Joseph Stalin was prob­a­bly one of the most mul­ti­fac­eted, con­tro­ver­sial and yet unknown per­sons in the course of the world his­tory. In Jan­u­ary 1943 Time mag­a­zine fea­tured Stalin as the Per­son of the Year, saying:

The year 1942 was a year of blood and strength. The man whose name means steel in Russ­ian, whose few words of Eng­lish include the Amer­i­can expres­sion “tough guy” was the man of 1942. Only Joseph Stalin fully knew how close Rus­sia stood to defeat in 1942, and only Joseph Stalin fully knew how he brought Rus­sia through.

Con­tinue read­ing →