As far as I'm concerned Stalin (Jugashvili) didn't have a single drop of Russian blood (or any slavonic), being  Georgian. He used to be indeed a citizen of the Russian Empire for some time but so did many others, say, Karl Mannerheim and have you ever heard him called a Russian leader? Neither did i.

For some elderly citizens of modern Russia Soviets=Russia, the rest  will pull faces and think the thousandth time about those westerners as brainwashed and ignorant... and offensive (as if we didn't have enough russian villains - Ivan the Horrible etc)