Comparison: Ivan the Terrifying, Pyotr the Great, Leader Stalin

More in Common than Not	Ivan IV	Pyotr I	Stalin
Epithet	Terrifying	Great	Leader
Origins
Born into wealth and privilege	Yes	Yes	No
Troubled or violent childhood	Yes	Yes	Yes
Reforms
Believed he was reforming Russia/USSR	Yes	Yes	Yes
Overall, reforms benefited Russia/USSR	Yes	Yes	Yes
Reforms were achieved without high human cost	Yes*	Yes	No
* Ivan’s reforms themselves did not come with a high human cost, although Ivan’s later actions caused tremendous suffering and death.
International Aggression
Waged war of aggression	Yes	Yes	Yes
Armed forces committed atrocities/war crimes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Annexed lands without their consent	Yes	Yes	Yes
Domestic Repression
Caused mass imprisonment for political reasons	Yes	Yes	Yes
Allowed torture for political reasons	Yes	Yes	Yes
Allowed executions for political reasons	Yes	Yes	Yes
Allowed and benefited from slavery/forced labor	Yes	Yes	Yes
Responsible for mass murder of citizens	Yes	No	Yes
Personal
Personally watched or engaged in torture	Yes	Yes	No
Personally cruel to close associates and/or family	Yes	Yes	Yes
Caused death of son	Yes	Yes	No
May have had serious mental problems	Yes	Yes	Yes
Legacy
Overall, had a lasting positive legacy	No	Yes	No

Notes

Epithet

	Ivan IV	Pyotr I	Stalin
Epithet	Terrifying	Great	Leader

Ivan IV was called Ivan Groznyy, meaning Ivan the Terrifying (or the Terrible, but in its older sense of terrifying and not its modern sense of awful).

Pyotr (“Peter”) I was called Pyotr Velikiy, Pyotr the Great.

Iosif (“Joseph”) Stalin was born in Russian Georgia and was named Ioseb Jughashvili (“Dzhugashvili” in Russian). He adopted “Stalin” as his revolutionary name, likely in imitation of Vladimir Ulyanov, who adopted “Lenin” as his revolutionary name. Stalin had a number of criminal aliases in his youth to hide his identity and later had many nicknames that he chose for himself or was called by his enemies. Vozhd, meaning “The Leader”, became iconic for him in the 1930s during his cult of personality that glorified him. Before the Soviets came to power, vozhd mostly applied to military leaders and to chieftains of indigenous groups, but Soviet propaganda soon associated vozhd with Lenin, calling him Vozhd, Vozhd of the Party, or Vozhd of the Proletariat. Many top Bolsheviks soon adopted vozhd for themselves, being known as the leaders of their particular functions or departments. Once Stalin achieved power, he had Soviet propaganda associate him with Lenin, then to portray him as equal to Lenin, and finally to show him as superior to Lenin. Stalin also praised Lenin as the infallible Vozhd, with the clear implication that Stalin as Vozhd was also infallible.

Vozhd is sometimes translated into English as “Boss”, often when in reference to Stalin, perhaps being conflated with Khozyain. Khozyain, meaning “Master” (of a household or estate) was a traditional Russian term for the (male) head of a household who responsibly looked after the welfare and morals of the family, a father or authority figure. Stalin’s top associates and cronies in the party and government called Stalin Khozyain, meaning Master (of the country), a flattering term with its implication of Stalin being the head of the state who was responsibly looked after the welfare and morals of the country. (Khozyain also came to mean “Boss” or “Owner” of a business or enterprise. Similarly, in at least some Russian criminal gangs, their head was called Khozyain.)

Stalin as Vozhd, the Leader, has obvious but coincidental parallels with the many "Leader" epithets of fascist dictators of the 1920s-1940s: Mussolini as Il Duce, Hitler as der Führer, Franco as El Caudillo, even Romania's Antonescu was called Conducător. The use of vozhd had nothing to do with fascism, as the Soviets began using it in 1918 for Lenin, before the first fascist dictator, Mussolini, began using Il Duce in 1919. Instead, the terms were natural propaganda tools for authoritarian and totalitarian regimes of both the left and right to try to build confidence in their dictators as capable supreme leaders. It should be no surprise, then, that Stalin took the official title Supreme Commander of the Armed Forces of the USSR soon after Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 and had himself proclaimed Generalissimo of the Soviet Union (Generalissimus Sovetskogo Soyuza soon after Germany's defeat in 1945.

After Germany's defeat and the genocidal crimes of Hitler became well known, Führer became an unacceptable term to use Germany, except among the extreme right wing. Unlike Führer, Vozhd remained in use in the USSR after Stalin's death, despite the denunciation of Stalin's cult of personality and the de-Stalinization drive the USSR began in the 1950s. Many (but by no means all) Soviet citizens, however, reviled Stalin, and some used Vozhd to refer to him in a sarcastic or derogatory sense. In the Russian Federation of today, vozhd is a loaded term because of its connotations with Stalin. Russian nationalists sometimes praise Putin as vozhd, implying he is the supreme leader Russia needs, but Putin and his propagandists avoid the term out of concern that it would associate Putin with Stalin in the general Russian public.

Origins

	Ivan IV	Pyotr I	Stalin
Born into wealth and privilege	Yes	Yes	No
Troubled or violent childhood	Yes	Yes	Yes

Ivan and Pyotr were both sons of tsars and thus born into wealth and privilege, while Stalin was the son of a shoemaker who became impoverished. Wealth and privilege did not protect Ivan and Pyotr, however, as in each case the father died while the son was a minor. While details differed, both children suffered from the sometimes-violent striving of rival factions trying to control the child and the throne. Ivan resented his poor treatment and as Tsar increasingly mistrusted his nobles. Some of Pyotr's relatives and friends were murdered, sometimes with Pyotr watching. Stalin’s father did not die during Stalin’s childhood, but this was no blessing either. Stalin’s father became alcoholic and abusive, beating his family. He moved away when Stalin was about 6, rarely contacting his family and then cutting off all contact when Stalin was about 12.

Reforms

	Ivan IV	Pyotr I	Stalin
Believed he was reforming Russia/USSR	Yes	Yes	Yes
Overall, reforms benefited Russia/USSR	Yes	Yes	Yes
Reforms were achieved without high human cost	Yes*	Yes	No
* Ivan’s reforms themselves did not come with a high human cost, although Ivan’s later actions caused tremendous suffering and death.

All three leaders instituted reforms that they thought their country needed, and in each case at least some of the reforms were beneficial and at low human cost. It may surprise you that Ivan was a reformer, given his history of cruelty and death, but early in his reign he made important governmental, legal, military, and religious reforms. Pyotr did similarly, as well as implementing reforms to improve education and the economy. Stalin industrialized the USSR and continued on-going education and other improvements started by Lenin. Some of his other reforms, however, were vastly destructive, particularly the persecution of the kulaks (supposedly well-off peasant farmers) and the forced collectivization of agriculture. In the end, many of Stalin’s efforts incurred huge social costs including suffering, imprisonment, forced labor, and famine. The human cost of Pyotr’s reforms was less, although some of his other initiatives involved forced labor in conditions that caused many deaths.

One thing to keep in mind is that the reforms of all three leaders were intended to strengthen the Russian/Soviet state, whether or not they were beneficial to the common people of the country. Similarly, their reforms were also intended to increase their own personal power as the tsar or leader of the country, again whether or not they were beneficial to the common people. This situation still occurs to this day in the Russian Federation.

International Aggression

	Ivan IV	Pyotr I	Stalin
Waged war of aggression	Yes	Yes	Yes
Armed forces committed atrocities/war crimes	Yes	Yes	Yes
Annexed lands without their consent	Yes	Yes	Yes

All three leaders engaged in wars of aggression without provocation or prior attack by the enemy. The goals of the wars were to expand the Russian/Soviet state and to politically benefit the leaders themselves, making them successful war leaders or conquerors. The military forces of all three committed atrocities or war crimes against enemy civilians, likely in all cases to intentionally terrorize the enemy civilians, soldiers, or leaders. When their wars were successful, all three annexed conquered lands into the Russian/Soviet state without the consent of the conquered peoples. In some cases, the conquered peoples later revolted, with their rebellions then suppressed with great violence.

Ivan IV attacked, conquered, and annexed nearby Muslim khanates. Russian soldiers killed many Muslim soldiers who surrendered and slaughtered many Muslim inhabitants of Kazan, a conquered city. In wars in Christian lands, Ivan's soldiers become notorious for their cruelty to women and children.

Pyotr I attacked, conquered, and annexed nearby lands, including territory along the Baltic Sea where he then built a new capital for Russia, Sankt-Peterburg (“St. Petersburg”). Although his military forces did not have the notoriety of committing atrocities like Ivan’s and Stalin’s did, this did happen on occasion. Perhaps the worse were the “Russian Pillagings” (Swedish: Rysshärjningarna) by Russia’s Baltic fleet in 1719-1721 during a war with Sweden. Russian warships raided the Swedish coast and islands, with raiding parties looting and burning cities and towns and killing civilians. The goal of these actions was to terrorize the population in hopes of causing the Swedish government to agree to greater concessions in peace negotiations.

In 1939-1940 Stalin’s Red Army in separate campaigns invaded eastern Poland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and the eastern provinces of Romania. Only Poland and Finland resisted militarily. The other campaigns were thus portrayed as “peaceful” but were Soviet conquests and annexations nonetheless. A strong Finnish defense saved Finland from total annexation, but Finland had to cede territory that was annexed into the USSR, although Finland evacuated its citizens from the lost lands. The Soviets invaded Poland soon after the Germans invaded Poland, and the two aggressors split the country between them. In all the populated newly-conquered territories, Soviet forces, particularly Soviet security forces, severely repressed the local populations, with mass arrests, imprisonment, and executions of people believed to be class enemies of the USSR. Further, in a set of massacres approved by Stalin, Soviet security forces killed over 20,000 Polish military officers, police officers, and educated class members, in an attempt to wipe out any leaders of potential Polish resistance to Soviet rule.

During the Great Patriotic War, as the Soviets called their part of World War II after Germany invaded the USSR, Stalin was not the aggressor. His forces did commit countless war crimes and atrocities during the war, with tremendous violence against German civilians when the Red Army entered German territory in 1944-1945.

Domestic Repression

	Ivan IV	Pyotr I	Stalin
Caused mass imprisonment for political reasons	Yes	Yes	Yes
Allowed torture for political reasons	Yes	Yes	Yes
Allowed executions for political reasons	Yes	Yes	Yes
Allowed and benefited from slavery/forced labor	Yes	Yes	Yes
Responsible for mass murder of citizens	Yes	No	Yes

None of these leaders hesitated to force their subjects or citizens to do their will, ruthlessly punishing even peaceful opposition. For all three, this was ostensibly for the good of the state, but what was good for the state was good for them, too. Ivan was more complex in later life, having episodes of tremendous brutality for no good reason, often followed by apparently sincere, but brief, repentance.

All three benefited from slavery and/or forced labor. Ivan owned both household and agricultural slaves.

By the time of Pyotr, agricultural slaves had been turned into unfree serfs bound to the land, and Pyotr’s land holdings meant he was master to many serfs. He also owned household slaves, but in 1723 abolished slavery by turning household slaves into house serfs, who gained a little more rights than slaves but were not free. Pyotr also increasingly used forced labor to build his projects, like a fortress port-settlement, built from scratch by the Sea of Azov, and, especially, his new capital of Sankt-Peterburg, built from scratch in swamps near the Baltic Sea. Thousands of people were simply drafted for labor. Further, many criminals were sentenced to forced labor on his projects. With poor working conditions, poor housing, and poor sanitation, thousands of forced laborers died.

The Soviets began using forced labor soon after they came to power under Lenin, as a way to punish political and criminal prisoners while gaining some economic benefits from them. When Stalin rose to power, he created the GULag and greatly expanded the use of forced labor, ramping it up from under two hundred thousand in 1929 to about 2.5 million at its height in the early 1950s. Forced labor, especially in the main labor camps holding the prisoners with the longest sentences, was deadly through overwork, short rations, poor housing, and poor medical care. In the 1930s, tens of thousands could and did die working on just one of the many projects using GULag labor.

Pyotr was the only one of three to avoid outright mass murder for political reasons, although his forced labor did cause many deaths. Ivan believed the leaders of the Russian city of Novgorod were planning treason and unleashed his paramilitary on them, killing many thousands, most of whom were innocent residents of the city. During his purges of the USSR, Stalin had his NKVD secret police kill hundreds of thousands, most of whom were innocent civilians.

Personal

	Ivan IV	Pyotr I	Stalin
Personally watched or engaged in torture	Yes	Yes	No
Personally cruel to close associates and/or family	Yes	Yes	Yes
Caused death of son	Yes	Yes	No
May have had serious mental problems	Yes	Yes	Yes

Ivan directly participated torture. Pyotr would watch and direct torture. Stalin did neither, although he knew and approved that torture was being used on a massive scale to enforce his will. All three were cruel to family members, close relatives, and close associates. Both tsars were responsible for causing the deaths of the oldest son and heir. Stalin did not do that, but he was not a good father to his natural sons. His oldest son, Yakov, was ignored and disdained, ending up dying in a German POW camp after Stalin refused to exchange him for Hitler’s nephew, whom the Soviets had captured. His second son, Vasiliy, was less disdained but still disapproved of, ending up dying of alcoholism at age 41.

All three had signs of serious mental problems. Ivan IV was very like mentally unstable, paranoid, and definitely prone to uncontrollable violent rages. Pyotr had neuroses and seizures from his childhood experience, unrestrained anger, and antisocial behavior possibly reaching psychopathic levels. Stalin was extremely suspicious and likely paranoid, so insecure about his abilities that he became malignantly narcissistic, and so uncaring of others that he likely was a sadist and perhaps a psychopath.

Legacy

	Ivan IV	Pyotr I	Stalin
Overall, had a lasting positive legacy	No	Yes	No

While some authoritarian-minded people and some actual or would-be dictators admire Ivan and Stalin, most people abhor what they did. Their legacies quickly declined after their deaths. Ivan was feared and reviled. His dynasty soon ended because he had killed his competent son, leaving a childless, incompetent son to be tsar. While he expanded Russia, his expensive wars and heavy taxes damaged Russia’s economy. A weakened Russia was unable to cope when a natural disaster began almost 20 years of the Time of Troubles.

Stalin industrialized the Soviet Union and his Red Army (although with significant Allied material aid) did more to defeat Nazi Germany than any other army. However, Stalin’s misguided policies (like collective agriculture) and murderous repression resulted in massive suffering and death, as well as lost economic benefits. Stalin’s policies directly or indirectly caused 11-20 million deaths. This was the second highest death toll of all disasters in Russian and Soviet history, topped only by the loss of 27-40 million lives in fighting Nazi Germany during World War II. Soon after Stalin’s death, the new Soviet leader denounced what Stalin had done and his cult of personality, instituting a drive to de-Stalinize the USSR.

Much of what Pyotr did was little different than Ivan or Stalin, but his reforms made Russia a wealthier, stronger country not only in his lifetime but for decades after his death. Even causing the death of his son and heir did not weaken Russia after Pyotr. However, his increased centralization of power at the expense of the common people, and his indifference to their suffering and deaths caused by his own policies make him less than truly “Great”.

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