Though many Red Army soldiers were captured by the Nazis during World War II, Joseph Stalin refused to swap prisoners with the Germans.

Among the Russian soldiers who died in a German POW camp as a result? Yakov, Stalin's oldest son.

[Stalin's other son, Vassili, died an alcoholic in 1962. His only daughter, Svetlana, adopted her mother's maiden name and wisely fled from the Soviet Union.]

["Gaiety," Stalin declared in 1935, "is the most outstanding feature of the Soviet Union."]