Joseph Stalin was the general secretary of the Communist Party of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) from 1922 to 1953, the despotic ruler who more than any other individual molded the features that characterized the Soviet regime and shaped the direction of Europe after World War II ended in 1945.Stalin was born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili in the town of Gori, Georgia, which at the time was part of the vast Russian revolution

After the Bolshevik victory in the civil war, Stalin threw himself into organizational work and administrative tasks. Having served as commissar for state control since 1919, he continued this until 1923, while in 1922 he was elected general secretary of the Communist Party, a position that gave him control over appointments and established a base for his political power. By 1930 Stalin had succeeded in political maneuvers that eliminated his political opponents and established him as the sole leader of the USSR.

By 1950 Stalin’s mental and physical health had begun to deteriorate and he was absent from the Kremlin, the government headquarters in Moscow, for long periods of time.

Stalin’s historical legacy is overwhelmingly negative. Although his policies transformed the USSR from an agrarian-based society into an industrialized nation with a powerful military arsenal, the transformation was accomplished at the cost of millions of lives. Stalin’s militant distrust of the West and his assertion of Soviet dominance in Eastern Europe gave rise to the Cold War. His purges of society through violent police terror left a permanent scar on the collective memory of the people under his rule. Although admired by some Russians, most would agree with the assessment in the West that Stalin was one of the cruelest dictators in history.