Joseph Stalin is that he often toyed with the lives of those close to him. For instance, he would sometimes host late-night drinking sessions with his inner circle, where he would humiliate and mock them, forcing them to participate in cruel jokes. Stalin also deliberately let his own son, Yakov, die in a Nazi prison camp during World War II. When the Nazis offered to exchange Yakov for a captured German officer, Stalin refused, coldly stating, "I do not trade a soldier for a soldier."