Photos Of The History's Greatest Tyrants When They Were Kids
Joseph Stalin
1892, age 13Laski Diffusion/Getty ImagesSaddam Hussein
Circa 1947, age 10 (approximate)Laurent VAN DER STOCKT/Gamma-Rapho via Getty ImagesKim Jong-un
Date of original photo unspecifiedSouth Korean protesters hold a picture of a boy, believed to be Kim Jong-un, during a rally in Seoul on February 19, 2009.
JUNG YEON-JE/AFP/Getty ImagesBenito Mussolini
1897, age 14 (approximate)ullstein bild via Getty ImagesVladimir Putin
1960, age seven or eightLaski Diffusion/Getty ImagesAdolf Hitler
Circa 1890, age 1 (approximate)German Federal ArchivesOsama Bin Laden
Date unspecifiedPinterestBashar Al-Assad
Date unspecifiedPinterestVladimir Lenin
Date unspecifiedHulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty ImagesChe Guevara
Circa 1934, age 6 (approximate)Apic/Getty ImagesMao Zedong
1913, age 19Wikimedia CommonsKim Jong-il
Date unspecifiedPictured with this parents, North Korean leader Kim Il-sung and his first wife, Kim Jong-suk.
noboru hashimoto/Sygma via Getty ImagesFidel Castro
1940, age 14PinterestHermann Göring
1907, age 14German Federal ArchivesHugo Chavez
Date unspecifiedPictured with his brother, Adam (left).
HandoutJosef Mengele
Date unspecifiedPinterestNicolae Ceaușescu
1936, age 18Wikimedia CommonsRichard Nixon
Circa 1927, age 14 (approximate)Pictured with a violin, which he played in his high school's orchestra.
Bettmann/Contributor/Getty ImagesFrancisco Franco
Date unspecified Pictured with his brother, Nicholas (left).Hulton-Deutsch Collection/CORBIS/Corbis via Getty ImagesLike this gallery?
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For every event that has shocked the world, there has always been a man or a woman — or, most likely, a constellation of men and women — who have orchestrated and executed it.
These events — be it genocide, a purge, or forced labor — have understandably generated debate as to the origins of hatred, evil, and so on.
Some say that these attributes are, in some people, simply innate. Thus, for example, while their existence cannot be “prevented,” the possibility and damages of an individual’s acting on them can be reduced with a strong rule of law.
Others say that hatred, evil, and so on are not innate, but learned. Life experience, good or bad, shapes what an individual becomes, and therefore the decisions that he or she makes.
Others still question what “evil” as a diagnosis means, arguing that these kinds of categorizations are largely circumstantial — contingent upon the time in which an event takes place, the prevailing norms of that time, and the time and context in which the observer lives, for instance — and therefore not of much analytical value in and of themselves.
Rather, these types say, we should focus our attention not so much on the individual in question, but the settings in which they found themselves — the specific geographies, institutional arrangements, and technologies — that would help make an “evil” act conscionable.
Regardless of where you stand on the subject, and no matter the variance in acts committed by the historical tyrants in the gallery above, at one point they were all children — which means that they were, pending your view, already imbued with traits that would manifest over time, experiencing events that would contribute to the development of these traits, or simply living in a milieu that was conducive to an act we might now call “evil.”
Their faces, young and impressionable, beg the question: How many other outcomes may have been possible?
Next, read up on the craziest dictators in history, and learn about the men who helped bring Adolf Hitler to power.
