Iosif (Joseph) Vissarionovich Djugashvili (1879—1953) was born in a small village in Georgia, then a province of Imperial Russia, and later adopted the name Stalin from the Russian word for steel. In 1901, Stalin was among those protesting the Russian monarch, known as the tsar, and calling for an end to an imperial system in favor of a classless state governed by the people, with no private wealth or property.

Stalin later joined with the Bolsheviks, a militant faction that rose to power in 1917, and once the USSR was formed, Stalin became head of the Soviet Communist Party. He rose to Soviet premier and reigned for three decades, bringing prolonged economic hardship, political persecution, and terror to the Soviet people.

Stalin ruled with a callous disregard for human life. He consolidated his absolute power and authority by ordering systemic crackdowns, arrests, and slayings of his political opponents, and banned political expression and individual freedoms. At his direction, millions of Soviets died or languished in prison and remote, forced-labor camps.

A fatal stroke ended Stalin’s life in 1953, but his legacy continued on, with the USSR remaining a closed, repressive society for decades.