As the saying goes ‘One man’s hero is another man’s tyrant’. No matter what we believe about the validity or virtues of a political agenda, there is no doubt that some leaders did not hold back in brute force when trying to achieve their goals. Here is a brief list of the most ruthless leaders of all time. You could probably add many more. Just keep these guys in mind the next time you are complaining about your local politician. Thins could be worse….

1. Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus (aka Caligula) – reign: AD 37-41

When he first came to power Caigula was quite popular as he freed citizens wrongly accused, while he eliminated an unfavourable tax. After he got ill he completely change. He started killing his political opponents and their families while watching the executions himself. According to Roma historian Suetonius, Caligula had sex with his sisters and sold their services to other men, raped and killed people and made his horse a priest! His name has become synonymous to sexual deviancies and debauchery.   

2. Attila the Hun – Reign: AD 434-453

He was considered the scourge of his time. After killing his brother he became the leader of the Hunnic Empire, in present day Hungary. He expanded his Empire to present day Germany, Russia, Ukraine and the Balkans. ‘There were I have passed, the grass will never grow again’, he is reported to have said.

3. Ghengis Khan – Reign: 1206-1227

The uttering of his name oread terror to anyone in his heydays. He managed to unite the Mongol tribes and went on to conquer a huge chunk of central Asia and China. Historians say he slaughtered civilians en masse. One his mist infamous acts of terror was hen he massacred the ruling class of the Khwarezm Empire with unskilled labour taken to used as human shields.

4. Vlad III, Prince of Wallachia (aka Draculea or Vlad the Impaler) Reign: 1448; 1456-1462; 1476

Suffice it to say that this middle Ages Romanian noble was so terrifying to his enemies that he was made into the myth of the blood-sucking Dracula we know from Hollywood today. According to the story Vlad invited his rivals to a banquet where he stabbed and impaled them all. He tried to bring stability and order to the Principality of Wallachia through extremely brute methods. He was particularly feared by the Ottomans, as he had impaled thousands of Ottoman soldiers on a road. According to story, the advancing Ottoman army was gripped with horror once they set their eyes on the gory sight of their fellow soldiers hanging from sticks on the side of the road. They immediately returned home.   

5. Mehmet Talat Pasha – Reign: 1913-1918

Historians believe Talat Pasha was the mastermind behind the Armenian genocide. As the Interior Minister he was purportedly responsible for deporting 600,000 Armenians, who would eventually die on their journey to nowhere. He was assassinated in Berlin by an Armenian. Historians argue that the Armenian genocide was the ‘blue print’ for Hitler later on in history for the Jewish holocaust.

6. Adolf Hitler – Reign: 1933-945

By the end of 1941 Hitler’s third reich included most of the European continent and parts of north Africa. He devised a plan to create the ‘master Aryan race’ and in the process killed millions of people, including the murder of 6 million Jews, Gypsies, homosexuals and others that did not fit his ‘master race’ theory.

7. Joseph Stalin – Reign: 1922-1953

Stalin forced quick industrialisation and collectivisation in the 1930s that coincided with mass starvation (including the Holodomor in Ukraine), the imprisonment of millions of people in Gulag labour camps, and the ‘Great Purge’ of the intelligentsia, the government and the armed forces.