Biography and episodes of life Joseph Stalin. When born and died Stalin, memorable places and dates of important events in his life. politics quotes, Photo and video.
"In this hour of greatest sorrow
I can't find those words
So that they fully express
Our nationwide misfortune."
Alexander Tvardovsky on Stalin's death
Joseph Stalin remains to this day one of the strongest and most controversial rulers of the 20th century. The entire biography of Joseph Stalin is shrouded in many theories, interpretations and opinions. It is difficult, years later, to say with accuracy whether he was the “father Soviet people or a dictator, a Moloch, or a savior. Nevertheless, the significance of Stalin's personality in the history of the USSR and Russia cannot be denied.
He was born in Gori in 1879 in poor family. Joseph's father was a shoemaker, and his mother was the daughter of a serf. According to the stories of Stalin himself, the father often beat his son and wife, and then completely went to wander, leaving the family in poverty. At the age of seven, Joseph entered the theological school in Gori - his mother saw him as a future priest. After graduating with honors, he brilliantly passed the entrance exams to the Tiflis Theological Seminary, but was expelled five years later - for promoting Marxism. Later, Stalin admitted that he became a revolutionary and a supporter of Marxism out of protest against the regime of the theological seminary in which he studied.
During his life, Stalin was married several times - Stalin's first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze, who gave birth to Joseph's son Yakov, died of tuberculosis after three years of marriage. Stalin's second wife, Nadezhda Alliluyeva, who gave birth to two children, Stalin, Svetlana and Vasily, committed suicide after thirteen years of marriage, when the couple were already living in a Kremlin apartment. Stalin's illegitimate son, Konstantin Kuzakov, was born in Turukhansk exile, but Joseph did not maintain relations with him.
After being expelled from the seminary, Stalin's political biography began - he entered the Social Democratic organization of Georgia, arrests, exiles and escapes from these exiles began. In 1903, Joseph joined the Bolsheviks - and his path to the post of head of state began, a few years later he was elected general secretary Party Central Committee. After Lenin's death, Stalin was able to retain power, despite the "Letter to the Congress" written in 1922 by Vladimir Ilyich, where he criticizes Joseph and proposes to remove him from office. Thus began the era of Stalin's rule, an ambiguous time full of victories and tragedies. During the years of Stalin, the USSR turned into a world power, won the Great Patriotic war, a breakthrough was made in the national economic development, in the military-industrial complex. But all these successes during the years of Stalin's rule were accompanied by large-scale repressions, deportation of peoples, famine as a result of collectivization, and, finally, Stalin's personality cult, according to which the people had to believe that all the merits of the country are the merits of its ruler only. Busts and monuments to Stalin were erected throughout the country, which became a symbol of that time in the USSR.
In the post-war years, Comrade Stalin lived in his official residence - in the Near Dacha. On March 1, Stalin's guard found him lying on the floor, and the doctors who arrived the next morning at Stalin's dacha diagnosed paralysis. Stalin's death came on the evening of March 5. The cause of Stalin's death was a cerebral hemorrhage. The death of Joseph Stalin is still shrouded in a halo of mystery and possible conspiracies - so, according to one version, Beria, as well as Stalin's associates, who were in no hurry to call doctors, could have contributed to the murder of Stalin. Stalin's funeral took place on March 9. So many people wished to say goodbye to the "father of the people" and honor the memory of Stalin that a stampede arose. The number of victims numbered in the thousands. Stalin's body was placed in Lenin's Mausoleum. Years later, it was reburied, now Stalin's grave is located near the Kremlin wall. After Stalin's death, the so-called thaw period began, the new leadership of the country decided to move away from the "Stalinist model" and follow the path of liberalization, however, this period in the country's history was not without contradictions and excesses.
Joseph Stalin in his youth
December 21, 1979 Date of birth of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (Dzhugashvili).
1894 Graduated from the Gori Theological School.
1898 Member of the RCP(b).
1902 First arrest, exile to Eastern Siberia.
1917-1922 Work as People's Commissar for Nationalities in the first Soviet government.
1922 General Secretary of the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks.
1939 Obtaining the title of Hero of Socialist Labor.
August 23, 1939 The signing of the non-aggression pact between the USSR and Germany.
May 1941 Chairman of the government of the USSR.
June 30, 1941 Chairman of the State Defense Committee.
August 1941 Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the USSR.
1943 Obtaining the rank of marshal Soviet Union.
1945 Obtaining the title of Hero of the Soviet Union.
March 2, 1953 Paralysis.
March 5, 1953 Date of Joseph Stalin's death.
March 6, 1953 Farewell to Stalin in the House of Unions.
March 9, 1953 Funeral of Joseph Stalin.
November 1, 1961 Reburial of Stalin's body at the Kremlin wall.
1. The Stalin Museum in Gori, in front of which is Stalin's house, where he lived as a child.
2. House-monument of political exiles in Solvychegodsk, located in the house of Stalin, where he was exiled in 1908-1910.
3. Museum "Vologda exile" in the house of Stalin, where he was exiled in 1911-1912.
4. Museum "Stalin's Bunker".
5. Near dacha, or Kuntsevskaya dacha, where Stalin died.
6. House of the Unions, where the body of Stalin was put up for parting.
7. Lenin Mausoleum, where Stalin was buried.
8. Kremlin wall where Stalin is buried (reburied).
Stalin's son from his first marriage, Yakov, was captured by the Germans during the Great Patriotic War. According to one version, when the Germans offered to exchange the leader’s son for their field marshal Paulus, Joseph Stalin replied: “I don’t change a soldier for a field marshal.” According to another, he was very upset by the captivity of Yakov and even accused his wife Julia of the fact that his son was captured. Julia spent two years in prison on charges of passing information to the Germans. In 1943, Yakov was shot while trying to escape from a German concentration camp.
According to the stories of Svetlana Alliluyeva, Stalin's daughter, on the eve of her mother Nadezhda's suicide, her parents quarreled a little - moreover, the quarrel was insignificant, but, apparently, served as a trigger for the mother's act. Nadezhda locked herself in her room and shot herself in the heart with a pistol. Stalin was shocked because he did not understand why? He perceived his wife's act as a desire to punish him for something and did not understand why. In the first days after the death of his wife, he was so depressed that he even said that he did not want to live. Stalin's daughter claims that her mother left a letter to her father, which was full of not only personal, but also political reproaches, which shocked Stalin even more. After reading it, he decided that all this time his wife was on the side of the opposition, and not at the same time with him.
In 1936, information appeared abroad that Stalin had died. A correspondent from an American news agency sent a letter to the Kremlin addressed to Stalin, asking him to refute or confirm the rumors. A few days later he received a response from the Soviet leader with the words: “Dear Sir! As far as I know from the reports of the foreign press, I left this sinful world long ago and moved to the other world. Since it is impossible not to trust the reports of the foreign press, if you do not want to be crossed out from the list of civilized people, then I ask you to believe these reports and not disturb my peace in the silence of the other world. Sincerely, Joseph Stalin.
Joseph Stalin and Vladimir Lenin
“When I die, a lot of rubbish will be put on my grave, but the wind of time will mercilessly sweep it away.”
Documentary plot from the series "Soviet biographies" about Joseph Stalin
“It is difficult to express in words the feeling of great sorrow that our Party and the peoples of our country, all progressive mankind are experiencing these days. Stalin, the great comrade-in-arms and ingenious successor of the work of Lenin, was gone. A man has left us, the closest and dearest to all Soviet people, to millions of working people all over the world.
Lavrenty Beria, Soviet politician
“In these difficult days, the deep sorrow of the Soviet people is shared by all advanced and progressive mankind. The name of Stalin is immensely dear to the Soviet people, to the broad masses of the people in all parts of the world.
Georgy Malenkov, Soviet politician
“These days we are all experiencing a heavy grief - the death of Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin, the loss of a great leader and, at the same time, a close, dear, infinitely dear person. And we, his old and close friends, and millions and millions, like the working people of all countries, all over the world, say goodbye today to Comrade Stalin, whom we all loved so much and who will always live in our hearts.
Vyacheslav Molotov, Soviet politician
The period of his reign, called the "era of Stalinism", was marked by the victory in World War II, the amazing successes of the USSR in the economy, in eradicating the illiteracy of the population, in creating the world image of the country as a superpower. At the same time, his name is associated with horrific facts mass extermination of millions of Soviet people through the organization of artificial famine, forced deportations, repressions directed against opponents of the regime, internal party "purges".
Regardless of the crimes committed, he remains popular among Russians: a 2017 Levada Center poll showed that most citizens consider him an outstanding head of state. In addition, he unexpectedly took the lead in the audience voting during the 2008 television project to choose the greatest hero. national history"Name of Russia".
The two oldest children in their family died shortly after birth. And the surviving Soso had physical disabilities: two fingers fused on his leg, damage to the skin of his face, an arm that did not fully unbend due to an injury received at the age of 6 when he was hit by a car.
Joseph's mother worked hard. She wanted her beloved son to achieve “the best” in life, namely, to become a priest. At an early age, he spent a lot of time among street brawlers, but in 1889 he was admitted to a local Orthodox school, where he demonstrated extraordinary talent: he wrote poetry, received high marks in theology, mathematics, Russian and Greek.
In 1890, the head of the family died from a knife wound in a drunken brawl. True, some historians argue that the boy’s father was in fact not the official husband of his mother, but her distant relative, Prince Maminoshvili, a confidant and friend of Nikolai Przhevalsky. Others even attribute paternity to this famous traveler, outwardly very similar to Stalin. Confirmation of these assumptions is the fact that the boy was accepted into a very solid spiritual educational institution, where the path was ordered for people from poor families, as well as the periodic transfer of funds by Prince Maminoshvili to Soso's mother for raising her son.
After graduating from college at the age of 15, the young man continued his education at the theological seminary of Tiflis (now Tbilisi), where he made friends among the Marxists. In parallel with his main studies, he began to engage in self-education, studying underground literature. In 1898, he became a member of the first social democratic organization in Georgia, showed himself as a brilliant orator and began to propagate the ideas of Marxism among the workers.
Since 1899, he began to professionally engage in revolutionary work, in particular, he became a member of the party committees of Tiflis and Batumi, participated in attacks on banking institutions to obtain funds for the needs of the RSDLP.
In the period 1902-1913. he was arrested eight times and sent into exile seven times as a criminal punishment. But between arrests, while at large, he continued to be active. For example, in 1904, he organized a grandiose Baku strike, which ended with the conclusion of an agreement between workers and oil owners.
Out of necessity, the young revolutionary then had many party pseudonyms - Nizheradze, Soselo, Chizhikov, Ivanovich, Koba. Their total number exceeded 30 names.
In 1905, at the first party conference in Finland, he first met Vladimir Ulyanov-Lenin. Then he was a delegate at the IV and V congresses of the party in Sweden and in the UK. In 1912, at a party plenum in Baku, he was included in absentia into the Central Committee. In the same year, he decided to finally change his surname to the party nickname "Stalin", consonant with the established pseudonym of the leader of the world proletariat.
In 1913, the “fiery Colchian,” as Lenin sometimes called him, once again went into exile. Released in 1917, together with Lev Kamenev (real surname Rosenfeld), he headed the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda, worked to prepare an armed uprising.
When Lenin died in 1924, Stalin led the country, defeating the opposition, and embarked on industrialization, collectivization, and a cultural revolution. The success of Stalin's policy consisted in a competent personnel policy. “Cadres decide everything,” is a quote from Joseph Vissarionovich in a speech to graduates of the military academy in 1935. During the first years in power, he appointed more than 4 thousand party functionaries to responsible posts, thereby forming the backbone of the Soviet nomenklatura.
Joseph Stalin. How to become a leader
But above all, he eliminated competitors in the political struggle, not forgetting to take advantage of their developments. Nikolai Bukharin became the author of the concept of the national question, which the General Secretary took as the basis of his course. Grigory Lev Kamenev owned the slogan "Stalin is Lenin today", and Stalin actively promoted the idea that he was the successor of Vladimir Ilyich and literally planted the cult of Lenin's personality, strengthened the leader's moods in society. Well, Leon Trotsky, with the support of economists close to him ideologically, developed a plan for forced industrialization.
It was the latter who became the main opponent of Stalin. Disagreements between them began long before that - back in 1918, Joseph was indignant that Trotsky, a newcomer to the party, was trying to teach him the right course. Immediately after the death of Lenin, Lev Davidovich fell into disgrace. In 1925, the plenum of the Central Committee summed up the "harm" that Trotsky's speeches had inflicted on the party. The figure was removed from the post of head of the Revolutionary Military Council, Mikhail Frunze was appointed in his place. Trotsky was expelled from the USSR, a struggle began in the country against manifestations of "Trotskyism". The fugitive settled in Mexico, but was killed in 1940 by an NKVD agent.
After Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev fell under Stalin's sights, and were finally eliminated in the course of the apparatus war.
The victims of dispossession (eviction, confiscation of property, executions), along with the kulaks, became the innocent rural population of average income, which led to the actual destruction of the village. When the situation reached critical proportions, the Father of Nations issued a statement about "excesses on the ground."
Forced collectivization (unification of peasants into collective farms), the concept of which was adopted in November 1929, destroyed the traditional Agriculture and led to dire consequences. In 1932, mass famine struck Ukraine, Belarus, Kuban, the Volga region, the Southern Urals, Kazakhstan, and Western Siberia.
Researchers agree that the state was also harmed by the political repressions of the dictator-“architect of communism” against the command staff of the Red Army, the persecution of scientists, cultural figures, doctors, engineers, the mass closing of churches, the deportation of many peoples, including Crimean Tatars, Germans, Chechens, Balkars, Ingrian Finns.
In 1941, after Hitler's attack on the USSR, the Supreme Commander made many erroneous decisions in the art of warfare. In particular, his refusal to promptly withdraw military formations from Kiev led to the unjustified death of a significant mass of the armed forces - five armies. But later, when organizing various military operations, he already showed himself to be a very competent strategist.
The significant contribution of the USSR to the defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 contributed to the formation of the world socialist system, as well as to the growth of the authority of the country and its leader. The "Great Pilot" contributed to the creation of a powerful domestic military-industrial complex, the transformation of the Soviet Union into a nuclear superpower, one of the founders of the UN and a permanent member of its Security Council with veto power.
A year later, Kato gave her husband the firstborn Jacob. When the boy was only 8 months old, she died (according to some sources from tuberculosis, others from typhoid fever). She was 22 years old. As the English historian Simon Montefiore noted, during the funeral, 28-year-old Stalin did not want to say goodbye to his beloved wife and jumped into her grave, from where he was taken out with great difficulty.
After the death of his mother, Jacob met his father only at the age of 14. After school, without his permission, he got married, then because of a conflict with his father, he tried to commit suicide. During WWII, he died in German captivity. According to one of the legends, the Nazis offered to exchange Jacob for Friedrich Paulus, but Stalin did not take the opportunity to save his son, saying that he would not change the field marshal for a soldier.
The second time the "Locomotive of the Revolution" tied the bonds of Hymen at the age of 39, in 1918. His affair with 16-year-old Nadezhda, the daughter of one of the revolutionary workers Sergei Alliluyev, began a year earlier. Then he returned from Siberian exile and lived in their apartment. In 1920, the couple had a son, Vasily, the future lieutenant general of aviation, in 1926, a daughter, Svetlana, who emigrated to the United States in 1966. She married an American and took the surname Peters. Stalin's main hobby was reading.
The leader's main hobby was reading. He loved Maupassant, Dostoyevsky, Wilde, Gogol, Chekhov, Zola, Goethe, without hesitation he quoted the Bible and Bismarck.
Stalin's last speech (Speech at the 19th Congress of the CPSU, 1952)
In his personal life, he was lonely, rarely talked with children - he did not approve of his daughter's endless novels and his son's spree. At the dacha in Kuntsevo, he remained alone at night with the guards, who usually could enter him only after a call.
Svetlana, who came on December 21 to congratulate her father on his 73rd birthday, later noted that he did not look well and, apparently, did not feel well, as he suddenly quit smoking.
On the evening of Sunday, March 1, 1953, the assistant commandant entered the leader with mail received at 22 o'clock, and saw him lying on the floor. Transferring him, along with the guards who came running to help, to the sofa, he informed the top leadership of the party about what had happened. At 9 am on March 2, a group of doctors diagnosed the patient with paralysis on the right side of the body. The time for his possible rescue was lost, and on March 5 he died of a cerebral hemorrhage.
Joseph Stalin - an outstanding revolutionary politician in history Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, whose activities were marked by mass repressions, which are still considered a crime against humanity today. The personality and activities of Stalin in modern society are still loudly discussed - some consider him a great ruler who led the country to victory in the Great Patriotic War, others accuse him of genocide of the people and famine, terror and violence against people.
Stalin Iosif Vissarionovich was born (real name Dzhugashvili) on December 21, 1879 in the Georgian town of Gori in a family belonging to the lower class. He was the third, but the only surviving child in the family - his older brother and sister died in infancy. Soso, as the mother of the future ruler of the USSR called, was born not a completely healthy child, he had congenital defects in the limbs (he had two fingers fused on his left foot), and also had damaged skin on his face and back. At the age of seven, Stalin had an accident - he was knocked down by a phaeton, as a result of which the functioning of his left hand was disrupted.
In addition to congenital and acquired injuries, the future revolutionary was repeatedly beaten by his father Vissarion, which once led to a serious head injury and, over the years, affected Stalin's psycho-emotional state. The mother of Joseph Vissarionovich, Ekaterina Georgievna, surrounded her son with immense care and guardianship, wanting to compensate the boy for his father's missing love. Exhausted at hard work, in order to earn as much as possible more money to raise her son, the woman tried with all her might to raise a worthy person, who, in her opinion, should have become a priest. But her hopes were not crowned with success - Stalin grew up as a street minion and more time spent not in the church, but in the company of local hooligans.
At the same time, in 1888, Joseph Vissarionovich became a student of the Gori Orthodox School, and at the end of it he entered the Tiflis Theological Seminary. It was within the walls of the seminary that he became acquainted with Marxism and joined the ranks of the underground revolutionaries. In the seminary, the future ruler of the Soviet Union showed himself to be a gifted and talented student, since he was easily given all subjects without exception. Then he became the head of an illegal circle of Marxists, in which he was actively engaged in propaganda activities.
Stalin failed to graduate from the seminary, as he was expelled from the educational institution right before the exams for absenteeism. After that, Joseph Vissarionovich was issued a certificate allowing him to become a teacher in elementary schools. At first, he earned a living by tutoring, and then got a job at the Tiflis Physical Observatory as a computer observer.
Stalin's revolutionary activity started in the early 1900s - the future ruler of the USSR was then engaged in active propaganda, which strengthened his position in society. Then he met the head of the Soviet government and other famous revolutionaries. The path to power of Joseph Vissarionovich was full of repeated exile and imprisonment, from where he always managed to escape. In 1912, he finally decided to change his surname Dzhugashvili to the pseudonym "Stalin".
In the same period, he became the editor-in-chief of the Bolshevik newspaper Pravda, where Vladimir Lenin was his colleague, who saw in Stalin his assistant in solving Bolshevik and revolutionary issues, as a result of which Iosif Vissarionovich became his right hand.
In 1917, for special merits, Lenin appointed Stalin People's Commissar for Nationalities in the Council of People's Commissars. The next stage in the career of the future ruler of the USSR is connected with civil war in which the revolutionary showed all his professionalism and leadership skills. At the end of the war, when Lenin was already mortally ill, Stalin completely ruled the country, while destroying all opponents and contenders for the post of chairman of the government of the Soviet Union in his path.
In 1930, all power was concentrated in the hands of Stalin, in connection with which huge upheavals and perestroika began in the USSR. This period is marked by the beginning mass repression and collectivization, when the entire rural population of the country was driven to collective farms and starved. The new leader of the Soviet Union sold all the food taken from the peasants abroad, and with the proceeds he developed the industry by building industrial enterprises. Thus he is in as soon as possible made the USSR the second largest country in the world industrial production, however, at the cost of millions of lives of peasants who died of starvation.
By 1940, Joseph Stalin became the sole ruler-dictator of the USSR. He was a strong leader of the country, had an extraordinary capacity for work, while being able to direct people to solve problems that were important to him. characteristic feature Stalin was his ability to make immediate decisions on any issues discussed and find time to control absolutely all the processes taking place in the country.
The achievements of Joseph Stalin, despite his tough method of governing the country, are still highly appreciated by historical experts. Thanks to him, the USSR won the Great Patriotic War with dignity, agriculture was actively mechanized in the country, industrialization took place, as a result of which the USSR turned into a nuclear superpower with colossal geopolitical influence throughout the world.
Along with indisputable achievements, Stalin's rule is characterized by a mass negative points which still cause horror in society. Stalinist repressions, dictatorship, terror, violence - all this is key characteristic features reign of Joseph Stalin. He is also accused of suppressing entire scientific directions country, accompanied by persecution of doctors and engineers, which caused disproportionate harm to the development of national culture and science.
Stalin's policy is still loudly condemned throughout the world. The ruler of the USSR is accused of mass famine and the death of people who became victims of Stalinism and Nazism. At the same time, in many cities Joseph Vissarionovich is posthumously considered an honorary citizen and an outstanding warrior, and many Soviet people still respect the ruler-dictator, calling him a great leader.
The personal life of Joseph Stalin has few confirmed facts today. The leader-dictator carefully destroyed all evidence of his family life And love relationship, so historians were only able to slightly restore the chronology of events.
Joseph Stalin and Ekaterina Svanidze It is known that the first time Stalin married in 1906 to Ekaterina Svanidze, who gave birth to his first child Yakov. After a year of family life, Stalin's wife died of typhus. After that, the stern revolutionary devoted himself entirely to serving the country, and only 14 years later he again decided to marry Nadezhda Alliluyeva, who was 23 years younger than him.
Joseph Stalin with Nadezhda Alliluyeva The second wife of Joseph Vissarionovich gave birth to a son and took over the upbringing of Stalin's first child, who until that moment had lived with his maternal grandmother. In 1925, a daughter was born in the Stalin family.
Joseph Stalin with son Vasily and daughter Svetlana In 1932, Stalin's children were orphaned, and he became a widower for the second time. His wife Nadezhda committed suicide amid a conflict with her husband. After that, Stalin never married again.
The death of Joseph Stalin came on March 5, 1953. According to the official version of doctors, the ruler of the USSR died as a result of a brain hemorrhage. After the autopsy, it was found that he suffered several ischemic strokes on his legs during his life, which led to serious heart problems and mental disorders.
The embalmed body of Stalin was placed in the Mausoleum next to Lenin, but after 8 years at the Congress of the CPSU, it was decided to rebury the revolutionary in a grave near the Kremlin wall.
There are versions that his ill-wishers were involved in Stalin's death, considering the policy of the leader of the revolutionaries unacceptable. Almost all historical researchers are sure that the “comrades-in-arms” of the ruler deliberately did not allow doctors to approach him, who could put Stalin on his feet and prevent the death of the revolutionary.
Everyone knows that Stalin is just one of the pseudonyms of Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. Many people know that his fellow wrestlers sometimes called him Koba. Did the “Leader of all peoples” have other pseudonyms? At one time, the study of this issue was carried out by a whole The Institute, which counted about 30 party nicknames, oral and printed pseudonyms associated with party activities Joseph Vissarionovich.
The lifestyle of the revolutionaries of the late 19th and early 20th centuries forced them to change their passports and party nicknames quite often. Such a person escaped from prison or exile, received a fresh (fake) passport - changed his “surname”. Subsequently, the document was simply thrown away, and the surname from it was forgotten. In such a serious matter, they naturally used pseudonyms similar to real surnames (sometimes even these were the surnames of acquaintances). For example, Stalin had such an acquaintance from Batumi Nizharadze - his surname became one of the nicknames of the young Joseph. And from exile in Vologda, Stalin generally fled on Chizhikov's real passport. At the IV Party Congress, a certain Ivanovich was registered as a representative from the Tiflis branch of the party - also a working pseudonym Dzhugashvili. However, all these were just small episodes in the life of a Bolshevik who later became a great politician.
When choosing nicknames and pseudonyms, Stalin showed particular predilection for two letters of the Russian alphabet - "C" and "K", it was with them that, as a rule, his "names" began. Perhaps this was partly due to his native name Soso. From here came such pseudonyms as Sozeli, Soselo - diminutive. But politician it’s not good to be little Osenka (this is how these names are roughly translated into Russian). "Kote", "Kato" - the name of the mother as a pseudonym also did not last long. As Stalin grows, a thirst for greatness awakens. That is why Koba became one of his favorite pseudonyms. There was such a king from the Sassanid family, who once conquered Eastern Georgia. Some facts of his biography (ideals, prison, escape from it with the help of a certain woman) surprisingly coincided with the biography of Joseph Vissarionovich himself. And the fact that it was the name of the tsar, and even the conqueror, could not leave Stalin indifferent due to his ambitiousness. No wonder the word "satraps" was one of Stalin's favorite expressions.
However, the pseudonym Koba was suitable only as long as Dzhugashvili's field of activity was Transcaucasia, where people were well acquainted with the local color and history. After entering a wider arena, transferring his aspirations to Russia, the pseudonym Koba became inappropriate, because he ceased to evoke the necessary associations among his party comrades: well, what Russian knew about some kind of Georgian tsar?
Stalin is a pseudonym that best reflected the inner essence of Koba. The king, shrouded in oriental mysticism and a certain amount of magic, is being replaced by a specific, clear symbol: steel. Briefly, succinctly, unbendingly, simply and inevitably - that's how this word sounds. It is harder than iron, clear and understandable to everyone. In addition, it has a clear indication of the "Russianness" of the owner. Lenin - Stalin - it seems, isn't it? For some time, the initial “K.” reminds of Kobe. in the signature: K. Stalin, so since 1913 the future leader has been signed. And it is not surprising that this particular pseudonym later became a surname. After all, it often happened in Russian history: the surname should reflect the inner essence of the owner. "Dzhugashvili" - what's great here? Although there is a version that the word "juga" is translated from ancient Georgian as "steel". But this version seems to be unfounded. After all, it was the presence of this very steel in the character of Joseph Vissarionovich that made the heirs of his pseudonym so unhappy, who did not have the necessary firmness. However, this question can become the basis of a new study based on mystical concepts ...
Joseph Stalin remains one of the most controversial figures in history to this day. The head of the largest state in the world, the leader of the people who defeated fascism, a tyrant who kept everyone in fear until his death, inspiring involuntary awe not only to his subjects and subordinates, but also to his closest associates. Throughout his life, he fully and completely justified the meaning of his pseudonym, while the real name of Stalin, of course, did not differ in the same euphony.
The active use of pseudonyms (literally - "fake name"), began at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. However, in Russia the need to resort to fictitious names manifested itself somewhat earlier - with the emergence of socio-political literature in the 40-60s of the century before last. Tight censorship in tsarist Russia encouraged such tricks. In addition, there were many eminent persons who really wanted to speak out about current political events and decisions and remain incognito.
With the advent of a bright social bias in the political layout, which, of course, did not fit into the monarchical system in any way, various ways conspiracies. In this regard, pseudonyms were used as party nicknames. And there were usually a lot of them. The most common Russian names were taken as the basis for such nicknames. It was in this way that the name "Lenin" arose - from female name Lena. One of Stalin's pseudonyms was Ivanov.
What is the real name of Stalin, almost all the inhabitants of Russia know thanks to him himself, as well as the real name of Lenin. This is due to the fact that they were the only major figures in the country who, after the revolution, retained the double spelling in their signatures: V. I. Ulyanov-Lenin and I. V. Dzhugashvili-Stalin. And their fictitious names, nevertheless, are firmly entrenched in history, which, of course, speaks of good choice aliases.
Meanwhile, according to various sources, Stalin had many different party nicknames and names. Some sources claim that there were at least thirty - written, printed and oral. It is noted, however, that this is an incomplete list. It is not possible to calculate the exact number, since in his official biography, as well as in his autobiography, there are many dark spots. Although this number cannot be compared with the variety of nicknames that Lenin had - only 146, of which 129 are Russian and seventeen are foreign.
The information that Stalin's real name was Dzhugashvili was never hidden. The leader knew how to competently manipulate the feelings of the people, pretending to be a "simple" native of it and slightly opening the veil of his life. The masses of the people gave him his due and never called him anything other than "Comrade Stalin." However, this euphonious name appeared much later. He entered revolutionary history with a different name. Even after his "ascension to the throne", only his closest associates, with whom he began his political activities, continued to call him that, and many of whom he destroyed during the years of repression.
This name was the pseudonym "Koba". According to open sources, this was his first permanent pseudonym. It is worth noting that the researchers and biographers of Stalin, after analyzing all the party nicknames and pseudonyms of the Soviet leader known to them, came to the conclusion that the letters he most used when choosing a name for himself were "K" and "S". It was them that he mostly beat.
According to official information, the pseudonym "Koba" was fixed after escaping from the Kutaisi prison in the summer of 1903. It was under him that he became known among the participants in the revolutionary movement of Transcaucasia from the beginning of 1904. The researchers are convinced that Stalin, whose real name and surname were of Georgian origin, gravitated towards his pseudonym precisely because of the rather difficult to read meaning, especially outside the Caucasus. It is noted that the name has two incarnations: Church Slavonic and national. In the first case, this word means "magic". In the second, this is the Georgian reading of the name of the king of Persia, Kobadesa, who occupies a prominent place in the history of the small southern country times of the early Middle Ages.
Real surname Stalin, of course, had a powerful Georgian sound, but to informed people, the first permanent pseudonym could indicate the serious ambitions of the future leader. It is known that Kobadesa not only conquered eastern Georgia and contributed to the transfer of the capital from Mtskheta to Tbilisi. Among his contemporaries, he gained fame as a great magician. According to the official version, he was helped to seize the throne by magicians who were members of the "early communist" sect. They advocated just an equal division of everything between everyone. After placing on the throne, the communist tsar brought his fellow sectarians closer to the administration. This decision was not approved by the ruling elite, they gathered a conspiracy and overthrew him from the throne. However, the imprisoned king was helped by a woman to escape, and he returned to the throne again.
The coincidences in the biography are more than obvious. Probably, Stalin saw something mystical in this intertwining of destinies. Moreover, there were more coincidences in the future, much later than he abandoned this pseudonym. Another reflection of the fate of the mystic tsar manifested itself at the end of the 30s, when Stalin massacred all his associates in establishing a socialist regime - exactly the same was done by the king of Kobades.
The real name of Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich was too verbose. This did not fit into the plans of the revolutionary fugitive, who clearly cherished thoughts of power much greater than regional. With the surname Dzhugashvili, he could hardly count on popular love: the basis of the people was nevertheless Russians, on whom Stalin decided to stake.
After the third escape, returning to Moscow in 1912, Stalin finally decides to join the ranks of the curators of the worker-peasant movement on an all-Russian scale and completely move away from the Transcaucasian region. At that time, Krasin, Kollontai, Litvinov were already shining in Moscow - the educated elite of the Leninist movement, who, moreover, as a rule, spoke several languages. Of course, no one was going to let him into the front rows. However, it was already clear that both Stalin's real name and his pseudonym "Koba" were simply no good. "Koba" in an environment where, of course, no one would understand the deeper meanings and potential ambitions, it would sound simply ridiculous. Stalin understood that the new name should have strictness, solidity, restraint, the absence of minimal opportunities for rumors, an impressive meaning, but without a straightforward effect.
All these criteria definitely met the pseudonym "Stalin". Unfortunately, the destruction of all the old Bolsheviks (rather quickly, in the second half of the 1930s) makes it impossible to even guess what the first reaction to the new name would be. However, some observers already in the 30s assessed it precisely as iron man strong and flexible like steel. For many in those years it was admired. It can be assumed that this was the main idea that he was guided by when choosing. The real name of Stalin Joseph and his former pseudonyms did not have such categoricalness, composure, straightforwardness and the necessary rigidity. This is the name that the leader of a monolithic empire should have had.
