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have read the first personality yet, Vlad the Impaler, and i must say i knew nothing of this : D
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I heard stalin was also mean to his DIL :O
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Vlad. I think he was a smart cookie; spreading tales of terror and dark deeds, what better way to keep the enemy scared? I'm not saying he wasn't sadistic, just we'll never be able to separate the fact from fiction.
Stalin. All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.
Faris, have you read the Gulag Archipelago by any chance?
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Kind of shocked at the Stalin hate, Stalin is in no way a 'hero' but if it was not for the battle of Stalingrad, non of our parents would ever have been alowed into the UK and most of Europe would be speaking German. More russians died in WW2 then all the other allied troops put together.
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FAris looks like ur work is taking long I want to read about Stalin :)
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^ Yes sorry Bhai I think I will have my study complete over the next couple of days… trouble is there is so much fiction surrounding Stalin it’s a very difficuilt subject to analyse.
Just when I think the guy could not be any worse or better theres something new popping out of History… Much of Stalins life is a total mystery and it’s hard to explain why he did what he did… I will try and post my findings as soon as possible.
Agian sorry to keep you all on the cliffhanger but I’m sure you all understand it’s not easy fitting all this in over a single nights posting… but I will do my best.
Thanks again. 
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^ Take your time dude, no rush.
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^ We know the preparation will be excellent, so it will be worth the wait.
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thanks alot faris for all your efforts
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Kind of shocked at the Stalin hate, Stalin is in no way a 'hero' but if it was not for the battle of Stalingrad, non of our parents would ever have been alowed into the UK and most of Europe would be speaking German. More russians died in WW2 then all the other allied troops put together.
It is true that more Russians died during WWII, but if Hitler hadn't double crossed Stalin and violated the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact by invading the Soviet Union in 1941 then I doubt Stalin would have had any qualms with Hitler taking over Britain. I mean it's not like he had issues with Hitler invading France...
At the end of the day he only fought against Hitler when he realised Hitler was a threat to the Soviet Union...he didn't do it out of any moral obligation.
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But why should he go and protect britin anyways. Why should he care if britin was attacked. He has to think about his own people and the protection of sovient union.
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Well folks sorry for the massive rest period, I have been taking a long rest from this thread and it’s time I came back with some life to the historical forums so as you can see i have not only finished my study on Stalin but have a new trial figure prepared in advance as well and this personality is native to the Subcontinent and well known too…
But first to Stalin…
Not sure how much you guys know about this famous villian who is remembered as a heroic patriot and a vile tyrant by many people from many backgrounds.
Heres ten startling facts you might not have known about him…
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Stalins real name was Lozeb Besarionis zhe Jugvali, which is quite a mouthfull really and has many spelling variations I have used the version in Russian Communist pamphlets published in the Breznev era in the later 60’s. Stalin was merely a covert operative and pen name that was coined becuase “Stalin” mean steel in Russian.
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Stalin before he became the man we know today, was a notorious bank robber in early 20th Century Russia :eek: sounds right for a man who calls himself Steel.
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Stalin is not ethnically Russian his line is of Georgian blood and he was born to a fammily of Cobblers. Therefore his ancestors were, like those of Lennin non Russains from the Caucus.
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Stalin was sent to prison no less than 7 times but escaped being sent to Siberia.
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Stalin was inflicted with smallpox as a child, this scared him for life but he was often so caked in Ammonia based cosmetics and make up that he was at times plastered in the stuff… :cb:
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Stalin had many injuries to his arm as a child he was supposedly run over or fell off a high seat in a vehicle of some sort which prevented him from being of any service to the Russian army in World War one.
Stalin as I have come to find out was a man of very much a larger than life persona and it has been difficuilt to sift he truth from the tall tales… all of the above points were genuine Stalin actually did all those things and lived through it all… and most of that was before he was even 25! :eek:
Unlike many other villians in Stalins early years theres no sign of any particular evil trait, he seems to have been bought up no different to many of his contemporaries. However by his later Teenage years he became heavily influenced by the Bolsheviks. A radical group led by Lenin who were fierce Marxist Communists and wanted to create a revolution by any means.
The young Stalin
Below image shows Stalin on the left with Lenin in centre and the other famous Bolshevik leader Kalini.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/54/Stalin-Lenin-Kalinin-1919.jpg
Stalin rose up the ranks of the Communists largely by funding himself and his cronies through bank robberies. Yes Stalin was the sort of fellow that could give Al Capone and John Delinger a run for his money… even though in some respects Stalins fight was more bloody. Not only was he often looting from state banks guarded by Police but even from heavily fortified national deposits… no American gangsters even tried to attack fort Knox but Stalin if he had been an American would more than likely have gone in all guns blazing.
Eventually Stalin got blacklisted not just by the Government of Tzarist Russia but also by his own Communist party friends who had banned any bank robbery or such activity as a source of revenue. This put Stalin out of the picture for a while and he even walked out on his friends in the Communist Party with whom he had fallen out.
One of the most horrendous events of Stalins early actions was the robbing of Tiflees Bank in Yevren Square (now the main square of Tiblisi Georgia’s capital) known as the Yevren sqaure massacre. Here Stalin and his forces carried out a bank robbery of terrible magnitude stealing over 3000,000 Rubles about 2-4 Million today. They used improvised roadside bombs, grenades, rifles and even a small mortar to kill and injure as many as a hundred people. This attack was supposedly given the nod by Lenin himself though I have found little evidence of the matter. Stalin was allready a known and wanted criminal in the Tzars state but after this wanted posters of Stalin and his gang members were all over the state.
Stalins Mugshot from official secret Police documents…
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cc/Stalin's_Mug_Shot.jpg
However in his home state there was no way the Russain authorities could get thier hands on him… Stalin even used the support of Muslim Turkic and Persian minorities who were disafected by the Russain rule to help his gang hide and even take out the government forces sent in to arrest Stalin. Eventually in the lull Stalin used his huge wealth to buy his own Newspaper and several other business ventures. Pravda which is a famous Russian newspaper was bought created by Stalin himself and he used it as his personally Propagnda tool eventually painting a picture of a model citizen and a rags to riches succes story of a legitimate businessman! :eek:
Eventually he took up a favourable position within the government circles while not officially of any position, as all media moguls he now held sway over much of the political elite. During this period he coined his pen-name of “Stalin”. With his headquarters now in St Petersburg one of the greatest cities in all Russia Stalin published in support of the Bolshevik cause after he by now had gained many concessions from his old comrades.
Eventually when the governement forces caught up with Lenin and his Bolsheviks it was ultimately thier bank robbing friend Stalin who ended up saving them and by informing them of thier impending doom at the hands of the Tzaristshe not only saved the Bolsheviks but his own reputation as a future leader of the Communist cause was cemented.
I will continue to post the second part of my study on Stalin where we will find out how the bank robber revolutionary grew to become the menace of Russia and many other countries for almost half a century… and what made him such a villian.
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Looks like interest has died on this one… :sigh:
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Amazing read Faris ... just got a chance to read it today :)
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We last left the trial of Stalin on the eve of the 1917 October Revolution.
That was a major turning point in Stalin's life becuase after Lenin failed to succeed in an earlier coup and was resued and sent to Finland by Stalin, in Russia it left Stalin as the figure head for the Bolshevik revolutionaries. Seeing the weak state of the governement and the public opinion of sheer hatred towards the Tzar Stalin had Lenin and the communist commitee regroup and decide to make thier decisive move.
After holding a meeting at the Smolny institute in St Petersburg the revolutionaries went on to storm the winter palace and begin the episode we now know as the Russian revolution. For Stalin this was a remarkable leap from a revolutionist and biggoted bank robber to a businessman and now one of the masterminds of a revolution, sounds like a plot from a Sergio Leone film but it don't end there.
Soon Stalin along with Lennin and Trotsky (another renowned Russian revolutionary leader) found themselves fighting a bitter war, Lennin's red army beat the Tzarist White army easily however in the ensuing after victory debacle Stalin fell out with Trotsky and both became bitter rivals. Trotsky found himself challenged by a man who was the very image of a war leader albeit one who was a former bank robber.... to Trotsky who was more Scholar than fighter Stalin must have been most intimidating.
In the following Soviet-Poland war Stalin found that Trotsky and Lennin blamed him for the Russian defeats to the Polish forces... so Stalin resigned but due to mass public support he was back in government and on Lennin's death Stalin had Trotsky executed. Historians are not sure if Stalin may even have been responsible for getting rid of Lennin himself, however I have ommited this view in my belief becuase although it makes sense for Stalin to have done so... one would have thought Trotsky and his forces would surely have then been prepared t deal with Stalin.
As it is Stalin eventually found himself raising to greater and greater heights... he led the war against Georgia (his home nation) during Lennin's own lifetime. Shortly after Lennin's death by heart attack Stalin invaded Northern China and even made attempts to attack Turkish interests in the Caucus. We are often told of Hitlers violent Nazi expansion but Stalin did no less of his own aggression against neighhbouring nations.
The following is a catalouge of some of alleged crimes the early Stalinist regime was responsible.
The Katyn Massacre Soviet-Polish war.
The great Purge or Pogram against Jews in Russia
The massacre of many hundreds possibly thousands of villagers in Manchuria.
The mass deportation and forced labour in gullags of estimates vary but at least 70,000 men women and children, people whom Stalin saw as a threat to Bolshevik power.
The mass murder of many hundreds of Georgians and Ossetians many of whom were Musilms.
This is merely the begining of Stalins riegn of terror for by 1920 The Russian bolshevik communists would repay Finland, the country that gave Lennin shelter by invading in a winter war of brutal and epic proportians. Meanwhile Hitler and Stalin would help the Soviets avenge thier defeat at the hands of the Polish by a swif invasion from two fronts.
Stalins story continues with me next post and we will be looking into the Stalin as he progressed from War leader to national icon and finally a much weakened and mad suffering misery of a man....
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awesome job faris ... waiting for the next part
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By this time some of you will be wandering why I havent mentioned Stalins role in the World War 2 (WW2) the reason I have not done so till now has been largely due to the fact that it is chronologically a role he played much later in his life... and secondly because it is the most contraversial aspect of Stalins history.
You see many might assume he was the crucial saviour of the Allies and the war effort against Nazi Germany. However at the start of the War he was hand in hand with Hitler as many cartoons of that era show. Stalin and Hitler both invaded Poland with thier armies in 1939 sparking the begining of WW2, Stalins motives were obviously to gain territory for "Mother Russia" and to avenge the earlier defeat of the Bolshevik state when the Communists first attacked the Poles a decade ago.
Stalins army was by now a veteran and highly skilled force and the Communists had overcome the Fins in the terrible winter war. Stalin's armies massacred the Polish forces they came up against and basically split the country between Russian controlled East and German controlled West.
Back at home Stalin had cemented his power in the Communist regime and was supreme leader, he went on to idolise himself much like his German counterpart Hitler. Statues were put up and even a City was to bear his name, Stalingrad or Steel City was aptly named for it's chief produce was ironwork.
It was not long before Hitler who had within the space of a few months become master of Europe that he then threw his eyes Eastwards and invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa... one of the pivotal moments in WW2.
As a war leader Stalin sacrificed very little he was just as much an egotistic megolomaniac as Hitler and it was the Russian people who made the real sacrifice, but after the War Stalin was the one who was hailed as a hero.
In the end however the price was massive apart from the 25million casualties sustained by the Russian nation due to the War, Stalin must go down as a true villain for his terrible treatment of more than 2 million fellow Russians who ended up in Gullags simply because they did not agree with him...
Marshal Zhukov the real hero of the War almost ended up in a Gullag himself after he displeased Stalin.
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In his later life Stalin was known to have increased the number of forced labour camps or Gullags...
He was a strong supporter of a separate Jewish State wanting to be rid of trouble in his own country when he realised that they were causing unrest in the Middle East he regreted supporting the Jewish state and started actively arming and supporting the Arabs against the Jewish state.
Stalin was personally responsible for the following crimes during his period as Party Chairman of the Bolsheviks and later President of the USSR.
In the Polish war of 1939 Stalin personally ordered the Execution of 27,000 POWs in the Katyn Massacre.
His reprehensible friendhsip which at first was very close with the hated Adolf Hitler and his joint invasion of Poland with the Germans.
Stalin deliberately allowed the targeted Killing and Pogroms against Jews and other Minorities including the massacres of Tartar people and mass eviction of all peoples who did not confirm to his Ideals... most of these millions of people simply vanished we can assume a large portion died in Gullags but perhaps many more actually made the journey East only to die of starvation and cold weather.
Under Satlins orders the Red army commited some of the most brutal acts during WW2, true war is brutal but the Russians were utterly ruthless to thier own side as well as the enemy such vile tactics could easily have been avoided. For example the mass killing of anyone supposedly seen as traitorous by running away... Stalins elite troops gunned down any poor soldier seen to be running from the field.
At the end of WW2 Stalins Red Army had even took advantage of invading Chinese territory in Manchuria and securing thier Eastern coastline for thier own Navy... this was a violation of international peace treaties.
In North Korea and Eastern Europe the most vile communist States from Romania with it's mad Marshalls to Kim II Sung of Korea were armed and bolstered by Stalinist Russia and these countries took no pity when using Russian arms and support to massacre thier own peoples.
Never mind the string of crimes Stalin commited before taking power which include bank robbery and murder...we can conclude he was indeed one of History's big Villians but it seems that like other evil men he was served by some poor souls who had at least a great degree of competence and Humanity too bad they had a master like Stalin.
So there you have it folks my conclusion is Stalin was certianly a terrible Villain... no matter what he may have done against Nazi Germany and helping in its eventual defeat... Stalin was just as bad as Hitler.
The next personality will be a Woman and one who is of the Sub-Continent. :)
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The next historicall figure is much more recent and is also the first of our characters to hail from the Sub-Continent. She also happens to be the first Female villain and more remarkably one of the oddest villains in recent Indian history… she is indeed Phoolan Devi the Woman dubbed as the “Bandit Queen”.
Much of the Phoolan Devi legend is owed thanks to the work of Film Director and Indian household name Shekahr Kapur… whos 1994 film Bandti Queen was an international hit and made her such a renowned figure.
However it has been very hard sifting through the Legend of the Woman to get at the true picture of one of the most savage and bloodthirsty Women ever to have come to prominence in India.
Forget the typical stories and Robin Hood myth for just a moment becuase this Phoolan Devi was anything but a Romantic heroin, in fact she was quite the opposite, almost a female version of Dracula! :eek:
Her story begins in the early 1970’s in Northern India’s Uthar Pradesh. When she was merely a child of 11 she had been married to a man three times her age. However soon the marriage broke down and she was given the boot by her new fammily. Phoolan’s story should have ended there however she went on to become a legend and as fate would have it, everything started when she was kidnapped by a gang of bandits or “dacoits”. The gang leader intented to rape this young Woman after having captured her wandering out in the open and she had already been raped several times in her early childhood.
As luck would have it though the bandit leaders second in command fell for her charms and decided to kill the gang leader and take command with Phoolan as his deputy. That was the first step to her rise to power. Her new lover was a low caste minor cut throat named Vikram Mallah and together along with a dozen or so henchmen all of them seasoned brigands they went on a short crime spree for several, what you might say happy years. According to popular myth and much of the later media imagery Vikram and Phoolan becam a Indian Bonnnie and Clyde and used Robin Hood style “steal from the rich, give to the poor tactics”.
The truth of the matter is she most probably targeted the wealthy as it was only logical and perhaps kept the poorer folk quite by paying them off or even using terror tactics.
For example it’s claimed that not only did her new lover Vikram Mallah kill his old gang leader for her sake but they both went back and killed her original husband too… as well as several other rapists leaving notes on the bodies. She was famous for using very grisly and sadistic methods of torture that I wont go into describing suffice to say your imaginations can probably guess the sort of things such a vengefull and seemingly barbarous Woman could inflict. From a psychological viewpoint her motives thus far could be summed up as a rebbelious urge to go and beat seven bells out of a society that had treated her like dirt.
However her life took another gruesome turn in the winter of 1980 when her lover Vikram Mallah was killed by a rival gang hired by wealthy high class landowners. She was spared death but was publicly raped by her attackers and left to wander again in a world that to her must have seemed full of hate. However here is also a turning point in her life becuase it was now that she rose to power. What happened next is almost a Female version of Ghengis Khan, as she gathered the survivors of her late lovers gang and teamed up with several erstwhile enemy gangs. She set her united federation of bandits against all high class and wealthy land owners in the region making sever increasingly daring raids that finally brought her to the attention fo state police.
However her most savage and brutal massacre took place on Valentines day 1981, when finally armed and equiped with a sophisticated criminal gang numbering over 20 bandits she stormed the Town of Behmai… what became known as the Indian Valentines day massacre… the following is a brief account of the events from Phoolan Devi’s own memoirs written by Mrs Curreyes who also helped compile the bandit Queens autobiography.
On February 14, 1981, 18-year-old Phoolan Devi had only one thing on her mind: revenge. Waiting outside the remote village of Behmai on the Yamuna River in northern India, a band of about 20 dacoits (bandits) waited for her instructions. The dacoits were from three different gangs, but their goal was the same: to hunt down the treacherous Ram brothers, Sri Ram Singh and Lala Ram Singh. Sri Ram was a vicious gang leader who had spent time in prison. He was the focus of Phoolan Devi’s lust for justice because he had murdered her lover, Vikram Mallah, as she slept by his side.
Phoolan Devi wearing bandit gear
Slight in build but strong and agile, Phoolan wore a military-style khaki jacket, denim jeans, and zippered boots. Her dark, straight hair was cut short, ending at her neck. By some accounts, she was wearing lipstick and red nail polish. A wide red bandana—the symbol of vengeance— was tied around her head, covering her hairline and brows. She carried a Sten rifle and a bandolier across her chest. While she mourned for her lover, she did not want to be treated as a woman. She wanted her comrades to think of her as a man because she wanted the kind of revenge only a man could achieve in India’s caste-bound society. She had told them to call her “Phool,” the masculine version of her given name.
She and her band of dacoits had spent the night in the nearby hamlet of Ingwi. As morning broke, Phoolan, her close lieutenant Man Singh, and Baba Mustakim, a fellow dacoit leader, planned their attack on Behmai. Most of Behmai’s population was thakurs, the land-owning caste and the second highest in the Indian system. Sri Ram was a thakur, and though he had once been allied with Phoolan and Vikram, he had always looked down upon them because they were mullahs, the fishermen’s’ caste and one of the lowest.
Though just a teenager, Phoolan Devi had been victimized by the caste system her entire life, treated as either a servant or a sex object. Because she was so outspoken in her objections to the men who oppressed her, she had been frequently beaten, bound, imprisoned, and raped. A dacoit gang had kidnapped her from her village, but she soon became one of them, showing that she could be as ruthless and bloodthirsty as any man. But unlike the other bandits who infested the northern states of India, Phoolan Devi did not steal for her own enrichment. Like Robin Hood, she stole from the rich and gave to the poor, particularly poor women. Her inspirations were the Durga, the Hindu goddess of shakti, strength and power, and Mohandas K. Gandhi, the Indian statesman and humanitarian who had fought for equality among all people.
Dacoit gangs have a long history of preying on travelers and looting villages in the northern states of Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, which borders on Nepal. The region is characterized by its wild and rugged landscapes—mountains, maze-like ravines, desolate valleys, and uncharted jungles. To this day, buses travel in armed caravans to fight off likely raids. Some believe that the bandits who thrive in these states have been driven to criminality by extreme poverty and the inability to overcome the strictures of the caste system. Others believe that they are just the dregs of society, criminals by nature that, like the Mafia, has learned the benefits of organization.
I will continue with the story of this most interesting of our villains, for now I can only hope that you follow me as we are not yet even half way into the story of the Woman the World came to know as the Bandit Queen.