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Joseph Stalin
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Joseph Stalin was born on December 21, 1879 in Gori, now in the Rep.
of Georgia, as Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. His parents were farmers
and neither of them spoke Russian. In the Gori church school, which Stalin
attended, Russian was the language of instruction. For his success in school
he earned a scholarship to the Tblisi Theological Seminary. While studying
Stalin became interested in the literature of Karl Marx. Before graduation
he quit the seminary. In 1899 he joined the Social Democratic Party. In
1912 Lenin raised him into the upper reaches of the party. After the Revolution
of March 1917, Stalin returned to Petrograd (now Saint Petersburg). Together
with Lev Kamenev, Stalin dominated party decisions in the capital before
Lenin arrived. Although Lenin doubted whether Stalin should be the party's
general secretary after his death, Stalin established himself as Lenin's
recognized successor in 1929. Under his leadership the purges, arrests
and deportations reached a climax. After the Second World War Stalin extended
the Communist domination over most of the countries that the USSR armies
had liberated. On March 5, 1953 he suddenly died in Moscow.
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