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Article: Stalin, Josef Vissarionovich
- Article from:
- Encyclopedia of Russian History
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STALIN, JOSEF VISSARIONOVICH
(1879
–
1953), general secretary of the Communist Party, Soviet dictator.
Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, who in revolutionary work was called Koba before adopting the
nom de plume
Stalin, was born in Gori, Georgia, to a working-class family; his father was a cobbler and his mother a domestic servant. Many of the details of his early life remain in dispute, but his education was gained at a local church school and the Tiflis (Tbilisi in Georgian) Orthodox seminary, from which he was expelled in 1899. He joined the Russian Social Democratic Labor Party soon after its foundation, and in 1901 was elected to the Tiflis Social Democratic Committee. ...