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Born Dec 18, 1878, in Gori, Georgia. Ioseb was the son of a cobbler and a washerwoman. At age 7, he contracted smallpox and was left with facial scarring. A few years later, he was injured in a carriage accident that left his left arm deformed. His physical ailments caused other children to ridicule him; leaving him with serious anger issues.

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A good student and Russian Orthodox Christian, Ioseb entered church school in Gori with the hopes of one day becoming a priest. He won a scholarship to the Tiflis Theological Seminary and started in 1894. It was during this period where he became acquainted with Messame Dassy, a Georgian independence party that sought a break with Russia. He became so fascinated with this group that he eventually dropped out of school. In 1899, he joins the cause full time.

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Becoming increasingly radical, Ioseb starts attending speeches and protests, as well as more militant. After his arrest for a labor strike he was involved with, he was sent to Siberia in exile. He successfully escaped from Siberia, and chose to use the alias Joseph Stalin. It is thought that he chose the name Stalin because it meant "steel" in Russian. He goes back to his work, but as split with Messame Dassy, who did not support strikes. He joins the Georgian Bolsheviks and raises money by violent crimes and robberies. He has a reputation for ruthlessness.

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Elected as party of a Georgian Bolshevik delegation to attend a Bolshevik conference in St. Petersburg. Here he meets Vladimir Lenin in Nov 1905. Though the disagreed strongly on many things, Stalin deeply respected Lenin. In 1911, at a conference in Prague, Lenin appointed an absent Stalin to his first role in the Central Command of the Bolshevik party and editor in chief of the Bolshevik weekly newspaper. Though Stalin was not the statesman Lenin was, Lenin saw Stalin as an enforcer for Bolsheviks' will.

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Stalin's relationship with Lenin turns bitter over the years. Disagreements turned to hatred, but Lenin couldn't get rid of Stalin because everyone owed their jobs to Stalin in some way. When Lenin dies in 1924, Stalin maneuvers himself into power. Those that questioned his rule, were from the Lenin govt, or he felt was a threat had to be gotten rid of. In 1936, he begins The Great Purge. 750,000 were executed, and millions more sent to Gulags. He did not need a reason to do either.