)

In the mid-1930s Stalin launched a major campaign of political terror. The purges, arrests, and deportations to labor camps touched virtually every family. Former rivals Zinovyev, Kamenev, and Bukharin admitted to crimes against the state in show trials and were sentenced to death. Untold numbers of party, industry, and military leaders disappeared during the "Great Terror," making way for a rising generation that included such leaders as Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. Fear instilled by a political secret police formed an essential part of the system called Stalinism.

Stalin died on March 5, 1953, alone and isolated in a room inside Kremlin. Although Stalin was responsible for the deaths of millions of people, when he died, the whole nation wept tears of grief and of fear for the future. The iron will of Stalin wouldn't be there anymore to guide and protect them. Yet, his death was the most pleasant news to the untold millions who were repressed during his reign.

In 1917, Stalin managed to escape from Siberia and immediately headed for Petrograd, (modern St. Petersburg) upon hearing that the February Revolution had brought about the abdication of the Tsar and the installation of the Provincial Government. There he resumed the editorship of Pravda. Until Lenin arrived in April, Stalin and Lev Kamenev dominated all party decisions. Stalin argued strongly for the continuation of the war and for cooperation with the Provisional Government. When Lenin arrived back in Petrograd from his exile in Switzerland, on April 3, 1917, he strongly criticized Stalin for printing both of these opinions and demanded an immediate reversal in policy. Nevertheless, Stalin was re-elected to the Central Committee of the Bolshevik Party on April 27, 1917.

Nevertheless, Lenin was reportedly quite impressed by Stalin's display of personal initiative and decisiveness. Before the winter of 1918, Stalin had been recalled to Moscow by Lenin. In January of 1919, Lenin and Trotsky sent Stalin into Siberia to stop a major White advance westward, led by the former Tsarist officer Admiral Kolchak. Stalin was in Siberia until February, when he returned to Moscow after failing to do much to stop the advance (and after heavily criticizing both the local Red Army commander and Trotsky himself for the weaknesses of the Bolshevik forces he was in charge of). In May, Stalin was sent to Petrograd (St. Petersburg) in order to stop a White offensive from Estonia (which consisted of some Finnish and British detachments). Stalin performed exceptionally well, winning a decisive victory on June 16 with the capture of two White-controlled fortresses. Shortly thereafter Stalin had 67 officers executed because they had disagreed with him over the handling of the Red Army counterattack.

Stalin's First Five Year Plan, adopted by the party in 1928, called for rapid industrialization of the economy, with an emphasis on heavy industry. It set goals that were unrealistic; a 250 percent increase in overall industrial development and a 330 percent expansion in heavy industry alone. All industry and services were nationalized, managers were given predetermined output quotas by central planners, and trade unions were converted into mechanisms for increasing worker productivity. Many new industrial centers were developed, particularly in the Ural Mountains, and thousands of new plants were buil

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