Real Dictators

Part 1: The Young Bank Robber

Joseph Stalin – the “man of steel” – was the party secretary who plotted a route to absolute power, becoming head of the Eastern Bloc and, in time, chief nemesis of the United States. But how did a man from the Georgian frontier of the Russian Empire do it? In 1917, the 300-year-old Romanov Dynasty collapses. The communist Bolsheviks storm the Winter Palace and seize power. From this band of revolutionaries, a future bloody dictator – a man with an extraordinary backstory – begins to emerge.