[gumby]

Stalin — man of steel — was his nom de guerre, just as many people are (or at least that was long the convention) referred to by their usernames.

The term is used quasi-ironically on this very site, when people say they will “steelman” an argument. And there are many other people born with that name in various languages, such as Stahlman or, notably around here, Stallman.

I’m not to trying to defend one of the most brutal dictators in history, but since you’re the one who raised the onomastic issue…

[082349872349872]

იოსებ სტალინი seems to have had a good education, despite having had the kind of early family life which makes for either bitter revolutionaries or slow, steady, drinking. I wonder if his choice of nom de guerre had been a deliberate 20th century rejection of Plato's {gold, silver, iron, brass} men in the Republic?

https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1...

(compare the meritocracy espoused here and in following sections with that described by Goldstein in 1984 ... and we can be certain EA Blair had read the Republic)

[gumby]

As an old Etonian he certainly would have read it.