Georgian revolutionary, member of the Bolshevik Party, and later leader of the Soviet Union after Lenin's death.  Stalin's rule over the Soviet Union brought in an era known as the Great Terror (1933-1937).  It was also under Stalin's leadership of the USSR that the vast network of forced labor camps reached its peak in scale of oppression and number, known as the Gulags.

Many of the bards like Galich, Okudzhava, Vysotsky, Dolsky, and others grew up under Russia's dark times with Stalin.  His memory left a bitter place in their hearts and it was revealed in their poetry.  

Okudzhava especially felt the grief and sadness that was resulted from Stalin's plans and practices.  In 1937 Okudzhava's his father, who was a high party member, was arrested and shot under false accusations.  Okudzhava's mother was arrested in 1937 and sent to forced labor until her release two years after Stalin's death in 1955.   Okudzhava's 1950s song, "The Song About the Black Cat," was written about the fear that Stalin exhumed on the people.

In a early 1980s concert Okudzhava was asked what he thought of Stalin, and he replied "he's a murderer."

Vysotsky too was exceptionally bitter of Stalin, and in the late 1950s and early 1960s often performed Aleshkovsky's "Song About Stalin".  Vysotsky was also disgusted with Mao Zedong (based on a 1977 survey, and a 1967 song "Mao Zedong-a big rogue.")  Vysotsky was already fifteen years old when Stalin died in 1953, and it wasn't until 1961 that the Stalinist system of government, operation, and culture begin to change in the Soviet Union, by then Vysotsky was already twenty-three years old and had authored his first song, Tattoo.