RISE TO PROMINENCE Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (later known as Joseph Stalin), son of Besarion Jughashvili and Ketevan Geladze, was born in Gori, Georgia on December 18, 1879. Because Joseph’s mother ardently desired for her son Joseph to become a priest, Joseph attended primary and secondary school at a local Russian Orthodox church. In 1894, after receiving a generous academic scholarship, Joseph Stalin enrolled at the Tiflis Theological Seminary. In 1895, Joseph joined the organization known as Messame Dassy. Messame Dassy supported Georgian independence from Russia. Joseph joined the group in 1898 and soon thereafter became acquainted with the teachings of Karl Marx and Vladimir Lenin. In 1899, Joseph was expelled from Tiflis Theological …show more content…
In 1922, Stalin became the General Secretary of the Communist Party, granting him control over all cabinet appointments. Stalin, a shrewd opportunist, ensured to appoint members who supported him and could serve as a solid political base during any of his future ambitious power plays. Stalin made these decisions in order to centralize power and structure a dynamic in which nearly all members of the central command were indebted to him. Suffering a stroke the same year, Lenin, although expressing private disapproval of Stalin, could not stop Stalin’s power abuse. Lenin died on 21 January 1924, clearing the path for Stalin’s rise to …show more content…
Beginning in 1928 with Stalin’s first Five Year Plan, Stalin commenced a campaign to reverse the purely Marxist agrarian policies implemented by prior Bolshevik leadership. Under “the man of steel”, land previously given to individual peasants was seized and organized into collective farms. Believing that collectivization of agrarianism would lead to more efficient food production, Stalin implemented these policies, not foreseeing the backlash he would receive from peasants desiring greater autonomy. This dissidence was compounded by famine rampant throughout the USSR, most notably in the Ukraine. In fact, during the War Scare of 1927, many peasants hoarded their food supplies. The Five Year Plans also called for increased expenditures on domestic industrialization and militarization. But coupled with the millions who were killed in the forced labor camps of the Gulag, Stalin’s rise to power was characterized by the death of his people. Any dissidence was met with swift and lethal response. The Great Terror’s brutal political purges lasted from 1934 to 1936 but arguably persisted throughout Stalin’s reign. The Show Trials, with coerced confessions and summary executions, transpired over a period of two years from 1936 to 1938. In total, over 12 million individuals died in Soviet prisons and slave labor camps during Stalin’s