In Russia, prisoners exchange you!
To be clear, and this repeats some and adds new info elsewhere, Stalin was married 3 times and had 3 legit kids (none of whom he seems to have much time for)
Ekaterina Svanidze (1903 - 1907) (her death) 1 child*
Nadezhda Alliluyeva (24 March 1919 - 8 November 1932 she commits suicide) 2 children**
Rosa Kaganovich (1934 - 1938) (divorced no kids)
*This is Jacov Stalin (b.Dzhugashvili in 1907) and the quote that sticks with me is when Stalin refused the offer to have his son returned (for General Paulus(1) captured at Stalingrad), he said “I do not exchange a General for a soldier.” Jakov died in the Nazi Sachenhausen POW camp.
He had a son Yevgeny Dzhugashvili, who apparently reveres Stalin
[(1)I have sometimes seen MB-type claims that the offer was for Heinz Hitler nephew of Adolf Hitler & the son of Hitler’s half-brother Alois Jr. who was captured at Stalingrad, and died in Soviet captivity… I cannot GQ say “No“ but the Paulus story is pretty well referenced]
**Vasili Stalin (birth name Dzhugashvili in 1921 -all Stalin’s kids have this name at birth BTW), who despite not being qualified was admitted to Flight school and was a fighter pilot and later a General who lived like a corrupt dictators son taking state money buying fancy cars and loose women. he was a eventually made a General (some agitprop info on his wild life). So hated that when Stalin died March 5, 1953, “General” Vasili was arrested on April 28, 1953 - and spent the rest of his life in Labor camps and under house arrest. He died of complications related to alcoholism in 1962. He had at least two kids Alexander and Tatiana with his wife the daughter of Marshall Timoshenko.
**Svetlana Alliluyeva, (b.1926) the bouncing around defecting, defecting back, re-defecting seems to be over. At 80 now she is in a Wisconsin retirement home. She had two kids: Joseph b.1945 and had a daughter, Ekaterina b. 1950, to her second husband.
BTW I would also be interested in some reasonable proof that Hitler had kids of any kind.
Because it’s the family name. Stalin was more of an honorific than anything else, really- and the name he used as a member of the Bolshevik underground prior to the Revolution.
Yep. It carrys the meaning of “man of steel” or “steel one”
Wasn’t there a thread on whether or not Stalin ever issued a decree changing his name? Also Svetlana Alliluyeva went by Svetlana Stalina while her father was alive. She didn’t stop using the “great name” until after he died.