Difference between revisions 7905491 and 7905492 on simplewiki

{{Infobox officeholder
| name   = Joseph Stalin
| birthname =
| image = JStalin Secretary general CCCP 1942.jpg
| imagesize =
| caption = Stalin in 1942
| office       = [[General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|General secretary]] of the [[Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union|Central Committee]] of the [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]
| term_start   = 3 April 1922
| term_end     = 16 October 1952
(contracted; show full)
| party = [[Communist Party of the Soviet Union]]
| nationality = [[Georgians|Georgian]]
| spouse = [[Ekaterina Svanidze]] (1906–1907)<br />[[Nadezhda Alliluyeva]] (1919–1932)}}

'''Joseph Stalin''' (born as '''Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili)''' (18 December 1878 &nbsp;– 5 March 1953) was a [[Georgia (country)|Georgian]] politician who became leader of the [[Soviet Union]] from 1922 until his death in 1953 from a cerebral haemorrhage
 caused by warfarin, given to him in wine.<ref name=":0" />.  He replaced [[Vladimir Lenin]] as leader of the Soviet Union. His ideas and [[wikt:policy|policies]] turned the Soviet Union into a powerful, relatively modern country, as the largest on Earth. His way of thinking was called [[Marxism-Leninism]], and his form of government was later called [[Stalinism]].

(contracted; show full)

Stalin continued to rule over the Soviet Union until he died. He also militarized Russia by focusing the country's time and energy towards weapons, vehicles, and the armed forces.

==Death==
Stalin died on
 Katyn's Massacre 13th anniveresery, March 5, 1953. It was officially said to be because of a [[stroke]].<ref name=bbc/> In 2003 a group of Russian and American historians succinctly provedaid that Stalin had been poisoned with powerful rat poison [[warfarin]], possibly by the men who took over the government after Stalin died.<ref name=":0">{{cite web |url= http://english.pravda.ru/history/29-12-2005/9457-stalin-0/ |title=Secret documents reveal Stalin was poisoned |date=29 December 2005 |work=PRAVDA.Ru}}</ref>   Bear in mind, however, that Stalin was in his mid-seventies when he died, and modern [[pharmacology]] was in the future ([[statin]]s etc). Those facts make it likely that his death was natural.

Led by [[Lavrentiy Beria]], the leading group in the Kremlin were [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] and [[Georgy Malenkov]] and [[Nikita Krushchev]]. Much later, Krushchev began a process of "De-Stalinization", which meant taking apart much of the political system that Stalin made. Stalin was denounced as a tyrant. After outsmarting and defeating his rivals, Krushchev established a personal control over the government comparable to Stalin's own. Krushchev is himself a fascinating figure in Soviet hist(contracted; show full)[[Category:Politicians from Georgia (country)]]
[[Category:Joseph Stalin]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Order of Lenin]]
[[Category:Heads of government of the Soviet Union]]
[[Category:Smallpox survivors]]
[[Category:Soviet people of World War II]]
[[Category:Time People of the Year]]
[[Category:World War II political leaders]]