Stalin Rise to Power Timeline

Stalin's real birthday

December 6, 1878

Stalin's changed birthday

December 21, 1879

Stalin enters the Tiflis Seminary

1894

Stalin gets expelled from the Tiflis Seminary and joins the Social Democrats

1899

Stalin gets arrested for the first time and gets exiled

1902

Lenin first meets at the Bolshevik Conference in Finland

1905

Ekaterina dies of tuberculosis

1907

Stalin lives with Vyacheslav Scriabin (Molotov) and is co-opted by the party’s Central Committee

1912

Stalin first uses the name Stalin

1913

Stalin is editor of Pravda with Molotov and is also Commissar of Nationalities

1917

Stalin is Director-General of Food Supplies and then Commissar in Tsaritsyn

1918

Stalin becomes a member of the Politburo

→ Liaison Officer between Politburo and Orgburo and also in charge of the Orgburo

→ Head of Workers' and Peasants’ Inspectorate

1919

Stalin appointed as General Secretary of the Central Committee by Lenin and Kamenev, giving him access to all personal files

1922

Stalin annexes Georgia (Lenin is disgusted, but he had a stroke in December, so he can't really react)

1922

Stalin insults Krupskaya

1922

Stalin controls the Nomenklatura list

1923

Lenin dies of a fatal stroke, Stalin delivers funeral oration

January 21, 1924

Lenin's testament is revealed, Zinoviev and Kamenev allow Stalin to stay as Secretary since they feared Trotsky

1924

Stalin sides with Bukharin and Rykov (right wing members of party in support of NEP)

1926

Another grain crisis occurs

1927

Stalin starts grain requisitioning and de-kulakization in Siberia

1928

Trotsky is exiled from the USSR

1928

Stalin turns on the NEP, calling for the first Five Year Plan (Stalin also appoints the title of Vohzd for himself)

1929