Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili; 18 December [O.S. 6 December] 1878 5 March 1953) was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political leader who ruled the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (19221952) and Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (19411953). Initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, he consolidated power to become a dictator by the 1930s. Ideologically adhering to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism, he formalised these ideas as MarxismLeninism, while his own policies are called Stalinism.

Born to a poor family in Gori in the Russian Empire (now Georgia), Stalin attended the Tbilisi Spiritual Seminary before joining the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. He edited the party's newspaper, Pravda, and raised funds for Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction via robberies, kidnappings and protection rackets. Repeatedly arrested, he underwent several internal exiles. After the Bolsheviks seized power in the October Revolution and created a one-party state under the new Communist Party in 1917, Stalin joined its governing Politburo. Serving in the Russian Civil War before overseeing the Soviet Union's establishment in 1922, Stalin assumed leadership over the country following Lenin's death in 1924. Under Stalin, socialism in one country became a central tenet of the party's dogma. As a result of his Five-Year Plans, the country underwent agricultural collectivisation and rapid industrialisation, creating a centralised command economy. Severe disruptions to food production contributed to the famine of 193233. To eradicate accused "enemies of the working class", Stalin instituted the Great Purge, in which over a million were imprisoned and at least 700,000 executed between 1934 and 1939. By 1937, he had absolute control over the party and government.

Stalin promoted MarxismLeninism abroad through the Communist International and supported European anti-fascist movements during the 1930s, particularly in the Spanish Civil War. In 1939, his regime signed a non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany, resulting in the Soviet invasion of Poland. Germany ended the pact by invading the Soviet Union in 1941. Despite initial catastrophes, the Soviet Red Army repelled the German invasion and captured Berlin in 1945, ending World War II in Europe. Amid the war, the Soviets annexed the Baltic states and Bessarabia and North Bukovina, subsequently establishing Soviet-aligned governments throughout Central and Eastern Europe and in parts of East Asia. The Soviet Union and the United States emerged as global superpowers and entered a period of tension, the Cold War. Stalin presided over the Soviet post-war reconstruction and its development of an atomic bomb in 1949. During these years, the country experienced another major famine and an antisemitic campaign that culminated in the doctors' plot. After Stalin's death in 1953, he was eventually succeeded by Nikita Khrushchev, who subsequently denounced his rule and initiated the de-Stalinisation of Soviet society.

Widely considered to be one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Stalin was the subject of a pervasive personality cult within the international MarxistLeninist movement, which revered him as a champion of the working class and socialism. Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, Stalin has retained popularity in Russia and Georgia as a victorious wartime leader who cemented the Soviet Union's status as a leading world power. Conversely, his regime has been described as totalitarian, and has been widely condemned for overseeing mass repression, ethnic cleansing, wide-scale deportation, hundreds of thousands of executions, and famines that killed millions.



Georgy Maximilianovich Malenkov (6 December 1901 [O.S. 23 November 1901] – 14 January 1988) was a Soviet politician who briefly succeeded Joseph Stalin as the leader of the Soviet Union. However, at the insistence of the rest of the Presidium, he relinquished control over the party apparatus in exchange for remaining Premier and first among equals within the Soviet collective leadership. He then became embroiled in a power struggle with Nikita Khrushchev that culminated in his removal from the premiership in 1955 as well as the Presidium in 1957.

Throughout his political career, Malenkov's personal connections with Vladimir Lenin significantly facilitated his ascent within the ruling Communist Party of the Soviet Union. By 1925, he was entrusted with overseeing the party's records. This brought him into contact with Stalin who had by then successfully consolidated power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union to become the de facto leader of the Soviet Union. As a result of this association, Malenkov became heavily involved in Stalin's purges before later being given sole responsibility over the Soviet missile program during World War II. From 1946 to 1947, he chaired the Council of Ministers Special Committee on Rocket Technology. In order to secure his position as Stalin's favorite, he successfully discredited Marshal Georgy Zhukov and suppressed all glory associated with Leningrad during World War II so that Moscow maintained its image as the Soviet Union's sole cultural and political capital.Following Stalin's death on 5 March 1953, Malenkov temporarily emerged as the Soviet leader's undisputed successor by replacing him as both Chairman of the Council of Ministers (or Premier) and head of the party apparatus. However, only 9 days later, the Politburo (then known as the Presidium) forced him to give up the latter position while letting him retain the premiership. Subsequently, Malenkov contented himself serving as the Presidium’s highest-ranking member and acting chairman until being eclipsed in early 1954 by the party's First Secretary, Nikita Khrushchev. By 1955, he was also forced to resign as Premier. After later organizing a failed palace coup against Khrushchev in 1957, Malenkov was expelled from the Presidium and exiled to Kazakhstan in 1957, before ultimately being expelled from the Party altogether in November 1961. He officially retired from politics shortly afterwards. After a short sojourn in Kazakhstan, he returned to Moscow and kept a low profile for the remainder of his life.