"A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic."
Born
Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili in
Gori,
Georgia (Russia - duh) 1879, Josef Stalin is best and only known as the dictator of the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics USSR (
SSSR) from 1928 to the day of his death March 5 1953. He was the successor to
Lenin.
Josef Stalin was a very active member of the
Bolshevik party (commonly known as the
Communist party nowadays), and played a big role apparently, in the revolution of
1917. As he progressed in the communist ranks, he was in
1922 made
General Secretary of the
Soviet Central Commitee.
He was educated a priest in
Tblisi (He was the best pupil in the school and earned a full scholarship to the Tbilisi Theological Seminary), later he led the
Red Army. Clearly he was a man of great contrast. In any case, he was named a revolutionary by great
communists -- this after (while still an organizer in the
Bolshevik party) being called
"unimportant, but good at what de does - organizing" by the same people. Some of these were
executed in public.
"Ideas are more dangerous than guns.
We wouldn't let our enemies have guns, why should we let them have ideas?"
In all this, in essence, he is best known for leading the war on the allied soviet side against the
Nazi Regime of
Adolf Hitler and company, and last but certainly not least -- for killing an enourmous number of his own people. Hitler's statistics are said to pale in comparison, but I am not to be the judge of that. It's estimated to be anywhere from 20 million to 50 million
russians.
His Death.
Some speculate that a
KGB chief named
Lavrenti Beria could have been responsible for killing Josef Stalin. Although this has never been confirmed, his funeral, for the man who killed so many
soviets, was attended by so many people that many were
trampled to death in the utter chaos.
The Steel Man's body was embalmed and placed next to Lenin's in the great tomb at the Red Square. In 1961 however, the body of Stalin was transferred to a graveyard and buried. There are
tanks named after him, and he was made
man of the year 1939 (that is not always a good thing) in 2000 by
Time Magazine.