Joseph Stalin Fact Sheet: Who was Joseph Stalin? The following short biography and fact sheet provides interesting facts about the life, times and history of Joseph Stalin.

Joseph Stalin Fact File Biography: Lifespan: 1878 – 1953 *** Full Name: His birth name was Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili and he became known as Joseph Stalin *** Nickname: Koba, Soselo and Ivanov *** Occupation: Leader of the Soviet Union *** Date of Birth: Joseph Stalin was born on December 18th 1878 *** Place of Birth: Joseph Stalin was born in Gori, Tiflis Governorate of the Russian Empire *** Family background: His father was Besarion Jughashvili who was a cobbler and his mother was Ketevan Geladze who was a housemaid *** Early life and childhood: He grew up as an only child in difficult circumstances as his father became an alcoholic and very abusive towards both him and his mother. As a child he suffered various health issues, he contracted smallpox when he was seven years of age and at twelve he was involved in an accident involving a horse-drawn carriage that resulted in a permanently damaged arm *** Education: Joseph Stalin was enrolled in a Greek Orthodox Priesthood school by his mother, which subsequently enraged his father so much, in a drunken state he attacked the local police chief and found himself banned from their town of Gori, leaving behind his family ***

Joseph Stalin Fact 1: Joseph Stalin was born on December 18th 1878 and during the 19th century period in history when many empires across the globe collapsed, the Spanish, first and second French, Holy Roman, Mughal and Chinese but the British and Russian Empires, the United States and German Empire where on the rise.

Joseph Stalin Fact 2: At sixteen years of age he was the recipient of a scholarship that allowed him to attend the Tiflis Spiritual Seminary. Inspire of training as a priest, within his first year he became an atheist.

Joseph Stalin Fact 3: He was a prolific reader and would discover the works of Vladimir Lenin in 1899 and became a member of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party which was a Marxist group.

Joseph Stalin Fact 4: He also began writing poetry anonymously for a Georgian local paper.

Joseph Stalin Fact 5: After he quit school he became a part time clerk in a meteorological office but as the state began to crack down on revolutionary activities he began living off of donations and went underground to become a revolutionary full time.

Joseph Stalin Fact 6: Lenin formed the Bolsheviks and Ioseb joined them as quickly as he could. He proved quite adept at organizing of the men as well as intellectually so he also put together propaganda material, organized strikes and bank robberies as well as raising money.

Joseph Stalin Fact 7: It was between 1910 and 1912 that he began to use the name Stalin and became Joseph Stalin.

Joseph Stalin Fact 8: During World War I he was refused entry into the military as a result of his damaged arm. He also spent some time in exile in Siberia.

Joseph Stalin Fact 9: Having returned to Petrograd after his last exile in Siberia Stalin became elected to the Bolshevik Central Committee which then voted in favor of a revolution which took place on November 7th culminating in the Winter Palace being stormed by the Bolsheviks, Kerensky’s Cabinet was arrested and would be referred to the October Revolution.

Joseph Stalin Fact 10: After the October Revolution the Nationalities Affairs appointed Stalin as the People’s Commissar. Shortly thereafter a Civil War in Russia erupted with the White Army, consisting largely of anti-Bolsheviks, going up against Lenin’s Red Army.

Joseph Stalin Fact 11: By 1921 as the Red Army was invading Georgia Stalin would play a significant role in the outcome and in 1922 Lenin had Stalin appointed General Secretary.

Joseph Stalin Fact 12: In late 1922 Lenin suffered two strokes and in January of 1924 he died leaving behind a struggle for power. Gradually he eliminated his opposition and by 1938 the purges were over.

Joseph Stalin Fact 13: He greatly expanded the power of the secret police and intelligence agencies and under his guidance began to set up Soviet intelligence networks worldwide including Great Britain, Japan, France, the United States and Germany.

Joseph Stalin Fact 14: By the 1930’s he had largely consolidated virtually complete control of the Soviet Union.

Joseph Stalin Fact 15: Just before, during and after World War II Stalin initiated a series of deportations on such a massive scale that it is believed over three million people were deported to Central Asian republics and Siberia but of that number forty three percent died. They were resettled simply for having or coming into contact with anyone who was not of Stalin’s view.

Joseph Stalin Fact 16: The science community under Stalin’s rule was kept under very strict ideological control by the Stalin's government together with literature and art.

Joseph Stalin Fact 17: The rare positive effects of Stalin’s leadership were that girls were offered an equal education to the boys, women had equal employments rights and even in healthcare under his regime there were advances giving rise to the first generation to be free of cholera, malaria and typhus.

Joseph Stalin Fact 18: In 1939 Stalin as the head of the Soviet Union entered into a non-aggressive pact with Nazi Germany however that pact would be broken in June of 1941 with the implementation of Operation Barbarossa in which the Germans began an invasion of the Soviet Union along the Eastern Front. Stalin through his network of spies and heard that Hitler was planning on an attack but he did not wish to believe it was to be so as he was sure Germany would wait, defeat Britain and then perhaps turn their attention to the Soviet Union.

Joseph Stalin Fact 19: Ultimately the Soviet Union would get the better of the Nazi German invasion although the death toll and casualties resulting from the conflict were horrendously high.

Joseph Stalin Fact 20: At wars end Stalin met with other allied leaders, such as Churchill, Roosevelt to discuss post-war reorganization of Europe.

Joseph Stalin Fact 21: The countries that were to remain under Soviet control became commonly known as the Eastern Bloc and in Berlin in 1948 West Berlin would be blockaded by the Soviet Union as they rejected communism.

Joseph Stalin Fact 22: Towards the end of World War II Stalin’s health began to deteriorate already suffering from atherosclerosis due to his very heavy smoking he suffered a mild stroke and a severe heart attack in 1945.

Joseph Stalin Fact 23: Joseph Stalin died on March 5th 1953 aged seventy four at Kuntsevo Dacha, Kuntsevo, Russian SFSR, Soviet Union. His body was laid to rest initially in Lenin’s Mausoleum but later moved to the Kremlin Wall Necropolis.

Joseph Stalin Influence & Legacy: Although Joseph Stalin would rule over the Soviet Union for more than 20 years using fear and terror to maintain his grip on the nation he did nevertheless modernize Russia and also assisted in the defeat of Nazi Germany.