23 Stalin Facts Your Teachers Never Told You

1.

Joseph Stalin was covered in scars from smallpox that he’d survived at the age of seven and had official photos portraying his face as smooth and fresh with well-maintained hair by heavily editing and retouching photos.

2.

In 1952, Stalin proposed German reunification under a "neutral and democratic" government, but was turned down by the West. It is still debated whether the offer was a bluff, a trick, or a genuine missed opportunity for reunification.

3.

Stalin struggled with depression and summoned renowned Russian psychiatrist Vladimir Bekhterev to examine him. After the examination, Bekhterev said only one word - "paranoiac". He died on the very next day from what most believed was poisoning.

4.

In 1967, Stalin's only daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva defected to the US and lived in a small Wisconsin town until her death in 2011.

5.

Stalin, the historic leader of the USSR, was a pen name meaning "man of steel". His real name was Ioseb Besarionis dzе Jughashvili.

6.

In 1952, Stalin offered West German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer reunification of Germany in return for permanent neutrality. Adenauer said "No."

7.

Boris Pasternak (the author of Doctor Zhivago) was almost killed in the great purge, 20 years before he wrote his famous novel. He was only saved at the last moment when Stalin himself crossed his name off the list with the note, "leave that fool alone."

8.

When Truman told Stalin about the Manhattan project in July of 1945, Stalin displayed little reaction, since Stalin had known about the project for almost 4 years before Truman, and he arguably knew more about it than Truman himself did.

9.

When Joseph Stalin was dying, his private physician was not available because he was already being tortured in the basement of the KGB headquarters for suggesting the Soviet leader required more bed rest.

10.

Genrich Altshuller, a Soviet engineer, was given a 25-year prison sentence for sending Joseph Stalin a letter explaining a desire to improve Soviet engineering. He later went on to write science fiction books and founded a famous engineering school.

11.

Ivan Evgrafovich Fedorov was rewarded by Hitler and Stalin during World War 2.

12.

In 1937, nearly 172,000 Koreans in the Soviet Far East were forcibly deported to unpopulated areas of Central Asia on the orders of Soviet leader Joseph Stalin. It marked the precedent of the first Soviet ethnic deportation of an entire nationality.

13.

The first president of Mongolia, Peljidiin Genden, allegedly slapped and broke Stalin's pipe after Stalin pressured him to destroy Mongolia's Buddhist clergies.

14.

Stalin loved Charlie Chaplin movies and even cried at the last scene of City Lights, but he banned The Great Dictator from screening in the USSR. Stalin apparently was afraid that the image of the dictator Adenoid Hynkel would bring up an unwanted comparison – not to Hitler, but to himself.

15.

Due to Chinese espionage and infiltration in Nazi Germany in WWII, the Chinese under Chiang Kai-shek's government were able to warn Stalin that Germany was planning to attack the Soviet Union in the spring of 1941, several months before the commencement of Operation Barbarossa on June 22, 1941.

16.

Stalin’s granddaughter is a punk hippie Buddhist who runs an antique shop in Portland.

17.

Stalin had his photographs edited to remove people he didn't like from them.

18.

After Joseph Stalin's death, his successor embarked on a program of 'De-Stalinization' - systematically reversing most of Stalin's policies while in office, to end the "era of the cult of personality."

19.

When Joseph Stalin's first wife died, he was so overcome with grief he threw himself into her grave during the funeral. Later, secret policemen arrived at the funeral, looking for Stalin (at the time a wanted fugitive); he was forced to flee the service early by jumping the graveyard's fence.

20.

Joseph Stalin had a relationship with a 13 year-old and got her pregnant. Twice.

21.

Joseph Stalin was highly suspicious of doctors and had many Kremlin doctors arrested and tortured. So few doctors were available that after Stalin suffered a stroke, one imprisoned doctor claimed he was mid-interrogation when his captors suddenly started asking for medical advice instead.

22.

In Stalin’s Russia, some people who were late to work three times were sent to a hard labor camp for three years as punishment.

23.

Stalin had a son who he hated and who was later captured by the nazis. Hitler offered to trade him for Friedrich Paulus, a field marshal who led the 6th army into Stalingrad. When Stalin heard of this, he allegedly said, "I will not trade a Marshal for a Lieutenant."