Lieutenant general of aviation and founder of Soviet ice hockey, the leader's son
At his father's funeral in March 1953, a drunken Vasily arrived shouting 'They poisoned him!' Less than two months later he was under arrest.
The younger son of Joseph Stalin, he flew 27 combat missions as a fighter pilot during World War II and rose to lieutenant general of aviation. Appointed commander of the Air Forces of the Moscow Military District in 1948, he served until 1952; his rapid rise, becoming the youngest major-general in the Red Army at 24, owed much to paternal patronage. Yet beyond the role of 'the leader's son,' he was a sports administrator who, as the first chairman of the USSR Ice Hockey Federation, founded the VVS Moscow team and recruited Anatoly Tarasov as its inaugural coach, laying the institutional foundation for Soviet hockey. Arrested on charges of anti-Soviet agitation shortly after his father's death in 1953, he was sentenced to eight years and served time under an assumed name in Vladimir Central Prison.
Activities and affiliations
Career Timeline
- 1940Graduated Kacha Military Aviation School, commissioned as air force lieutenant
- 1941–1942Served in 16th Fighter Aviation Regiment, flew combat sorties
- 1943Commander, 32nd Guards Fighter Aviation Regiment
- 1944–1945Commander, 3rd Guards Fighter Aviation Division, then 286th Fighter Aviation Division
- 1946Promoted to Major General of Aviation; commander, 1st Guards Fighter Aviation Corps
- 1948–1952Commander of Air Forces, Moscow Military District; promoted to Lieutenant General of Aviation (1949)
- 1953Arrested; sentenced to 8 years for anti-Soviet agitation
- 1960–1962Released, re-arrested, exiled to Kazan; died of alcoholism
Related historical events
Postwar Air Force Command and Ice Hockey
After the war, Vasily Stalin was posted to Germany as part of the Soviet occupation forces. He was promoted to major general of aviation in 1946 and received the rank of lieutenant general of aviation on 11 May 1949. In 1948 he became commander of the Air Forces of the Moscow Military District. Alongside his military command, he took an administrative interest in sport, developing the ice-hockey side of the air-force club VVS Moscow and bringing in Anatoly Tarasov as player-coach for the 1946–47 season. Tarasov left after one season following disagreements with Stalin over player selection. In January 1950, an aircraft carrying the VVS team crashed at Sverdlovsk, killing the team. The club was rebuilt and went on to win the Soviet ice-hockey championship three years in a row, from 1951 through 1953. This record attests to the club's importance in postwar Soviet hockey, but should not be reduced to Stalin's achievement alone. After Joseph Stalin's death in 1953, Vasily left military service and gave up the VVS team.