Stalin (loosely translated, “man of steel”) was Joseph Dzhugashvili’s adopted nom de guerre after he joined the Bolshevik revolutionary cause. His fight against the Russian monarchy led to his arrest and exile to Siberia, where his views only hardened. Upon returning, Stalin ascended the ranks of the Communist Party, consolidating power and outmaneuvering friends and enemies alike as he elevated his post as General Secretary, traditionally a purely administrative post, to an executive level.

On this day, April 3, in 1922, Joseph Stalin began his meteoric rise to power with his appointment to the post of General Secretary. He was still under the rule of Vladmir Ilyich Lenin, the revolutionary who founded the Communist Party, but Stalin was already making plans for the future.

With Lenin’s death, Stalin outmaneuvered his rivals to gain total control of the party and the country and began a ruthless modernization campaign. Russia was still primarily an agricultural country, and the bitter lessons of World War I still hung in the air. Stalin collectivized the farms, over great objections from the farmowners, and focused on the creation of heavy industry. At the cost of widespread food and goods shortages and untold numbers of human lives, he achieved his plan.