Stalin: The Rise of a Tyrant (Part 1)

In May 2025, a new relief carving of Joseph Stalin went up in a Moscow Metro station—an exact replica of one torn down in the 1960s when the Soviet Union was trying to put Stalin behind it. The image shows Stalin, about three times life size, towering over adoring schoolchildren in a style pure 1920s Soviet kitsch. When filmmaker Oliver Stone asked Vladimir Putin in 2017 why he was rehabilitating Stalin, Putin replied: "Excessive demonisation of Stalin is one of the ways of attacking the Soviet Union and Russia." He has compared Britain's continued statues of Oliver Cromwell—despite what Putin called his "very ambiguous role"—to Russia keeping Stalin on a plinth. This episode of Empire begins a series getting under the bonnet of who Stalin was and what he did, starting with his origins.

The Man Who Wasn't Born Stalin

We do not know for certain when Stalin was even born. A parish register in Gori gives 18 December 1878; a seminary certificate and a Tsarist police file confirm that date. But Stalin himself, once in power, celebrated 21 December 1879 instead—a year and three days later. The historian Robert Service suggests that "falsification came easily to him," and that changing the date may have helped Stalin dodge conscription as a young man.