Veneration of Stalin by the Soviet people for his role as the leader of the Soviet Union's victory over Nazi Germany in World War II helped to stabilize their belief in the Soviet system, a factor of which Stalin was aware. Historian Archie Brown writes that "Stalin himself believed that his 'image' ... as a charismatic, almost superhuman, leader helped to solidify support for Communism and to bestow on it legitimacy." It was a constant in Stalin's beliefs that the Russian people, especially the peasants, were used to being ruled by a single person, the tsar, and did not understand the complexities of the structure of power and governance in the Soviet Union. Because of this, there had to be one person who was perceived as "the" ruler, someone they could, in his words "revere and in whose name to live and labour." In 1940, Gunther noted that "[Stalin] knows the Russians understand a master". The dictator could easily have stopped the adoration but "permitted and encouraged his own virtual deification", he said. "Or perhaps he likes" the worship, Gunther speculated.