The stochastic stability problem of a viscoelastic Voigt-Kelvin balanced rotating shaft subjected to action of axial forces at the ends is studied. The shaft is of circular cross-section, it rotates at a constant rate about its longitudinal axis of symmetry. The effect of rotatory inertia of the shaft cross-section and external viscous damping are included into account. The force consists of a constant part and a time-dependent stochastic function. Closed form analytical solutions are obtained for simply supported boundary conditions. By using the direct Liapunov method almost sure asymptotic stability conditions are obtained as the function of stochastic process variance, external damping coefficient, retardation time, angular velocity, and geometric and physical parameters of the shaft. Numerical calculations are performed for the Gaussian process with a zero mean and variance $\sigma^2$ as well as for harmonic process with amplitude H.