Stalin ordered the execution of Siberian shamans, either by shooting or forcing them out of helicopters, due to his belief in their inferiority. He was a theology student and changed his surname to Stalin, meaning “Man of Steel”.
Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin was so cruel that he is said to have even ordered the killing of shamans dropped from helicopters. Siberia, a territory located near northern Asia that was settled by the Russians in the late 1500s, historically had a tradition of practicing shamanism. Shamanism refers to the ancient belief system that humans can contact a spiritual world through rituals to achieve altered states of consciousness. After Stalin took power in the late 1920s, he ordered shamans executed, either by shooting them or forcing them out of helicopters as a form of ridicule to see if they could fly, because he considered them an inferior social group.
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Although Stalin was known for his anti-religious stance, he was actually a theology student before getting involved in the Russian revolutions.
The name Stalin means “Man of Steel” in Russian: the dictator changed his surname from Djugashvili when he was 30 years old.
Stalin’s stature of 5 feet 4 inches (1.63 m) earned him the mocking nickname “Little Father of the Peoples” by his dissidents.
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