Ekaterine "Kato" Svanidze was the first wife of Joseph Stalin and the mother of his eldest son, Yakov Dzhugashvili.

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was a Georgian-born Soviet politician and revolutionary who was the longest-serving leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held power as General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 to 1952, and as Chairman of the Council of Ministers from 1941 until his death. Initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, Stalin consolidated his power to become a dictator by the 1930s. Ideologically, he formalised his Leninist interpretation of Marxism as Marxism–Leninism, while the political and economic system he implemented is known as Stalinism.