Joseph Stalin
* Stalin was one of the most powerful and murderous dictators in history. He was the supreme ruler of the Soviet Union for 25 years. His regime caused the death and suffering of millions but has turned the underdeveloped country into a super power. * Joseph Stalin’s Russian name was Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili and was born on the 18th of December 1879 in Gori, Geogia. * Stalin excelled through school and received a free scholarship to the Tiflis Theological Seminary. * Later on in his schooling years, Stalin discovers the ideas of Karl Marx. * In 1899, Stalin was expelled from the Seminary because he disrespected the people in authority, reading forbidden books and claimed to be converting his fellow students to Marxism. * In 1901, Stalin joined the Social Democratic Labour Party which was the resistance of the industrial Tsarism. He coordinated a strike at the large Rothschild Plant in Batum resulting in him being arrested, imprisoned and deported to Siberia. * Joseph adopted the name “Stalin,” meaning steel in Russian. * The strikes that Stalin coordinated soon later caught Vladimir Lenin’s attention. * Between 1902 and 1913 Stalin was imprisoned 8 times by the secret police and then was exiled for life to North Siberia. * On the 15th of March 1917, Tsar Nicholas II was abdicated from the throne. * This led to Stalin’s rise in power and the creation of a communist society although Stalin did not play a major role in the fall of the Romanov Dynasty. * When Lenin died in 1924, Stalin became the leader of the Soviet Union. * Being a leader of the Soviet Union, Stalin’s ideology was to implement Collectivisation, a policy whereby it aims to join individual land and labour into collective farms. * The goal of the 5 year plans was to collectivise, modernise and industrialise the parts of Russia where industrialisations have not occurred and increase the