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The Dictator Files: Joseph Stalin

Can you guess these facts about the infamous dictator Joseph Stalin?
Quiz by Quizmaster
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Last updated: March 14, 2020
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First submittedMay 23, 2017
Times taken39,779
Average score70.0%
Rating4.32
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Hint
Answer
Country (then part of the Russian Empire) where Stalin was born
Georgia
The first leader of the Soviet Union
V. I. Lenin
Stalin met with these "Big 3" Allied war leaders at Yalta in 1945
Winston Churchill
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Term which referred to the division between free and Communist Europe after WWII
The Iron Curtain
Rival communist leader who was assassinated in Mexico City in 1940
Leon Trotsky
Soviet leader who "de-Stalinized" the Soviet Union in the 1950s
Nikita Khrushchev
Fill the blank in this quote that is mis-attributed to Stalin:
The death of one man is a tragedy, the death of millions is a _________
Statistic
Friendly nickname that Stalin was known by in the U.S. during WWII
Uncle Joe
What the name "Stalin" means
Man of Steel
Region of the USSR which suffered millions of the deaths during the
"Holodomor" famine of 1932–1933
Ukraine
"Archipelago" of forced-labor prisons that was greatly expanded by Stalin
The Gulag
City known as Stalingrad from 1925–1961
Volgograd
Job that Stalin initially trained for
Priest
Disease which scarred his face as a boy
Smallpox
Country that the USSR signed a non-aggression pact with in 1939
Germany
Prize which Stalin was nominated for in 1945 and 1948
Nobel Peace Prize
American western film star who Stalin supposedly tried to kill
John Wayne
Book that features a pig named Napoleon who is remarkably similar to Stalin
Animal Farm
The name given to Stalin's killing of at least 600,000 political enemies in the 1930s –
including almost every high ranking military officer
The Great Purge
67 Comments
+7
Level 77
May 24, 2017
I looked up the John Wayne thing. I found two quotes pretty funny.

""Yakima told me that the FBI had discovered there were agents sent to Hollywood to kill John Wayne," said Mr Munn. "He said the FBI had come to tell John about the plot. John told the FBI to let the men show up and he would deal with them.""

Which is just hilarious, and...

"Wayne also told Mr Munn about an attempt to kill him by an enemy sniper while he was visiting the troops in Vietnam in d1966. "One of the snipers was captured," said Mr Munn, "and said there was a price on John's head, put there by [China's communist leader] Mao Tse Tung.""

So, if true, he supposedly survived Stalin AND Mao!

+10
Level 81
Aug 22, 2017
Easy. Read Montifiore's young Stalin biography a few years back. Fascinating man. Stalin didn't really establish the gulag system- though the name was adopted and the system was refined during his time in power. The practice of exiling prisoners to Siberia in order to colonize the more inhospitable areas of the Russian Empire was started by the tsars. Stalin himself was actually arrested and exiled six times in his early years (he kept making his way back).
+4
Level 81
Dec 5, 2020
kudos for improving the wording of this clue
+1
Level 86
Aug 22, 2017
Wouldn't Stalin's birthplace, Georgia, be part of the Soviet empire, not the Russian Empire? Russia and Georgia were two separate Soviet Republics, along with the other 13.
+16
Level 53
Aug 22, 2017
No. At the time of Stalin's birth (1878) the Soviet Union did not exist, and Georgia was part of the Russian Empire. After the Russian Revolution in 1917 Georgia declared itself an independent nation which lasted until 1921 when the Soviets invaded and absorbed Georgia into the Soviet Union
+23
Level 45
Sep 19, 2017
Very unjust and propagandistic portrayal of a man to whom the free world owes more than anyone the victory over the atrocious nazis and managed succesfully to convert its country in a war machine prepared to resist the huge blow inflicted by them, as a final consequence of the pemanent hostility carried out against the USSR by the Western powers. Why do not put other more balanced questions on well-known matters as the collectivisation, theory of building socialism in a sole country, quinquennial plans, support for Spanish republicans, city which he defended during the Russian Civil War against the Russian Whites,...?
+40
Level 65
Sep 25, 2017
...he also killed at least 20 million people, some estimates amounting it to 60 million, a third of his populace. I'm not sure he deserves "balanced" questions.
+15
Level 84
Oct 17, 2017
As you can see in the last question, if he didn't kill most of top military, he would've already had a country prepared for war.
+6
Level 74
Oct 20, 2019
On the other hand, if not for his totalitarian effort to industrialise the country (which was one of the reasons for events like the "Holodomor" and death of millions), USSR would not have the industrial capacity to stop Nazi Germany in WWII. The rapid industralization of Soviet Union was unprecedented and could not be achieved under a more moderate leader. And without it, they would have not been able to produce enough arms to stop the Germans.

Stalin was a psychopath, a great oppressor and a mass-murderer, but if he didn't came to power, the fate of Slavic people of Central and Eastern Europe could have been mass extermination and enslavement, as was in the intention of Nazi government.

+6
Level 80
Mar 23, 2023
Totally wrong. The Holodomor was in no way helpful for industrialization. It enforced collectivized farming that did nothing but hinder agricultural production in the entire region. What’s more, even during the famine the shipments of food out of Ukraine increased. In no way were the millions of deaths a side effect of industrialization. Just saying stuff you want to be true is cool, I guess, but I prefer true stuff.
+1
Level 22
Mar 23, 2023
what about the part where he mentions that without rapid industralization, the soviet union would not be able to produce enough arms and and not be able to counter the german threat? this part isn't true? although i do agree holodomor was one of the major side effects of rapid industrialisation, it was necessary to mantain the defense of the country.
+1
Level 80
Mar 24, 2023
Did you read what I wrote? The Holodomor in no way helped industrial output. They’re unrelated.
+6
Level 36
Mar 4, 2018
The USSR, like any other country on earth, was far from perfect. But I cannot understand why it became the sworn enemy of the USA, given its status as one of the USA's allies in WWII. Especially given that

Japan, whose monstrous deed was responsible for the US entry into

WWII now appears to carry favorite nation status. Strange, indeed!

+20
Level 81
Mar 19, 2018
It probably has something to do with the fact that the USSR was a nightmarish totalitarian state that aggressively expanded its murderous system of oppression across much of the face of the world and put down all dissent with bloodthirsty zeal. Whereas Japan became a peaceful liberal democracy after WWII.
+10
Level 68
Apr 27, 2020
The whole idea that the USSR was hell bent on world domination has never been substantiated. But it ensured that so-called free people in the West lived in fear believing it was true. The whole idea of the Domino Theory, and the idea that all communist uprisings in nations throughout the world were initiated by the USSR was a complete fallacy, but it formed the basis of Cold War foreign policy and was something people truly believed and which is probably still widely believed today. The Vietnam War, which was probably the most glaring failure of this policy, could have been avoided. Ho Chi Minh very much wanted a united Vietnam to be a US ally, to act as a counterweight to China. Even now you can see the difficult situation Vietnam is in with developments in the South China Sea, but it is now wary of the US. What lives large in the psyche of the Vietnamese is the 1000 year occupation of Vietnam by China.
+3
Level 80
Mar 23, 2023
Has never been substantiated? Well that’s a weak argument if I’ve ever seen one. How do you explain Russian tanks rolling into Hungary when Hungarian people rose up against their puppet Soviet government? Not to mention that Lenin famously believed in the spread of Communism and the Comintern, an organization specifically meant to spread communism internationally. “Oh, but Stalin dissolved the Comintern”, I hear you say. Yeah, but then he made a follow up called the Cominform! I’d say that seems like a fair bit of substantiation.
+5
Level 68
Apr 27, 2020
If you do not consider the nuances of the situations of individual countries then you make bad policy. There is also evidence to suggest, if you read Alan Bullock's 'Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives', that relations between the USSR and the West may have been a bit different if Roosevelt had lived. He and Stalin apparently got on very well, much to the chagrin of Churchill. Truman, on the other hand, was an ex-army colonel, who had nothing but distrust of Stalin, and had not developed the type of relationship Roosevelt had developed with him during the meetings in Tehran and Yalta.
+3
Level 54
Jan 21, 2021
A supposed personal connection has very little to do with developments in foreign policy. They're based on deep-seated geopolitical realities. Churchill's suspicion of Stalin was justified wouldn't you say?
+1
Level 61
Jun 26, 2021
Without a doubt it was the USSR that won the Second World War. They gained an insane amount of territory, wealth, and influence in the world. America gained absolutely nothing other than some influence, but that was largely overshadowed by what the Soviet influence was in the world at the time.
+1
Level 69
Nov 20, 2022
they might not have wanted world domination, but they definitely wanted way more land. some family from ex-czechoslovakia said that when the soviets came the maps they had showed hungary, czechoslovakia, poland, yugoslavia and romania as part of the ussr. this was in the 1970s btw
+5
Level 81
Mar 19, 2018
The USSR under Stalin was strong and the deployment of its armies to crush Nazi Germany was a great thing for the free world, but it was a response to Hitler's invasion of the Soviet Union, not some altruistic act - remember he started the war as a good friend of Hitler's, joining him in carving up Poland. If Stalin helped us, it was because, for a time, our interests aligned with his. Stalin's assistance to the Spanish Republic was more of an attempted (and failed) power grab that saw thousands of fighters on the Republican side arrested or executed on the orders of Stalin's agents who came to dominate the Republic's government. Collectivisation was a disaster that resulted in millions of deaths. Indeed it is perverse that you would accuse the questions in the quiz of being propaganda, given the credulous Stalinist talking points you've typed out.
+5
Level ∞
Mar 20, 2018
As Churchill said "If Hitler invaded Hell, I would make at least a favourable reference to the devil in the House of Commons".
+2
Level 81
Nov 12, 2018
Aren't you supposed to be scaring voters in Ohio into thinking that the Clintons are running child sex trafficking rings out of the basements of pizza parlors? Stop slacking off at work and taking quizzes.
+3
Level 39
Apr 27, 2020
To be fair, I think you take more quizzes on Jetpunk than almost anyone in the world, so maybe change your wording a bit. Ahaha
+2
Level 81
Apr 27, 2020
:) the thrust of the joke wasn't that he was spending too much time taking quizzes, but rather than his Russian propagandist employers would be disappointed with his use of Internet time. I'm currently unemployed.
+19
Level ∞
Mar 14, 2020
In my mind, apologizing for Stalin should be just as taboo as apologizing for Hitler.
+2
Level 76
Mar 17, 2020
Yes, I agree. Hitler is just as bad as people make him out to be, but Stalin was just as bad, if not worse. War has no "good guys" and the winners wrote the history. All the sides did terrible things. Especially the Soviets. This is not to defend Hitler in any way. He was a terrible person responsible for millions of deaths, but he was not an anomaly
+3
Level 81
Apr 27, 2020
There are good guys in wars. Stalin wasn't one of them.
+2
Level 87
Apr 27, 2020
He was just as bad with the ethnic cleansing. Entire tribes of people wiped out. He was a worse butcher than Hitler.
+1
Level 81
Feb 23, 2022
^ not you, I assume. And don't be so shy. Tell us all what an amazing guy you think Stalin was. If you actually believe it have the guts to commit to it and say it loud and proud. It will make my work easier.
+6
Level 71
May 10, 2022
I once saw an interesting answer on Quora about this. The guy compared Hitler to a serial killer who selectively tortures, rapes, and murders 12 people, Stalin to a mass shooter who kills 25 people randomly, and Mao to a drunk driver who accidentally kills 50 people in a car accident. The numbers aren't necessarily to scale here, and it's hard to measure whether Hitler or Stalin actually killed more people, but I think it illustrates a good point about these two. Stalin may have been brutal and sociopathic, but he wasn't selectively targeting entire ethnic groups for extermination like Hitler, nor was he as violent in his methods.

Don't get me wrong--Stalin was still a terrible terrible person and deserves no apologies. But, if I had to choose between living in Stalin's Soviet Union and Hitler's Germany, I'd choose the former any day.

+3
Level 81
Jun 6, 2022
I wouldn't want to live in either, but, unless you belonged to one of the minority populations that Hitler decided to try and exterminate, at least up until the tide of war turned and Germany was being bombed and invaded, I imagine that it would have been substantially better living in Germany under the Third Reich versus almost anywhere in Stalin's Soviet "utopia." And living in Mao's China would have been even worse, still.
+1
Level 43
Apr 15, 2025
It's suprisingly difficult to choose, saying as Germans also hated Hitler. I think Stalin's USSR would have better community than most modern countries but I doubt I would like being restricted to communist ideas or restricted to little food.

I think most authoritarian countries sucked to live in, nowadays I can name a few I wouldn't hate, but can't we just be glad we don't live in one today...

+4
Level 73
Apr 28, 2020
One of history's largest mass murderers (more than Hitler in fact) who's paranoia and desire to murder cost the lives of millions of his citizens including many loyal red army commanders and government officials he was jealous of. Someone who didn't care about human life anymore when his wife died. Not to mention he also tried to kill John Wayne because of his anti communist views.

I cannot believe I actually have to say this to you but defeating the nazis (which certainly helped) doesn't somehow excuse all of the atrocities he committed.

+1
Level 60
Mar 10, 2023
Surprise surprise history is complicated. But Stalin committed and ordered horrible atrocities. Preventing another madman from committing worse atrocities shouldn’t redeem him. (Yes there were some good things he did and some advantages to his reign but I don’t think there’s anything that redeems him)
+4
Level 88
Dec 29, 2018
"Stalin supposedly tried to kill John Wayne" has gotta be one of the weirdest things I've ever learned on Jetpunk.
+2
Level 73
Apr 28, 2020
John Wayne was the ultimate badass. When the US government informed him of the plan, he asked the CIA not to protect him and for Stalin's men to come see him so he could "take care of them".

Respect is almost an understatement on that one. Huge bromance.

+5
Level 54
Jan 21, 2021
Of course . Such a badass that he spent WW2 hiding in movie studios while Jimmy Stewart commanded bombing raids over Germany, Douglas Fairbanks took part in immensely hazardous naval deception missions and David Niven fought in Normandy.
+3
Level 81
Mar 4, 2022
He wasn't an actual badass. But he played one on TV.
+5
Level 47
Apr 11, 2020
"What region of the Soviet Union suffered millions of the deaths during the "Holodomor" famine of 1932-1933?"

Kuban, South Siberia, Kazakhstan, Volga region and some others.

+8
Level 82
Apr 27, 2020
The Soviet famine encompassed the people and regions you mention, but Holodomor is a Ukrainian word and refers only to Ukraine.
+1
Level 67
Apr 27, 2020
As of last year, Stalin's approval rating in Russia is at a record-high 70%. This is 67 years after the man died. Totalitarianism is back in vogue. And some people still can't figure out why many in the United States are in a panic.
+1
Level 73
Apr 28, 2020
Do you have a link to an article to support that claim?
+1
Level 67
Apr 28, 2020
I've seen it several times in the past year. Here's one article: https://www.usnews.com/news/best-countries/articles/2019-05-09/stalin-is-more-popular-than-ever-in-russia-survey-shows
+2
Level 71
May 10, 2022
Of course he's popular. The guy running Russia right now is a Stalin wannabe and feeds the Russian people revisionist, neo-Stalinist propaganda.
+6
Level 75
Apr 27, 2020
Aww, come on, I was really looking forward to being one of the few to know his real name, Djugashvili. Useless knowledge once more proven to be useless. XD
+1
Level 61
Dec 9, 2020
Hard to spell tho
+1
Level 69
Nov 20, 2022
is it not dzhugashvili?
+1
Level 51
Feb 16, 2021
I learned it as the Great Terror rather than the Great Purge
+2
Level 77
Nov 30, 2022
Yes, please accept "terror" as well.
+2
Level 38
Apr 14, 2021
stalin be like:

he protec, he attac, but most importantly, he push bac

+1
Level 43
Apr 15, 2025
batina batina batina...
+2
Level 55
May 2, 2022
Please accept "Ulyanov" for the first question. I don't see why Lenin's real name should not be accepted when his alias is.
+3
Level 71
Nov 18, 2022
To be fair, Golodomor was just a big part of massive hunger back in 1933. Ukrainian president said that was a genocide just to get some attention to his country.
+3
Level 66
Jan 29, 2023
I would like to praise the Quizmaster for the neutrality of the quiz. I am glad that Stalin is not a "Holy and Kind Guy" here, as the Stalinists make him out to be, and not a "mad killer who destroyed 50 million",
+1
Level 73
Mar 23, 2023
Still, the "Dictator" files speaks for itself. It's not that neutral
+4
Level 62
Mar 24, 2023
It's hard to deny that he was a dictator
+2
Level 73
Mar 23, 2023
Also, "holodomor" famine, that suggest intentional famine to destroy ukrainians and other ethnicities,although in real life russians also suffered from this. And yes, it was not intentional, but rather accidental and was a mistake
+1
Level 66
Mar 25, 2023
By the way, the term "Holodomor" is really nonsense. How annoying it is for me. About Russia and Kazakhstan, who starved no less, everyone "forgets", exposing the famine as an alleged genocide of Ukrainians. They are already looking for any fact and distorting it so as to show how the Russians oppressed everyone. Although the USSR did a lot for the formation of Ukraine.
+1
Level 80
Apr 28, 2025
You're entirely misinformed, or you are spreading propaganda. Hundreds of survivors have been interviewed, and they are consistent. Parts of Ukraine were specifically targeted to starve because they had resisted Soviet assimilation. Stalin wrote a letter in 1932, saying that 50 separate municipal Communist committees reported that the grain procurement quotas were unrealistic. In that same letter, he said that Ukraine must become a "Soviet Fortress" and that dissent had to be put down. Then he decreed that districts and collective farms were to be put on the "blacklist" if they failed to meet these unrealistic quotas. Over 75% of blacklisted districts were Ukrainian. There were literal trainloads of Ukrainian grain that just rotted in Soviet shipping depots. Ukrainian peasants were not allowed to leave famine-stricken areas. This famine didn't happen naturally, and it didn't happen everywhere equally.
+2
Level 68
Mar 23, 2023
Accept 'Nazi Germany'?
+1
Level 70
Sep 16, 2023
Please accept "clergy" for "priest". Thank you for the quiz.
+1
Level 69
Feb 2, 2024
The ones I got were easy.
+1
Level 59
Jun 8, 2024
Way back in the 80's I was riding my bike around a college campus next to my hometown. A student group, I think they were the Young Communists or something like that, had put up posters celebrating the upcoming 100th birth of Stalin.

I took a marking pen and rode around adding thought balloons saying things like "where'd I put my icepick?" and "Let's go camping'"

+1
Level 47
Jul 11, 2024
Stalin was not a dictator. Read a book.
+1
Level 43
Apr 15, 2025
haganshows was not a tanky. Read a book
+1
Level 67
Aug 6, 2024
You could accept third reich in the pact question