Joseph Stalin

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who was the longest-serving leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 to 1952, and Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1941 until his death. Initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, Stalin consolidated power to become a dictator by the 1930s. Ideologically, he formalised his Leninist interpretation of Marxism as Marxism–Leninism, while the political and economic system he implemented is known as Stalinism. His regime has been widely described as totalitarian and has been condemned for overseeing mass political repression and prevalent censorship, extensive exploitation of forced labour, deportations of entire nationalities, hundreds of thousands of executions, and catastrophic famines that killed millions.

18 December 1878

Born on the same birth day (18 December): Alfred Bester • Allen Klein • Greg D'Angelo • Heinrich Roth • Jack Brooks (American politician) • John S. Harris • Jonathan Yeo • Lalchand Rajput • Lionel Monckton • Mille Petrozza • Ossie Davis • Philipp von Hutten • Rosemary Leach • Sophie of Mecklenburg (1481–1503)

Born in the same month (December 1878): C. Rajagopalachari • Elizabeth Arden • Elvia Carrillo Puerto • Francis A. Nixon • Hans Carossa • Horacio Quiroga • Jan Łukasiewicz • Joseph M. Schenck • Kalle Korhonen • Louis Chevrolet • Mohammad Ali Jauhar • Myer Prinstein • Noël Leslie, Countess of Rothes • Stephen Timoshenko • William Aberhart • Yosano Akiko