Stalin’s ape-man Superwarriors

Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin wanted to rebuild the Red Army, in the mid-1920s, with Planet-of-the-Apes-style troops by crossing humans with apes. This was according to a report in The Scotsman newspaper on 20 December 2005.

The report claimed that Stalin ordered Russia’s top animal-breeding scientist, Ilya Ivanov, to use his skills to produce a super warrior. Stalin is said to have told Ivanov, ‘I want a new invincible human being, insensitive to pain, resistant and indifferent about the quality of food they eat.’2 In 1926, the Politburo in Moscow passed this request to build a ‘living war machine’ on to the Academy of Sciences, who engaged Ivanov and sent him to West Africa with many thousands of dollars to conduct experiments in impregnating chimpanzees by artificial insemination. In the USSR, a centre was set up in Georgia, Stalin’s birthplace, for the ‘apes’ to be raised. Read more



Ilya Ivanovich Ivanov pictured shortly after his African mission.