Despots of World War II: Joseph Stalin

Monday, February 13, 2017

Josef Vissarionovich Djugashvili hardly had the credentials of someone who would become a world leader when he was born in Gori, Georgia ((then a part of the Russian Empire) in 1878. He was the single child of a hardworking laundress. His father was an alcoholic shoemaker, who regularly beat the boy and generally made life hard for Josef and his mother. In addition, as a boy, he was stricken with smallpox, which left him with severe facial scars. We know him by the name he took when he was in his 30s -- Joseph Stalin (which means Man of Steel in Russian)

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