1173 Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He rose to power by ruthlessly exploiting his bureaucratic role as secretary of the Bolshevik party, where he was in charge of record keeping & correspondence. He used that power to control the party and eliminate his competition. Stalin was of average intelligence, and had the sociopathy of an Asperger’s. He was certainly a force to be reckoned with: tough-minded, combative & sly. What made him particularly effective was that he truly believed in Marxist ideology, and did not embrace the comfortable advantages of his position: dressing in the rough-woven clothes and eating the gruel of the average peasant; living in a single room with only a wooden fireplace that he stoked himself. Stalin converted the Soviet Union from agrarianism into an industrial power using forced labor camps. The transition resulted in famines that killed 10 million people, some intentionally because they resisted his changes. He had millions more who did not fully embrace communism, so-called “enemies of the Soviet Union,” executed, exiled, or imprisoned during the Great Purge. However, Stalin wasn’t evil, he simply pursued egalitarianism, with the perverse, vindictive & deadly behavior it inspires.