Joseph Stalin [c. 1902]

Sorry this wasn’t exactly one of your many lovely requests, but scrolling past this gorgeous young man I was compelled to write a blurb on him. Stalin, what happened to you, you were such a beautiful lad!

It’s no secret, most people are fully aware Stalin was the supreme ruler of the Soviet Union for a quarter of a century. His regime of terror caused death and suffering of tens of millions, but you have to give him a little credit for playing a part in killing off Nazism, right? Okay maybe not.

So Stalin was a pretty good kid; papa was a cobbler and Stalin studied at a theological seminary and graduated while everyone else was running around screaming viva la revolution. Later on though he became quite the activist and was arrested and exiled to Siberia a couple times. BOYS WILL BE BOYS~

In 1922, he was made general secretary of the Communist Party, which wasn’t exactly a big name in history quite yet but it certainly allowed him to start building a fanbase. After Lenin’s death, Stalin promoted himself as his political heir and muscled his way into the dictator seat.

His forced collectivisation of agriculture gave the Soviet Union all kinds of economic growth, but it also kind of killed millions of people, so that was kind of a dick move. Then if that wasn’t enough, during the Great Purge of the 1930s he killed off, exiled and enslaved even MORE of the population because he was all “ENEMIES OF THE PEOPLE, GET OUT.” And by enemies of the people I think he kind of just meant “remaining opposition of power.” Ain’t nobody gonna touch Stalin, fool.

Needless to say, all this killing kind of depleted the Red Army. People kept telling Stalin “hey, Hitler is coming dude, you might want to stop killing your army” but Stalin was a stubborn bastard and didn’t listen. Hitler kinda caught him with his pants down when he came knocking in June 1941.

Stalin did manage to recover from that, however. In the end he lead his country to victory. The human cost was freaking enormous, but seeing as he had already killed millions he REALLY just DID NOT CURR.

After WWII, the Soviet Union entered the nuclear age and ruled over an empire which included most of eastern Europe. Stalin started to get really stressed and super paranoid. He ended up dying of a stroke on March 5th 1953.