Josef Stalin: Difference between revisions

* [[Badass Bureaucrat]]|[[Obstructive Bureaucrat]] - Whatever else you might think of him, he was a bank robber and a revolutionary, and a far more charismatic and intelligent one than his most famous sources portray him as. He used bureaucracy as a springboard to establishing a personal dictatorship and in turn to annexing most of Eastern Europe and turned Russia from the least of the Great Powers into one of Earth's only two superpowers.

* [[Badass Mustache]] - One of history's greatest.

* [[Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work]]: It is rumored when the Soviet Union was invaded by Nazi Germany, leading to Stalin's retreat, several of his generals discussed whether to eliminate him due to foreground knowledge of the invasion anyway, and Stalin responsible [[Villain Ball|for many of their best to be purged on little more than a whim]], leading to obvious problems during the war. The rumor ends with them ultimately deciding against this because: 1) Stalin was ''also'' responsible for turning the USSR into a glorious nation powerful enough to rival the U.S.A., and 2) They'd much rather keep him and probably win, then remove him and likely lose due to a weaker leader, and them being conquered by the Germans. Basically, Stalin was a ruthless dictator, but he was [[We Want Our Jerk Back|''their'' ruthless]] [[Save the Villain|dictator]].

** You also realize that Hitler had spelled out [[Kill'Em All|exactly what he would have done to the "Slavic races"]] in ''Mein Kampf'' and pretty much anything was better.

* [[The Chessmaster]] - Stalin engineered his coming to power by abusing a [[Almighty Janitor|previously-obscure position of Secretary General]]. His job was to recruit new Party members, and, in just a few years, he formed a majority out of newcomers, personally loyal to him, and ousted the Communist old guard from power.

* [[Cult of Personality]]: Is the [[Trope Codifier]] for the modern era. His personality cults painted him as [[Large and In Charge|a giant of a man]] who earned all of his [[I Have Many Names|many grandiose titles]], whom the Soviet citizenry was ''obligated'' to love. There's a reason he's the page image for the trope.

* [[Deadpan Snarker]] - Well-known for his sardonic sense of humor

* [[Dirty Communists]]: Without a doubt, the Most Triumphant Example.

* [[Manipulative Bastard]]: Not only did he masterfully exploit the position of General Secretary to develop his power base, Stalin also proved himself a genius at keeping the rest of the Soviet leaders alternately terrified of and dependent on him. He found all sorts of ways to eavesdrop on his minions, play off their fears, and destroy anyone who he feared would become a threat to his power, whether through carefully arranged executions or brutal mass purges. They didn't call him the ''Vozhd'' ("Master") for nothing.

** There is a theory that his machinations led to the rise of Nazism and the start of Second World War, [[Spanner in the Works|derailed]] only by Hitler's last-moment attack on USSR right as it was preparing to attack ''Hitler''. If taken as true, this would be the pinnacle of Stalin's manipulation.

* [[A Million Is a Statistic]] - [[Trope Namer]], though it's a [[Beam Me Up, Scotty]] moment.

** Specifically, his biographer made it up because it, more or less, "sounded like something he could've said".

[[Category:Politicians]]

[[Category:Historical Domain Character]]

[[Category:Examples Need Sorting]]