The film portrays the political career and personal life of the former leader of the Soviet Union, Georgia (country)-born Josef Djughashvili, who later adopted the name Joseph Stalin, demonstrating his rule and how he was able to bring the Soviet Union to a place of great power on the world stage, but at a consequence: in this case, the destruction of his family as well as the mass murder of millions of his own Russian Revolution partners, and ultimately his acts of corruption in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The focus is on the behaviour of Stalin and the after effects. The story is as narrated by Svetlana Alliluyeva, who defected to the United States in 1967.