Who Was Joseph Stalin A Monstrous Figure?

A monstrous person could be described in a variety of ways. Depending on the person, a monstrous figure could be seen from someone who broke a significant other’s heart to people like Joseph Stalin who killed and tortured millions. Joseph Stalin was a monstrous figure in history due to his cruelty, his upbringing, and his lack of care for his loved ones. Stalin was the dictator of the USSR from 1929-1953; he ruled by terror, killing millions of his citizens and tens of millions of people who were viewed as threats. Stalin killed and tortured people through forced labor, deportation, famine, bloody massacres, and used other excruciatingly cruel methods. Stalin once said, “Death is the solution to all problems. No man - no problem” (Brainy Quote).

Growing up, Stalin was born into a poor village in Georgia; Stalin had a mildly deformed arm and a short period of illness with smallpox. According to PBS, “Stalin always felt unfairly treated by life, and thus developed a strong, romanticized desire for greatness and respect, combined with a shrewd streak of calculating cold-heartedness towards those who had maligned him.” Like many neglected children, Stalin grew up to become a bully to others because he was bullied throughout his childhood. Stalin’s monstrous actions stemmed from being bullied growing up, the actions of others inflicted such harsh pain on Stalin that he felt the need to inflict this pain on others. Unlike typical bullies, Stalin inflicted pain through mass murder, and purges, the pain Stalin endured drove him to be a madman. A boy who was sent to Tiflis, Georgia to become a priest turned into a paranoid, monstrous dictator; which later led him to kill millions of people. Stalin infamously said, “One death is a tragedy; one million is a statistic.” Stalin saw the mass amounts of people he killed as a number rather than living people with