Ruler · Twentieth century · Russia
Joseph Stalin
1878–1953
General secretary of the Soviet Communist Party from 1922 and dominant ruler of the USSR until 1953. Forced collectivization, famine, and the mass operations of 1937–1938 were carried out under his authority.
Facts
- Born
- 18 December 1878 (Old Style 6 December), Gori, Georgia (then Russian Empire).
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Joseph Stalin
- Died
- 5 March 1953, near Moscow.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Joseph Stalin
- Party office
- General secretary of the Central Committee from 1922; consolidated personal rule in the late 1920s.
- Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica, Joseph Stalin
- 1937–1938 executions
- NKVD records: about 681,692 executions in 1937–1938 across operations. Order No. 00447 alone: roughly 387,000 shot.
- Source: Getty & Naumov; archival NKVD figures cited in standard histories
The record
Joseph Stalin held the party general secretaryship from 1922 and defeated rivals after Lenin's death. Collectivization and grain seizure produced famine, including the Holodomor in Ukraine. The Great Terror of 1937–1938 ran on quotas: Politburo resolution P51/94 and NKVD Order No. 00447 set Category I shootings and Category II camp terms through troikas without normal trial.
National operations, including the Polish Operation, used album sentencing. Show trials were the public face; most killings were administrative.
Death tolls and legal labels (including genocide debates over the Holodomor) are disputed; the paper trail of quotas and border seals is not. This page files the ruler; linked event pages carry detail.
Images
Connected
Links in both directions: what this page points to, and what points here.
Articles
Desk pieces that belong with this record.
The ChekaKarl Marx died on March 14, 1883, in London, decades before the establishment of the Soviet secret police. The All-Russian Extraordinary Commission, commonly known as the Cheka, was created thirty-four years later by official decree at the Smolny Institute.Read 
The HolodomorFamine is not a weather report when the state seals the exits and takes the grain. That is the fundamental truth of the Holodomor—the state-engineered famine that devastated Ukraine and other Soviet regions from 1932 to 1933.Read 
Stalin's TerrorThe Great Terror was not merely a series of high-profile show trials targeting Old Bolsheviks and political elites. It was quota politics enforced with a gun.Read
Comments
Loading comments…