Joseph Stalin
Joseph or Josef Stalin, born Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, (PROSE: Endgame) was a communist leader of the Soviet Union. He served as the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. (PROSE: History 101)
Biography
During his several decades as president of his country, Josef encountered the Doctor several times. (PROSE: Closing the Account)
Stalin, Winston Churchill, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt once met at Yalta (PROSE: Beguine) to discuss the partitioning of Europe after World War II. (PROSE: Byzantium!)
In his old age, Josef hadn't seen the Doctor in 25 years, and he wanted to meet him again. He had one of his soldiers, Andrei, capture Ace, and the Seventh Doctor arrived. Josef asked what his legacy would be, and the Doctor told him that, though people would vilify him for over a century, they would eventually realise that he had done the right thing, and they would continue his work.
As the Doctor left, the servant Grigori slipped something into Josef's drink. (PROSE: Closing the Account)
Alternate timeline
In an alternate timeline, Simon Brown shared the secrets he had learned about atomic bombs with the world. Fearing every nation having access to atomic weapons, Stalin bombed the planet, and the political organisation known as "the Party" took over. (PROSE: The Winning Side)
Personality
It was said that Stalin liked to listen to the sound of mad dogs barking. (PROSE: Endgame)
References
In an exchange between the Sixth Doctor and Davros, supposedly following the latter's first trial on Skaro, revealed on the Daleks' memory screen during the Seventh Doctor's interrogation, Davros demonstrated an awareness of Josef Stalin and the Doctor likened the two men. However, the Emperor Dalek did observe that the Seventh Doctor was attempting to distort his memories as the Daleks accessed them. (COMIC: Emperor of the Daleks!)
When the Tenth Doctor and Rose encountered "men in black" and "vanishing police cars" in England in 1953, the Doctor compared it to Stalin's Russia. (TV: The Idiot's Lantern)
Краснодар contained a poster of Stalin. (TV: Before the Flood)
Behind the scenes
- According to The Brilliant Book 2012, a book that contains non-narrative based information, in an alternate universe where all of history happened at once, Stalin played live chess with Cleopatra.
- Closing the Account depicts Stalin being drugged at the end of his life. In the real world, whether Stalin died from natural causes or poisoning is a topic of academic debate.
- He was played by Brian Cox in an episode of Thirty-Minute Theatre, David Bradley in an episode of Theatre Night, Bernard Kay in an episode of Screen Two and Simon Russell Beale in the play Collaborators.