The Russian leader who succeeded Lenin as head of the Communist Party and created a totalitarian state between 1879 and 1953.
Joseph Stalin (birth surname: Jughashvili; 18 December 1878[1] – 5 March 1953) was the leader of the Soviet Union from the mid-1920s until his death in 1953. Holding the post of the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, he was effectively the dictator of the state.