Stalin Essays (1680 words) - Old Bolsheviks, Politics, Communism

Stalin Stalin Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili was an unkown man in the small town of Gori, Georgia. After years of revoulutionary activity and many times exiled to Siberia, he changed his name. A name that would threaten the Germans, ally with the Americans, and help the North Koreans. A name that came from the Russian word for steel, Joseph Stalin (Nash 2836). Joseph Stalin was born on 21 December 1877 to Ekaterina Georgievna and Vissarion Ivanovitch Dzhugashvili (Block 790). Vissarion, Stalin's father, was a drunkered and very cruel to his young son. Ekaterina, Stalin's mother, was a washer women to support the family. The first three of Vissarion and Ekaterina's kids had died shortly after their birth, so Stalin grew up as an only child. When Stalin was still a young boy he got small pox, which left his face scared forever. His first school was a litlle church school in Gori (Marrin 825). Gori was full of socialist movements and the Czarist goverment wanted to educate priests to fight the revoulutionary ideas. Stalin's mother, therefore, a dedicated member of the Orthodox Church, entered her son into the Seminary at Tifilis (Block 790). He entered the school in 1894 for the study of priesthood in the Georgian Orthodox Church (Marrin 825) and on the birthday of Czar Alexander III, Stalin sung a solo in an Orthodox Church (Block 790). Soon Marixist ideas reached him. He knew little about Marx's theroies and the revoulution, but never the less it amazed him. He soon started to get involved (Marrin 825). He joined the forbidden revolutionary moment when he was fifteen and three years later he was secretly leading a Marxist circle (Block 790). In May of 1899, he was expelled from the school for missing an examination (Marrin 825) but Offcial Communist literature says that he was expelled for "political balance". He soon joined the Tiflis branch of the Russian Social-Democratic Wrokers' Party and it was not long before he was a professional agitator. In 1900 and 1901 he led strikes and demostrations in Tifilis and Batum (Block 791). In 1901 the Czar's secret police searched Stalin's room but he had gone and joined the underground movement that was springing up throughout Russia. He worked for a number of newspapers and on September of 1901 he offically became accepted into the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party (Marrin 825). Stalin was arrested and exiled to Eastern Siberia, seven times between April 1902 and March 1913, for revoulutionary activity. He escaped numerous times to come back and wreak havack upon the Czarist goverment (Nash 2836). In late 1905, he traveled as a Caucasian delegate to the secret Boleshevik conference in Finland. It was there that he first met Lenin, later on he started to carry out orders for Lenin. Stalin soon became Lenins most trusted lieutenants, he also became good at raising money for the Party. He supposedly helped with the seccessful attack on the Tifilis bank convoy (Block 791). He wrote articles for newspapers such as the Zvesda (The Star) and Pravada (The Truth). Some say it was about this time when he started calling himself Joseph Stalin (Block 791). In 1914 Germany declared war on Russia and France. World War I had erupted. Stalin was in exile were he stayed until 1917. Russia was suffering badly and many people were starving. Riots and demonstrations broke out through the cities and on March 15, 1917 Czar Nicholas III gave up his throne to a provisional goverment mostly lead by Mensheviks (Marrin 826). The provisional goverment freed all political prisoners (Block 791). Stalin returned to Petrograd to help direct the Bolsheviks before Lenin's return from Switzerland. When Lenin returned he opoosed the new goverment and again began to lead a revoulution with Stalin supporting him the whole way. While Lenin and other revoulutionaries were forced to live underground, Stalin stayed in Petrograd. Where he helped oraganize a coup which would take place on October 25, 1917 (Block 791). Lenin then launched a radical progam to overthrow the Provisional Goverment. Then on the month of October, on the old Russian calender, the Bolsheviks siezed power and took over the provisional goverment. This take over is often called the October Revoulution (Marrin 826). The new goverment, headed by Lenin, expirenced some small uprisings which grew into a civil war (Marrin 826). After a small dispute with Trotsky, Stalin was given an independent command, of some troops, and drove Kenikin's troops back to the Black Sea. He was given the Order of the Soviet Banner, which is the highest military distinction in all of Russia. He also led his troops to many other victories (Block