Probably no other figure has as much of a confused place in history as Josef Stalin. To some, he was a hero. To others, he was a tyrant. Some say he united a nation; others may say he nearly tore it apart. He saved millions of Soviet lives but at the cost of millions of Soviet lives. He starved one people nearly to death to feed another people. He had cult of personality that made many people see him as a demigod while being looked upon as a demon by others.

He is both respected and vilified. Many of the most faithful communists who grew up during Stalin’s era bitterly detest while many of those who have benefitted the most from Russia’s market reforms call him a hero.

While no one can argue that Stalin did a lot for Soviet Union while serving as its leader, his reluctance to trust anyone but himself, even his most experienced army generals, nearly cost the nation its existence. He ignored repeated warnings that his “ally” Adolf Hitler was planning to attack all the way up until 3 million German troops had overrun the Soviet frontier.

He was a conniving schemer. Vladimir Lenin, his predecessor and founder of the Soviet Union, was said to despise him so he had to force himself to power upon Lenin’s death.

Upon taking power Stalin almost immediately began taking steps to build the nation into a great industrial power. Factories were open round the clock turning out goods and equipment. Industrial output indeed increased greatly but it was also done through nearly forced labor. Not showing up for work meant certain exile to a gulag in Siberia.

He purged the military of roughly 70 percent of its officers, even having many of them killed. He also killed others out of sheer paranoia. He orchestrated famines to keep the citizenry in place. It is estimated that nearly 7 million Ukrainians died of starvation because of the extraordinarily large quotas he placed on production in Ukraine. Those discovered to have been stocking up on food were shot.

He was known to torture, imprison or kill entire families of those who spoke out against him. He also regularly killed high-ranking party members who he felt were becoming too popular and powerful and therefore, possible threats.

Having designs of extending Soviet influence beyond Soviet borders he blindly entered into a non-aggression pact with Nazi German, which would guarantee him the Baltic States of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia as well as Finland and parts of Poland. Although Hitler kept his part of the pact in the early years of World War II, he soon scraped it and attacked the Soviet Union in 1941.

Badly unprepared for the German war machine thanks to Stalin’s purging of the Soviet military’s officers’ corps as well as his staunch refusal to believe that Hitler was planning to attack, Soviet defenses quickly collapsed under the sheer number of German troops, who were also supported by nearly a million more Hungarian and Romanian troops. Within three months, the Germans were right on Moscow’s doorstep. Only the timely arrival of the notoriously cold Soviet winter stopped them.

Stalin, who initially disappeared upon finally accepting that the Nazis had invaded, emerged from hiding to rally the country. He made impassionate pleas to the people to join “The Great Patriotic War” to help defeat the enemy. But even while he made impassionate pleas to the country to unite for the common Stalin was resorting to appalling measures to win the war at all costs. Deserters were ordered shot and killed on the spot. Troops who refused to advance on heavily-fortified German positions were also shot and their families were arrested. And he still regularly refused to heed the advice of his field commanders.

When the war was finally won, Soviet troops who survived capture by the Germans were sent to gulags in Siberia for their “failures” when they returned home.

He quickly consolidated his influences in the Eastern Bloc by fixing elections so that communist regimes would win. Although independent for the most part, Stalin exercised great influence in the Soviet satellite states and opposition to his word was not tolerated.

How he finally died remains a mystery and there has been some evidence that he was poisoned. Whatever the case was, Stalin’s predecessor, Nikita Krushchev, bitterly spoke out against Stalin and heavily criticized him for his treatment toward loyal party members. One of his first acts after becoming party general secretary was the dismantling of the cult of personality Stalin built. He even ordered Stalin’s body to be buried in a simple graveyard instead of the one reserved for national heroes.

Today, great debate remains over Stalin’s place in Soviet and Russian history. Many of Russians who have suffered economic hardship after the introduction of market reforms admire him and believe that he was good for the country. However, most of those living in the other former republics, especially Ukraine, greatly despise him.

He united the country in its darkest hours yet it could be argued that his entire rule was the Soviet Union’s darkest hour. He kept the country free from being conquered by one tyrant so that he could continue to be a tyrant. By some estimates, his paranoia-induced purges and orchestrated famines lead to the deaths of more than 30 million Soviet citizens. Yet, many Russians still consider him a hero for turning the country into a great industrial power and saving it from the Nazis.