Ruthless Leaders of all Time

There have been cruel leaders at all times and ages, but the ruthlessness of these leaders surpass all in human history. One man’s hero is another man’s tyrant, a popular maxim goes. No matter how a historian tries to spin it, ordering a tower to be constructed out of live men stacked and cemented together with bricks and mortar is downright brutal. Here are some of the brutal leaders of past time.

Attila the Hun, after killing his brother, Attila became the leader of the Hunnic Empire, centered in Hungary. He expanded the empire to Germany, Russia, Ukraine, and the Balkans. There, where I have passed, the grass will never grow gain, he remarked on his reign. Genghis Khan, he had spent his time as a slave during his teenage years before he united the Mongol Tribes and went on to conquer a huge part of Central Asia and China. His style is characterized as Brutal and historians say he slaughtered civilians.

Timur led military campaigns through a large part of western Asia including modern Iran and Syria. In Afghanistan he ordered the construction of a tower made out of living men, one stacked on top of another and cemented together. He also ordered a massacre to punish a rebellion and had 70,000 heads built up into minarets. Joseph Stalin, forced quick industrialization and collectivization in the 1930s that coincided with mass starvation, the imprisonment of millions of people in labor camps, and the ‘Great Purge’ of the intelligentsia, the government and the armed forces.

Queen Mary I, the only child of the King Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon, Mary I became queen of England in 1553 and soon reinstalled Catholicism as the main religion and married Philip II of Spain. Over the next few years, hundreds of Protestants were burned at the stake and for that she earned the nickname ‘Bloody Mary’. Vladimir Lenin, in 1917 he led the October revolution to overturn the provisional government that had overthrown the czar. During this period of revolution, war and famine, Lenin demonstrated a chilling disregard for the sufferings of his fellow countrymen and mercilessly crushed any opposition.

Adolf Hitler, German third Reich Empire included almost every country in Europe plus a large part of North Africa. He devised a plan to create his ideal ‘master race’ by eliminating Jews, Slavs, gypsies, homosexuals, and political opponents by forcefully sending them to concentration camps, where they were tortured to death. Nazis killed about 11 Million people under Hitler’s regime. Mao Zedong, under the communist leader, industry and agriculture was put under state control in China. Any opposition was swiftly suppressed. Mao’s supporters point out that he modernized China. Others point out that his policies led to the deaths of 40 Million people through starvation, forced labor and executions.

Idi Amin overthrew an elected government in Uganda via a military coup and declared himself as president. He then ruthlessly ruled for eight years, during which an estimated 300,000 civilians were massacred. He also drove out Uganda Asian population and spent large amounts on the Military, both of which led to the country economic decline. Augusto Pinochet overthrew Chile’s government in 1973 with the help of a US backed coup. Numerous people disappeared under the regime and 35,000 were tortured. Pinochet died before he could stand trial on accusations of human rights abuses. All people in article are rulers prior to 1980. No living figures are included.