Iosif Vissarionovich Stalin real name Dzhugashvili was born in Gori Tiflis province Russian Empire a Soviet political statesman military and party figure a Russian revolutionary Actual leader of the USSR General Secretary of the Central Committee of the CPSU 19221953 Marshal of the Soviet Union 1943 Generalissimo of the Soviet Union 1945 Peoples Commissar of Defense of the USSR since July 19 1941 Chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars of the USSR and Chairman of the USSR State Defense Committee He also held the following positions From April 3 1922 to February 10 1934 Secretary General then Secretary of the Central Committee of the AllUnion Communist Party of Bolsheviks from 1952 CPSU from December 19 1930 after Vyacheslav Molotov took the post of Chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars of the USSR instead of Alexey Rykov In 1912 at the suggestion of VI Lenin was included in the Central Committee of the RSDLP At the same time Joseph Dzhugashvili finally chose the pseudonym Stalin for himself During the October Revolution the Second AllRussian Congress was elected a member of the AllRussian Central Executive Committee and the Council of Peoples Commissars In 1922 at the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP b he was elected a member of the Orgburo and the Politburo of the Central Committee of the RCP b as well as the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the RCP b when Lenin was Chairman of the Council of Peoples Commissars of the USSR In 1930 after the weakening and death of Lenin Stalin finally emerged victorious from the internal party struggle becoming the leader of the state Stalin was the actual founder of the totalitarian dictatorship in the USSR In 19281929 he was the initiator of the transition from the course of the New Economic Policy NEP to the course of industrialization collectivization and building a planned economy and intensified the policy of the cultural revolution in the USSR