Joseph Stalin is an outlier in our group. He was a clod and somewhat of an outcast growing up. He was a short man at 5’ 4” and not very well-liked. He was a bully and served as the “muscle” for Vladimir Lenin during the early stages of the Russian Revolution. He gave himself the name, Stalin, meaning, “Man of Steel.” He was underhanded and thought nothing of back-stabbing a friend, or whatever it took to get ahead. He’s on our list, not because he was so popular during his time, but that he is today. There’s a growing movement in Russia to return to the days of Stalin, and 1 in 5 millennials in the United States consider him a hero.

Stalin was one of the most brutal and murderous leaders of the 20^th century, once stating, “One death is a tragedy, a million deaths a statistic.” He was suspicious of most people and ruthless to those he mistrusted.  

After years of abuse, his eldest son, Yakov, attempted suicide by shooting himself in the chest. When Stalin learned that he had survived, he remarked, “He can’t even shoot straight.” Quite the family man, though, he had photographs of children all over his home. The pictures, though, came from magazines and other sources. They were not of his own family.

His second wife, Nadezhda, committed suicide after years of his womanizing and mistreatment. After the event, Stalin rounded up several wives from his circle of officers and had them executed, so the officers could join him in the pain of losing their wife.

Death and murder were common under the reign of Stalin, and we’ve just scratched the surface.