Widely considered one of the 20th century's most significant figures, Stalin was the subject of a pervasive personality cult within the international Marxist–Leninist movement, which revered him as a champion of socialism and the working class.

[38] After one failed attempt, Stalin escaped from his exile in January 1904 and travelled to Tiflis,[39] where he co-edited the Marxist newspaper Proletariatis Brdzola ("Proletarian Struggle") with Filipp Makharadze.

[123] Stalin co-signed Lenin's decrees shutting down hostile newspapers,[124] and co-chaired the committee drafting a constitution for the newly-formed Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic.

[156] On his front, Stalin became determined to conquer Lvov; in focusing on this goal, he disobeyed orders to transfer his troops to assist Mikhail Tukhachevsky's forces at the Battle of Warsaw in early August, which ended in a major defeat for the Red Army.

[174] After the civil war, workers' strikes and peasant uprisings broke out across Russia in opposition to Sovnarkom's food requisitioning project; in response, Lenin introduced market-oriented reforms in the New Economic Policy (NEP).

[187] In the final years of his life, Krupskaya provided leading figures with Lenin's Testament, which criticised Stalin's rude manners and excessive power and suggested that he be removed as general secretary.

[193] To bolster his image as a devoted Leninist amid his growing personality cult, Stalin gave nine lectures at Sverdlov University on the Foundations of Leninism, later published in book form.

[203] In the wake of Lenin's death, a power struggle emerged to become his successor: alongside Stalin was Trotsky, Zinoviev, Kamenev, Nikolai Bukharin, Alexei Rykov, and Mikhail Tomsky.

[214] In mid-1926, Kamenev and Zinoviev joined with Trotsky to form the United Opposition against Stalin;[215] in October the two agreed to stop factional activity under threat of expulsion, and later publicly recanted their views.

[220] He entrusted the position of head of government to Vyacheslav Molotov; other important supporters on the Politburo were Voroshilov, Lazar Kaganovich, and Sergo Ordzhonikidze,[221] with Stalin ensuring his allies ran state institutions.

Stalin had called for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), led by Mao Zedong, to ally itself with Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT) nationalists, viewing a CCP-KMT alliance as the best bulwark against Japanese imperial expansionism.

[228] Stalin's government feared attack from capitalist countries,[229] and many communists, including in Komsomol, OGPU, and the Red Army, were eager to be rid of the NEP and its market-oriented approach.

[259] The last elements of workers' control over industry were removed, with factory managers receiving privileges;[260] Stalin defended wage disparity by pointing to Marx's argument that it was necessary during the lower stages of socialism.

[271] Conservative social policies were promoted to boost population growth; this included a focus on strong family units, re-criminalisation of homosexuality, restrictions on abortion and divorce, and abolition of the Zhenotdel women's department.

[301] In the case of Ukraine, historians debate whether the famine was intentional, with the purpose of eliminating a potential independence movement;[302] no documents show Stalin explicitly ordered starvation.

[318] Stalin nevertheless recognised the threat posed by fascism and sought to establish better links with the liberal democracies of Western Europe;[319] in May 1935, the Soviets signed treaties of mutual assistance with France and Czechoslovakia.

[362] As a Marxist–Leninist, Stalin considered conflict between competing capitalist powers inevitable; after Nazi Germany annexed Austria and then part of Czechoslovakia in 1938, he recognised a major war was looming.

[379] In June 1940, the Red Army occupied the Baltic states, which were forcibly merged into the Soviet Union in August;[380] they also invaded and annexed Bessarabia and northern Bukovina, parts of Romania.

[400] In June 1941, he ordered a scorched earth policy of destroying infrastructure and food supplies before the Germans could seize them,[401] also commanding the NKVD to kill around 100,000 political prisoners in areas the Wehrmacht approached.

[428] Soviet military industrial output also had increased substantially from late 1941 to early 1943 after Stalin had moved factories well to the east of the front, safe from invasion and aerial assault.

[442] In 1944, the Soviet Union made significant advances across Eastern Europe toward Germany,[443] including Operation Bagration, a massive offensive in the Byelorussian SSR against the German Army Group Centre.

[448] Roosevelt and Churchill conceded to Stalin's demand that Germany pay the Soviet Union 20 billion dollars in reparations, and that his country be permitted to annex Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands in exchange for entering the war against Japan.

[482] Recognising the need for drastic steps to be taken to combat inflation and promote economic recovery, in December 1947 Stalin's government devalued the rouble and abolished the food rationing system.

[493] While agricultural production stagnated, Stalin focused on a series of major infrastructure projects, including the construction of hydroelectric plants, canals, and railway lines running to the polar north.

[496] In April 1949, the Western powers established the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO), an anti-Soviet military alliance led by the U.S.[507] In the West, Stalin was increasingly portrayed as the "most evil dictator alive" and compared to Hitler.

[445] Cautiously regarding the responses from the Western Allies, Stalin avoided immediately installing Communist Party governments in Eastern Europe, instead initially ensuring that Marxist-Leninists were placed in coalition ministries.

[517] Stalin had a particularly strained relationship with Yugoslav leader Josip Broz Tito due to the latter's continued calls for a Balkan federation and for Soviet aid for the communist forces in the ongoing Greek Civil War.

[550] In November, the Slánský trial took place in Czechoslovakia, in which 13 senior Communist Party figures, 11 of them Jewish, were accused and convicted of being part of a vast Zionist-American conspiracy to subvert the Eastern Bloc.

[572] The collective leadership included Georgy Malenkov, Lavrentiy Beria, Vyacheslav Molotov, Kliment Voroshilov, Nikita Khrushchev, Nikolai Bulganin, Lazar Kaganovich and Anastas Mikoyan.

[690] In under three decades, Stalin transformed the country into a major industrial world power,[691] one which could "claim impressive achievements" in terms of urbanisation, military strength, education and Soviet pride.