Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was a Georgian revolutionary and Soviet political and military leader who governed the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (1922–1952), Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the Soviet Union (1941–1953), and Supreme Commander of the Red Army (1941–1953). Despite initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, he ultimately consolidated power to become the Soviet Union's dictator by the 1930s. A communist ideologically committed to the Leninist interpretation of Marxism, Stalin formalised these ideas as Marxism–Leninism while his own policies are known as Stalinism.