Who was the cruelest ruler of anytime, and what made them the cruelest?

i’d have to say hitler or Stalin

hitler with the holocaust and stalin starving millions and millions of people

yes i agree !! he was pure EVIL !

I would say Vlad the Impaler. He was considered so evil the modern story of Dracula is based on him.

Impaler came from his method of execution that he so frequently used.

In one story when a large army was coming in to attack they found that Vlad impaled and left for them to find thousands of his own subjects. The invading army seeing the carnage turned and left.

actually, i would say stalin.

Stalin was General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union’s Central Committee from 1922 until his death in 1953. Under Stalin’s leadership, the Ukraine suffered from a famine so great it is considered by many to be an act of geno cide on the part of Stalin’s government. Estimates of the number of dea-ths range from 2.5 million to 10 million. The famine was caused by direct political and administrative decisions. In addition to the famine, Stalin ordered purges within the Soviet Union of any person deemed to be an enemy of the state. In total, estimates of the total number dead under Stalins reign, range from 10 million to 60 million.

check out this site: [link removed]

listverse. com/2007/09/05/top-10-most-evil-men/

I built a pillar against his city gate and I flayed all the chiefs who had revolted, and I covered the pillar with their skin. Some I walled up within the pillar, some I impaled upon the stakes, and others I bound to stakes round about the pillar . . . And I cut off the limbs of the officers, the royal officers who had rebelled . . . many captives from among them I burned with fire, and many I took as living captives. From some I cut off their noses, their ears and their fingers, of many I put out their eyes. I made one pillar of the living and another of heads, and I bound their heads to tree trunks round about the city. Their young men and maidens I burned in the fire.

I guess just my quotation was posted. Anyway, This was a copy of an inscription by the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal, describing a rebellion he put down. I think many of the Assyrian kings would qualify for this. They introduced a new level of ruthlessness to the Middle East that people there had never quite seen before, and were very traumatised by.