Stalin, Joseph Vissarionovich 1879-1953, Russian revolutionary, head of the USSR (1924-53). A Georgian cobbler's son named Dzhugashvili, he joined the Social-Democratic party while a seminarian and soon became a professional revolutionary. In the 1903 party split (see BOLSHEVISM AND MENSHEVISM) he sided with LENIN. Stalin attended party congresses abroad and worked in the Georgian party press. In 1912 he went to St. Petersburg, where he was elected to the party's central committee. About this time he took …
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…Russians were dead (see UNION OF SOVIET SOCIALIST REPUBLICS). At the TEHERAN CONFERENCE and the YALTA CONFERENCE Stalin gained Western recognition of a Soviet sphere of influence in Eastern Europe. The paranoia of his last years led to a period of terror reminiscent of the 1930s. On his death (1953) his body was placed next to Lenin's. In 1956, at the 20th Party Congress, KHRUSHCHEV denounced Stalin's tyranny, but destalinization has never been thoroughgoing Bibliography Wolfson Lowe