Genghis Khan was almost as superstitious as he was brilliant. Believing that the character of every animal was in its heart, he hunted lions and tigers with great zest, preferring to capture them alive. He tore them open with his bare hands, pulled out the heart, and ate it while it was still throbbing. Convinced that this gave him the courage of a savage beast, he compelled his men to follow his example. A military genius, he is known as the greatest guerilla fighter in history, but his real life work was the molding together of his vast hordes into a disciplined, well equipped, highly trained, and completely organized army. He used the forced labor of subjugated people—a significant parallel to the present day methods of Stalin, who, in order to increase the efficiency of his armies, drafted into them German scientists, artisans and technicians, as well as thousands of humbler laborers. Genghis acquired, ultimately, over four hundred thousand warriors, countless elephant and camel trains loaded with the wealth of Croesus, and multitudes of armed slaves. “Unmatched in human valor,” it is said, “his hordes overcame the terrors of barren wastes, of mountains and seas, the severities of climate and the ravages of famine and pestilence. No dangers could appall them, no prayer for mercy could move them.” Genghis Khan was the symbol of a new power in history. The ability of one man to alter human civilization began with him and ended with his grandson Kublai Khan, when the Mongol empires began to crack. It did not reappear again until the rise of Stalin to power. The vast empires that Genghis established, with their accompanying devastation, was not all that he achieved. Had this been so, he would have been merely another Attila destroying with little or no definite purpose. His genius for organization and his clever statesmanship made him the model of kings, although he could not read or write when he drew up the incomparable “Yassa,” or code of conduct. This curious document, not unlike the dictates of Stalin, had three main purposes: to ensure absolute obedience to Genghis Khan; to bind together all the nomad clans for the purpose of making war; and to punish swiftly and mercilessly, anyone who violated the law, civil, military or political. With the “Yassa,” he and his heirs ruled their empires for three generations. The lash of its ruthless authority held it together.