The National Institute of Hypnotism once declared Josef Stalin to be one of six people who possessed the most hypnotic eyes in the world, noting their sinister brutality.

Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili was about 34 when he began using the name Stalin, which translates roughly to Man of Steel. A bit grandiose, perhaps, for a man who was just 5’4, and – at that time – a fairly slender fellow.

This series of mugshots begins in 1901, when Stalin was a handsome, ex-seminary student, and documents his changing features in the subsequent years. By the time of the Russian Revolution, Josef Stalin looked to be, and was, a hardened Bolshevik, much respected by Vladimir Lenin for his merciless brutality.