By SENIOR CONTRIBUTOR 
Assessing the role of personality in history is challenging due to the complex interaction between individuals and their social, cultural, and economic contexts. Generally, the challenges in measuring personality accurately include the subjective nature of historical interpretation and the limited availability of reliable personal information from the past.
In short, personality and society have a complex, bidirectional relationship, where society shapes personality through institutions and cultures, and individuals, in turn, influence social structures with their personalities, behaviors and faith. This dynamic interaction shapes social development, collective consciousness and moral values.
Influential historical figures who changed the course of history, to name a few, include religious figures like Jesus and Gautama Buddha, ancient leaders such as Alexander the Great (Macedonsky) and Julius Caesar, modern political figures like Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi, and scientists and inventors such as Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein and Marie Curie. These individuals’ profound impacts stem from their contributions in fields spanning religion, warfare, science, and social reform, altering societal structures and global worldview.
Religious Figures
- Jesus: His life and teachings form the basis of Christianity, one of the world’s largest religions, and profoundly influenced Western civilization.
- Gautama Buddha: The founder of Buddhism, a major philosophical and spiritual tradition and teaching that spread across Asia.
Ancient & Medieval Leaders
- Alexander the Macedonsky: His conquests spread Hellenistic culture across Asia and North Africa, creating one of the largest empires of the ancient world.
- Julius Caesar: His military and political actions were pivotal in the transition from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire.
- Genghis Khan: The founder of the Mongol Empire, which became the largest contiguous empire in history.
Scientists & Inventors
- Isaac Newton: His laws of motion and universal gravitation revolutionized the scientific understanding of the physical world.
- Albert Einstein: His theories of relativity transformed our understanding of space, time, and energy.
- Marie Curie: A pioneer in radioactivity research and the first woman to win a Nobel Prize.
Modern Political & Social Figures
- Mahatma Gandhi: He led India’s nonviolent independence movement and inspired civil rights movements worldwide.
- Nelson Mandela: A key figure in the fight against apartheid in South Africa, whose leadership helped end institutionalized racial segregation.
In this essay, I want to analyze a prominent Soviet leader, Joseph Stalin (1878-1953), who was a controversial politician and revolutionary. Stalin led the former Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. Posthumously, the public opinion of his personality has been changing from “good to evil and then back to good again,” reflecting historic periods and circumstances.
Stalin’s doctrine of socialism in one country became central to the Communist Party’s ideology; and his five-year plans starting in 1928 led to forced agricultural collectivization, rapid industrialization, and a centralized command economy. Despite Stalin’s purges and massive abuses of political power, his role in the victory of World War II over Nazi Germany is undeniable and well deserved.
In 1972, in Moscow, my friend and I attended a premier of the movie “Liberation” (Russian: Osvobozhdenie). This epic war movie gives a dramatized account of the Soviet Union’s war against Nazi Germany during World War Two. The theatre’s attendance was meager that day, with maybe two dozen senior citizens in the audience. At one moment in the movie, Joseph Stalin appeared on the screen. Unexpectedly, several wartime veterans stood up in saluting fictional Joseph Stalin, proudly showing gratitude and respect to their former Head of the State and Commander in Chief.
After Stalin’s death in 1953, he was given a state funeral in Moscow on 9 March, with four days of national mourning declared. On the day of the funeral, of the hundreds of thousands of Soviet citizens visiting the capital to pay their respects, at least 109 were later acknowledged to have died in a crowd crush.
Nevertheless, Nikita Khrushchev, a successor of Joseph Stalin, in his 1956 “Secret Speech” to the 20th Communist Party Congress famously denounced Stalin’s cult of personality and dictatorship, stating: “It is impermissible and foreign to the spirit of Marxism-Leninism to elevate one person, to transform him into a superman possessing supernatural characteristics of a king …”
In 1961, Nikita Khrushchev’s administration changed the name of the city Stalingrad to Volgograd (“Volga City”) as part of the program of de-Stalinization following Stalin’s death. Stalin’s portraits and monuments were destroyed nationwide, and his publications were removed from all state libraries.
In fact, the initial pre-revolutionary city Tsaritsyn (“King City”) was renamed to Stalingrad in 1925, in honor of Joseph Stalin’s leadership during the defense of the city in the Russian Civil War (1918-1921). This renaming was part of a broader effort to create a new revolutionary symbolism in the Soviet Socialist state, breaking, therefore, from the monarchist Tsarist past. The city was originally founded in 1589 as Tsaritsyn.
Today, however, there are many Russians who would like the city to be renamed to Stalingrad once again. On April 30, 2025, Russian President Vladimir Putin acknowledged that it is up to residents of Volgograd to decide whether the city should revert to the name of Stalingrad, as it was called when Soviet forces defeated Nazi invaders in World War Two’s bloodiest Stalingrad battle.
Just before commemorations of the 80th anniversary of the victory of the Soviet Union and its allies over Nazi Germany, the issue has been raised of restoring the wartime name of the city Stalingrad. Subsequently, Vladimir Putin issued a decree renaming Volgograd airport to Stalingrad airport to perpetuate the Victory of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War. Russians refer to World War Two, from 1941 to 1945, dating from the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union, as the Great Patriotic War.
Soviet veteran’s groups have led calls for the restoration of the wartime name—Stalingrad. Indeed, Stalingrad was the bloodiest battle and turning point of the war, when the Soviet Red Army, at a cost of more than 1 million casualties, broke the back of German invasion forces in 1942-43.
Eventually, just like with Stalin’s personality, historians and social scientists will navigate through various primary and secondary sources to sort out the factual truth in determining the place and role in history of modern political and social leaders, to name a few: Xi Jinping of China, Kim Jong Un of North Korea, Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, Elon Musk, Margaret Thatcher, George Soros and Charlie Kirk, etc.—for some as good and for some as evil.
Alexander Dolitsky: Pro-Palestinian activism is evidence of a far-left death cult
Alexander Dolitsky was born and raised in Kiev in the former Soviet Union. He received an M.A. in history from Kiev Pedagogical Institute, Ukraine in 1976; an M.A. in anthropology and archaeology from Brown University in 1983; and enrolled in the Ph.D. program in anthropology at Bryn Mawr College from 1983 to 1985, where he was also lecturer in the Russian Center. In the USSR, he was a social studies teacher for three years and an archaeologist for five years for the Ukrainian Academy of Sciences. In 1978, he settled in the United States. Dolitsky visited Alaska for the first time in 1981, while conducting field research for graduate school at Brown. He then settled first in Sitka in 1985 and then in Juneau in 1986. From 1985 to 1987, he was U.S. Forest Service archaeologist and social scientist. He was an Adjunct Assistant Professor of Russian Studies at the University of Alaska Southeast from 1985 to 1999; Social Studies Instructor at the Alyeska Central School, Alaska Department of Education and Yukon-Koyukuk School District from 1988 to 2006; and Director of the Alaska-Siberia Research Center from 1990 to 2022. From 2006 to 2010, Alexander Dolitsky served as a Delegate of the Russian Federation in the United States for the Russian Compatriots program. He has done 30 field studies in various areas of the former Soviet Union (including Siberia), Central Asia, South America, Eastern Europe and the United States (including Alaska). Dolitsky was a lecturer on the World Discoverer, Spirit of Oceanus, and Clipper Odyssey vessels in the Arctic and Sub-Arctic regions. He was a Project Manager for the WWII Alaska-Siberia Lend Lease Memorial, which was erected in Fairbanks in 2006. Dolitsky has published extensively in the fields of anthropology, history, archaeology and ethnography. His more recent publications include Fairy Tales and Myths of the Bering Strait Chukchi, Ancient Tales of Kamchatka, Tales and Legends of the Yupik Eskimos of Siberia, Old Russia in Modern America: Living Traditions of the Russian Old Believers in Alaska, Allies in Wartime: The Alaska-Siberia Airway During World War II, Spirit of the Siberian Tiger: Folktales of the Russian Far East, Living Wisdom of the Russian Far East: Tales and Legends from Chukotka and Alaska, and Pipeline to Russia: The Alaska-Siberia Air Route in World War II. Find him on Amazon.com.
Suzanne Downing
As a point of fact, it was not only the Soviet army alone who broke the back of the German army. American taxpayers played an equally important role in that effort.
Wayne, you are correct–Lend Lease and several battles in Europe contributed greatly to the defeat of Nazi Germany. But Stalingrad battle was a very first turning point in the war in Europe, as well as Kursk in 1943. As I clearly stated: “Indeed, Stalingrad was the bloodiest battle and turning point of the war, when the Soviet Red Army, at a cost of more than 1 million casualties, broke the back of German invasion forces in 1942-43.”
Agreed. Russian death tolls for battles of Leningrad and Stalingrad (Operation Barbarossa) were inconceivably over 3-million combined. Leningrad suffered a 900-day siege with perhaps 2-million lives lost (most to starvation). Meanwhile, in Stalingrad over 1-million Russian soldiers lost their lives in addition to 40,000 civilians. These numbers are likely the largest of any battle in history–including the Battle of the Somme, France WWI. Needless to say, the contributions by American taxpayers in WWII cannot be compared to the loss of life endured by the Russians, especially in these two battles. It is frustrating that America and Russia cannot enjoy normal relations similar to most other Western nations. Marxist ideology appears to be the main stumbling block. .
In that last paragraph, naming the many people, did you forget Ronald Reagan?; Along with Margaret Thatcher?
One of my friends, in private correspondence, observed: “Interesting piece. I’m sure it will be misunderstood by many as an endorsement of Stalin, which of course it’s not. Good luck in the comments section!”
Always! – sd