20 Mind-Blowing Facts About Joseph Stalin
1 fact for every million people he killed.
Joseph Stalin - "Joe" to his friends and "Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili" when he's in trouble from his mother - is a man who, unfortunately, needs no introduction. World War II's third most famous leader - behind Hitler and that dog from the car insurance adverts - his legacy has been one of a communist icon and, typically, a mass-murdering dictatorial tyrant.
Born in relative poverty at the tail-end of the 19th Century, Stalin worked his way up the ranks of the Communist Party eventually becoming its General Secretary, and installed himself as a Soviet dictator in the wake of Vladimir Lenin's death. He then began dragging Russia into the modern era with rapid industrialisation, inadvertently sparking a famine that killed millions, before putting his famed Red Army to work defeating the Nazis. Some ups and some downs then.
His role in WWII is well documented, and much is known about both his politics and his values, but within that moustachioed exterior actually lies a man deeply in love with the arts, who had desires on a far holier profession and, secretly, harboured dreams of one day leading his own army of mutant half-human hybrids. No, seriously. Come with us then on this journey through the deeper layers of Joseph Stalin's life, as we look at the terrifying and the tragic tales that made him one of history's most complex monsters.