Joseph Stalin

File:Joseph Stalin.jpg

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (18 December 1879 – 5 March 1953) wis a Soviet politeecian an heid o state who served as the first General Secretary o the Communist Pairty o the Soviet Union's Central Committee frae 1922 till his daith in 1953. Efter the daith o Vladimir Lenin in 1924, Stalin rose tae become the leader o the Soviet Union, which he ruled as a dictator.

Stalin launcht a command economy, replacin the New Economic Policy o the 1920s wi Five-Year Plans an launchin a period o rapid industrialization an economic collectivization. The upheaval in the agricultural sector disruptit fuid production, resultin in widespread famine, includin the catastrophic Soviet famine o 1932–1933 (kent in Ukraine as the Holodomor).

Durin the late 1930s, Stalin launcht the Great Purge (an aa kent as the "Great Terror"), a campaign tae purge the Communist Pairty o fowk accused o sabotage, terrorism, or treachery; he extendit it tae the military an ither sectors o Soviet society. In practice, the purges wur indiscriminate. Targets wur aften executit, impreesoned in Gulag labor camps or exiled. In the years which follaed, millions o members o ethnic minorities wur an aa deportit.

In 1939 Stalin entered intae a non-aggression pact wi Nazi Germany, follaed bi the Soviet invasion o Poland, Finland, the Baltics, Bessarabie an northren Bukovinae. Efter Germany violatit the pact in 1941, the Soviet Union joined the Allies tae play an important role in the Axis defeat, at the cost o the lairgest daith toll for ony kintra in the war (maistly due tae the mass daiths o civilians in territories occupied bi Germany). Efter the war, Stalin instawed subservient communist governments in maist kintras in Eastren Europe, formin the Eastren bloc, ahint wha wis referred tae as an "Iron Curtain" o Soviet rule durin the Cauld War.

Stalin fostered a cult o personality aroond hissel, but efter his daith, his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, denoonced his legacy an drove the process o de-Stalinization o the Soviet Union.

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Joseph Stalin