http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/stalin_joseph.shtml
Josef Stalin
Stalin was born in Georgia. He felt a sense of inferiority before educated intellectuals.
In 1922, Stalin was appointed to a post, as General Secretary of the Communist Party's Central Committee. He controlled all appointments, setting agendas, and moving around Party staff in such a way that everyone who counted for anything owed their position to him. By the time the Party's intellectual core realized what had happened, it was too late.
After Lenin's death in 1924, Stalin went to destroy all the old leaders of the Party. Stalin made a pact with Hitler, in which they agreed to divide up Poland and then leave each other alone, but they failed.
During the Teheran, Yalta, and Potsdam Conferences, Stalin proved a worthy negotiator with the likes of Roosevelt and Churchill, and managed to arrange for the countries of Eastern Europe as well as securing three seats for his country in the newly formed UN. The Soviet Union was now a recognized world superpower and the respect that Stalin had craved all his life. Stalin died of a stroke on 5 March 1953.