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Cassian Andor was inspired by Joseph Stalin [1]

['Rob Beschizza']

Date: 2025-04-19

Star Wars hero Cassian Andor was inspired by Joseph Stalin, from the character's rugged looks to the plot device of funding revolutions through daring robberies. The Rebel Alliance's early leadership is modeled generally on the Bolsheviks, who overthrew one of Europe's worst monarchies only to descend into bureacratic tyranny.

Luthen, Andor's Lenin proxy, considers it with chilling deliberation in one of the first season's standout scenes: "I'm condemned to use the tools of my enemy to defeat them. I burn my decency for someone else's future. I burn my life to make a sunrise that I know I'll never see." … The research into historical rebellions – Gilroy has said he studied other revolutions while writing Andor, as well – has no doubt helped create the show's oddly realistic feel. Andor feels more down to earth than anything the Star Wars universe has shown us before, if you'll excuse the occasional spaceship roaring overhead, or an alien or two sitting in the local bar. There are flashes of mundane detail rarely scene in big-budget sci-fi. People complain that Andor's mother Maarva's (Fiona Shaw) house is always too cold. Security officer Syril Karn's (Kyle Soller) petulant intensity even extends to tailoring his uniform to make him look smarter than his contemporaries. The Imperial Security Bureau hoping to root out the emerging rebellion is a nest of competing ambitions that feels as real as anything in a historical drama – or in everyday office politik. There are fewer blaster-toting Stormtroopers than there are in the Star Wars films, and more sadistic, trenchcoated officers who would have been right at home in the Tsarist secret police, the Okhrana, or its Soviet replacement, the Cheka.

George Lucas surely would not mind the allusion, scandalous as it may be to Americans of a certain disposition. Here he is glibly pointing out that the Ewoks are the Viet Cong.

Andor's second season starts next week. Now I want the alt-universe Star Wars where Andor lives, embeds himself in the ruling cadre of the New Republic, and ultimately ends up its ruthless dictator after Luthen Rael's second stroke and a power struggle with Karis Nemik that ends in the latter being exiled to Tatooine and ultimately murdered with a pick.

Previously:

• Andor's big heist episode

• Trailer for Andor's second season

• Season 2 of Andor to continue production without writers due to strike

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