Joseph Stalin
Overview
Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1878 – 5 March 1953) was the Premier of the Soviet Union
Premier of the Soviet Union
The office of Premier of the Soviet Union was synonymous with head of government of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics . Twelve individuals have been premier...

 from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....

 revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution
October Revolution
The October Revolution , also known as the Great October Socialist Revolution , Red October, the October Uprising or the Bolshevik Revolution, was a political revolution and a part of the Russian Revolution of 1917...

 and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee
Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union
The Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union , abbreviated in Russian as ЦК, "Tse-ka", earlier was also called as the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party ...

 from 1922 until his death in 1953. While formally the office of the General Secretary was elective and was not initially regarded as the top position in the Soviet state, after Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Lenin
Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...

's death in 1924, Stalin managed to consolidate more and more power in his hands, gradually putting down all opposition groups within the party.
Timeline

1917    The People's Commissars give authority to Vladimir Lenin, Leon Trotsky, and Joseph Stalin.

1917    Joseph Stalin enters the provisional government of Bolshevik Russia.

1922    Joseph Stalin becomes the first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

1927    Leon Trotsky is expelled from the Soviet Communist Party, leaving Joseph Stalin in undisputed control of the Soviet Union.

1928    Boris Bazhanov defects through Iran. He is the only assistant of Joseph Stalin's secretariat to have defected from the Eastern Bloc.

1937    In Moscow, 17 leading Communists go on trial accused of participating in a plot led by Leon Trotsky to overthrow Joseph Stalin's regime and assassinate its leaders.

1937    Great Purge: The Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin executes eight army leaders.

1941    Soviet leader Joseph Stalin consolidates the Commissariats of Home Affairs and National Security to form the NKVD and names Lavrenti Beria its chief.

1941    World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin addresses the Soviet Union for only the second time during his three-decade rule. He states that even though 350,000 troops were killed in German attacks so far, the Germans had lost 4.5 million soldiers and that Soviet victory was near.

1942    World War II: Soviet leader Joseph Stalin issues Order No. 227 in response to alarming German advances into the Soviet Union. Under the order all those who retreat or otherwise leave their positions without orders to do so were to be immediately executed.

Quotations

We think that a powerful and vigorous movement is impossible without differences — "true conformity" is possible only in the cemetery.

Stalin's article "Our purposes" Pravda 1, (22 January 1912)

Anti-Semitism, as an extreme form of racial chauvinism, is the most dangerous vestige of cannibalism.

"Anti-Semitism: Reply to an inquiry of the Jewish News Agency in the United States" (12 January 1931)

 
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