Stalin was the most influential leader of the 20th century (meaning he effected the world the most).

Well there should be like 10 times as many results for Battle of Stalingrad as there would be for Normandy Invasion. WWI and WWII Who cares if Churchill was responsible for the construction of tanks or if he refused to give in to Germany in WWII. The fact remains that Churchill never did much to effect the actual outcome of those wars. "Interesting statement and one that deeply undermines your argument. How can Stalin be the MOST influential leader of the 20th Century, but many people don't see Stalin as being of any importance. By definition, a MOST influential leader must be considered of great importance to most people. Since many people don't think Stalin had any importance, he does not qualify as MOST influential." My point was that many people don't see Stalin as being important because they don't know much about him. " If England had lost 300,000 soldiers in the opening months of the war, the possibility of invading England might have been irresistible. Without Churchill, there would be no strong English resistance in Egypt." As a matter of fact, Britain and France lost 2.2 million soldiers in France alone. And the reason Britain survived was not because Churchill successfully evacuated 300,000 men at Dunkirk, but because Hitler made the mistake of switching from bombing RAF airfields when Britain was down to its last breath and would have lost in the Battle of Britain to bombing cities. In this case, I say that Hitler played the influential role. Britain's fate was decided by Hitler's choices, not Churchill's. And even if the soldiers at Dunkirk had not been evacuated, Hitler would still have had to destroy the RAF. "Churchill famously flew to Cairo and fired the generals who wished to wage a defensive war in Egypt." Churchill fired generals, Stalin purged them. I would say that Stalin purging 8 of his best marshals and replacing them with political personnel he could trust before WWII even began was more influential in the war because this decision almost lost Russia the war. "British build up forced Rommel to attack and collapse at the Second Battle of El Alamein. Without El Alamein, Hitler would have cut off the Commonwealth, owned the Suez and created his route to Middle East oil. Therefore, Hitler would have no need to take Stalingrad or split off divisions into the Caucasus. " Actually Hitler was already fighting at Stalingrad and in the Caucuses at the same time that the battle of El Alamein was going on. Hitler would still have attacked Stalingrad even if he did not capture the Middle Eastern oil fields because he wanted the wipe the city of Stalin of the face of the earth; it would have been a political victory, but not a strategic victory. Stalingrad does not contain oil, the Caucus Oil Fields do and Hitler put more effort into capturing Stalingrad than he did into taking the Caucus Oil fields and winning at El Alamein combined. "Without Churchill, there would be no Stalingrad. Without Churchill, there would be no Battle of Kursk. I expect Russia would probably have survived even without these victories, but the outcome of the war is less certain." Without Churchill, Hitler would still have wanted to capture Stalingrad. If the Soviets won the battle then the Battle of Kursk would still have happened. "Churchill gets a big chunk of the blame for the Gulf War, the Iraq War, 4 Arab-Israeli wars, 3 India-Pakistan wars, etc. " These wars were more like minor engagements than what happened on the eastern front. Stalin's decisions effected the outcome of the war in the east and the war in the war in the east determined whether Germany would have the empire that Hitler believed was Germany's destiny to have. "Pro seems unaware that Churchill was elected to a second term as Prime Minister in 1951-55." I am well aware of this. Still, Stalin was the dictator of the USSR for 28 years while Churchill was Prime Minister for only 9 years. "...Churchill was a Member of Parliament carving up empires..." And where are these empires today? The Soviets Union may have collapsed in 1991, but Ukraine and other former Soviet states still largely depend on Russia. The Soviet Union and the effects of Stalin are still largely intact. "Stalin died of a stroke in 1953, probably after ingesting rat poison provided by Lavrentiy Beria. His death was slow and probably preventable." Stalin only died from stroke, rat poison never played a role in Stalin's death. Lavrentiy Beria was a coward who never questioned Stalin's orders. Where would he suddenly get the courage of risking his life to kill Stalin. Stalin died from stroke. "Stalin said: "It's not the people who vote that count, it's the people who count the votes." When the Soviets stood for election in 1937, they arrested all opposition members in two waves just before the election. Results? The Communist party were re-elected with 99.3% of the vote." I was talking about had the Soviet people voted for him in 1953, sorry I did not make myself clear. "Unlike Stalin, Churchill was surrounded by friends and family at his death. Churchill received the largest state funeral in history." Stalin was also surrounded by Communist friends even though he did kill some of them. Stalin's influence was so strong that he made the millions of people who was not being sent to the gulag or starved to death think that he was their friend. _________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ I will rank Churchill's influence with Hitler's influence. Stalin's influence was greater. The outcome of WWII was decided by Stalin, especially if you consider the fact that 80% of the German Wehrmacht was destroyed in the east. Although it was Stalin who almost lost the war, it was his decisions that also won the war in the end. Had Stalin not made the decision of putting his marshals in command in late 1941 and making all of the civilians of the USSR join the red army, Germany would most likely have won in the east and after doing so, crush Britain. After that, the United States would most likely have lost WWII against the axis powers. Hitlers thousand year Reich would have become a reality. Had there been no Stalin in charge of the Soviet Union, there would probably have been no Churchill in charge of Britain by 1942. Although there may have been another leader who could have successfully defeated Hitler, that leader never took power. It was Stalin who shaped the globe while Churchill was wondering if Britain would survive another month. If Stalin had not been there then the two superpowers today would probably not be China and the USA, but Germany and Japan.