Stalin before the Revolution - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin was the Premier of the Soviet Union from 6 May 1941 to 5 March 1953. He was among the Bolshevik revolutionaries who brought about the October Revolution and had held the position of first General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee...

, leader of the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

in the mid-20th century, was born on 18 December 1878 to a Georgian cobbler in Gori, Georgia

Gori, Georgia

Gori is a city in eastern Georgia, which serves as the regional capital of Shida Kartli and the centre of the homonymous administrative district. The name is from Georgian gora , that is, "heap", or "hill"...

. After not finishing his church-sponsored education, he embraced Marxism and became an avid follower of Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Ilyich Lenin was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and communist politician who led the October Revolution of 1917. As leader of the Bolsheviks, he headed the Soviet state during its initial years , as it fought to establish control of Russia in the Russian Civil War and worked to create a...

. After being marked by Russian secret police for his activities, he became a full-time revolutionary and outlaw. He became one of the Bolsheviks' chief operatives in the Caucasus

Caucasus

The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...

, organizing paramilitaries, spreading propaganda, raising money through bank robberies, and kidnappings and extortion. He was captured and exiled to Siberia

Siberia

Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...

numerous times, but often escaped. He became one of Lenin's closest associates, which helped him rise to the heights of power after the Russian Revolution

Russian Revolution of 1917

The Russian Revolution is the collective term for a series of revolutions in Russia in 1917, which destroyed the Tsarist autocracy and led to the creation of the Soviet Union. The Tsar was deposed and replaced by a provisional government in the first revolution of February 1917...

Birth

Stalin was born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili in Gori

Gori, Georgia

in the Tiflis Governorate

Tiflis Governorate

Tiflis Governorate was one of the guberniyas of the Russian Empire with its centre in Tiflis . In 1897 it constituted 44,607 sq. kilometres in area and had a population of 1,051,032 inhabitants...

of the Russian Empire

Russian Empire

The Russian Empire was a state that existed from 1721 until the Russian Revolution of 1917. It was the successor to the Tsardom of Russia and the predecessor of the Soviet Union...

, to Besarion Jughashvili, a Georgian

Georgians

The Georgians are an ethnic group that have originated in Georgia, where they constitute a majority of the population. Large Georgian communities are also present throughout Russia, European Union, United States, and South America....

cobbler

Shoemaking

Shoemaking is the process of making footwear. Originally, shoes were made one at a time by hand. Traditional handicraft shoemaking has now been largely superseded in volume of shoes produced by industrial mass production of footwear, but not necessarily in quality, attention to detail, or...

who owned his own workshop, and Ketevan Geladze, a Georgian

Georgia (country)

Georgia is a sovereign state in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded to the west by the Black Sea, to the north by Russia, to the southwest by Turkey, to the south by Armenia, and to the southeast by Azerbaijan. The capital of...

who was born a serf

Serfdom

Serfdom is the status of peasants under feudalism, specifically relating to Manorialism. It was a condition of bondage or modified slavery which developed primarily during the High Middle Ages in Europe and lasted to the mid-19th century...

. He was their third child; their two previous sons died in infancy.

Early childhood

Initially, the Jughashvili family lived normally, but Stalin's father became an alcoholic, which gradually led to his business failing and him becoming violently abusive to his wife and child. As their financial situation grew worse, Stalin's family moved homes at least nine times in Stalin's first ten years of life. The town where Stalin grew up was a violent and lawless place. It had only a small police force and a culture of violence that included gang warfare, organized street brawls and wrestling tournaments. Stalin was frequently involved in brawls with other children.

At the age of seven, Stalin fell ill with smallpox

Smallpox

Smallpox was an infectious disease unique to humans, caused by either of two virus variants, Variola major and Variola minor. The disease is also known by the Latin names Variola or Variola vera, which is a derivative of the Latin varius, meaning "spotted", or varus, meaning "pimple"...

and his face was badly scarred by the disease. He later had photographs retouched to make his pockmarks less apparent. Stalin native tongue was Georgian

Georgian language

Georgian is the native language of the Georgians and the official language of Georgia, a country in the Caucasus.Georgian is the primary language of about 4 million people in Georgia itself, and of another 500,000 abroad...

; he did not start learning Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

until he was eight or nine years old, and he never lost his strong Georgian accent.

Education

At the age of ten, Stalin's mother enrolled him at the Gori Theological School (Горийское Духовное Училище). His peers were mostly the sons of affluent priests, officials, and merchants. He and most of his classmates at Gori were Georgians and spoke mostly Georgian. However, at school they were forced to speak Russian, a policy set by Tsar Alexander III

Alexander III of Russia

Alexander Alexandrovich Romanov , historically remembered as Alexander III or Alexander the Peacemaker reigned as Emperor of Russia from until his death on .-Disposition:...

. Stalin was one of the best students in the class, earning top marks across the board. He became a very good choir singer and was often hired to sing at weddings. He also began to write poetry, something he would develop in later years.

Stalin's father, who had always wanted his son to be trained as a cobbler rather than be educated, was infuriated when the boy was accepted into the school. In a drunken rage he smashed the windows of the local tavern, and later attacked the town police chief. Out of compassion for Stalin's mother, the police chief did not arrest Besarion, but told him to leave town. He moved to Tiflis where he found work in a shoe factory and left his family behind in Gori

Gori, Georgia

.

About the time Stalin began school, he was struck by a horse-drawn carriage. The accident permanently damaged his left arm; this injury would later exempt him from military service in World War I. At the age of 12, Stalin was struck again by a horse-drawn carriage and injured much more severely. He was taken to hospital in Tiflis where he spent months in care. After he recovered, his father seized the boy and enrolled him as an apprentice cobbler at the shoe factory where he worked. When his motherthrough the aid of contacts in the clergy and school staffrecovered the boy, his father cut off all financial support to his wife and son, leaving them to fend for themselves. Stalin returned to his school in Gori where he continued to excel. He graduated first in his class.

In 1894, at the age of 16, he enrolled at the Orthodox

Russian Orthodox Church

The Russian Orthodox Church or, alternatively, the Moscow Patriarchate The ROC is often said to be the largest of the Eastern Orthodox churches in the world; including all the autocephalous churches under its umbrella, its adherents number over 150 million worldwide—about half of the 300 million...

Seminary of Tiflis, to which he had been awarded a scholarship. The teachers at Tiflis Seminary were also determined to impose Russian language and culture on the Georgian students. Like many of his comrades, young Stalin reacted by being drawn to Georgian patriotism. For a time, he wrote Georgian poetry, for which he gained some fame.

During his time at the seminary, Stalin and numerous other students read forbidden literature that included Victor Hugo novels and revolutionary, including Marxist, material. He was caught and punished numerous times for this. He became an atheist in his first year. He insisted his peers call him "Koba", after the Robin Hood-like protagonist of the novel The Patricide
The Patricide
The Patricide is a novel by Alexander Kazbegi, first published in 1882. The novel is a love story, but it also addresses many socio-political issues of 19th century Georgia. The novel portrays critical realism of the 19th century.-Analysis:...

by Alexander Kazbegi; he continued to use this pseudonym as a revolutionary. In August 1898, he joined the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party, an organization from which the Bolsheviks would later form.

Shortly before the final exams, the Seminary abruptly raised school fees. Unable to pay, Stalin quit the seminary in 1899 and missed his exams, for which he was officially expelled. Shortly after leaving school, Stalin discovered the writings of Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

and decided to become a revolutionary.

Early adulthood in Tiflis

After abandoning his priestly education, Stalin took a job as a clerk at the Tiflis Meteorological Observatory. Although the pay was relatively low (20 roubles a month), his workload was light, giving him plenty of time for revolutionary activities. He would organise strikes, lead demonstrations and give speeches. He soon caught the attention of the Tsar's secret police, the Okhrana.

On the night of 3 April 1901, the Okhrana arrested a number of SD Party leaders in Tiflis. Stalin was riding the tram to work when he spotted their agents waiting to ambush him outside the Observatory. He stayed on the tram and avoided capture. He went underground, becoming a full-time revolutionary, living off donations from friends, sympathizers and his Party. He began writing revolutionary articles for the Baku

Baku

Baku , sometimes spelled as Baki or Bakou, is the capital and largest city of Azerbaijan, as well as the largest city on the Caspian Sea and of the Caucasus region. It is located on the southern shore of the Absheron Peninsula, which projects into the Caspian Sea. The city consists of two principal...

-based radical newspaper Brdzola ("Struggle").

Political organization beginnings

In October, Stalin fled to Batumi

Batumi

Batumi is a seaside city on the Black Sea coast and capital of Adjara, an autonomous republic in southwest Georgia. Sometimes considered Georgia's second capital, with a population of 121,806 , Batumi serves as an important port and a commercial center. It is situated in a subtropical zone, rich in...

and got work at an oil refinery owned by the Rothschilds. In 1902, a fire broke out at the refinery, and it is strongly suspected Stalin was involved. The workers were entitled to a bonus for putting out the fire, but the manager suspected arson and refused to pay. In response, Stalin organized a series of strikes, which in turn led to arrests and street clashes with Cossacks. In one attempt to break their comrades out of prison, 13 strikers were killed when Cossacks intervened. Stalin distributed pamphlets portraying the dead as martyrs. On 18 April 1902, the authorities finally arrested Stalin at a secret meeting. At his trial, Stalin was acquitted of leading the riots due to lack of evidence, but was kept in custody whilst the authorities investigated his activities in Tiflis. In 1903, the authorities decided to exile Stalin to Siberia for three years.

Joining the Bolsheviks

Stalin ended up in the Siberian town of Novaya Uda

Novaya Uda

Novaya Uda is a village in the Russian province of Irkutsk....

on 9 December 1903. During this time, he heard that two rival factions within the Social-Democrats had formed: the Bolsheviks under Lenin and the Mensheviks under Julius Martov

Julius Martov

Julius Martov or L. Martov was born in Constantinople in 1873...

. Stalin, already an admirer, decided to join Lenin's group. He managed to obtain false papers and, on 17 January 1904, escaped Siberia by train, arriving back in Tiflis ten days later.

With no income, Stalin lived off his circle of friends. One of them introduced him to Lev Kamenev

Lev Kamenev

Lev Borisovich Kamenev , born Rozenfeld , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a prominent Soviet politician. He was briefly head of state of the new republic in 1917, and from 1923-24 the acting Premier in the last year of Lenin's life....

(then known as Lev Rosenfeld), his future co-ruler of the USSR after Lenin's death. At this time, Stalin favored a Georgian Social-Democratic party

Georgian Social Democratic (Menshevik) Party

200px|thumb|Menshevik Flag of Georgia, created by Iakob NikoladzeThe Social Democratic Labour Party of Georgia was a political party in Georgia. It was founded as the Georgian branch of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party separated itself from the Russian mother-party.The party dominated...

, which caused a rift with the majority who favored international Marxism. Threatened with expulsion, he was forced to write Credo, a paper renouncing his views (because this paper distanced himself from Lenin, when Stalin became ruler of the USSR, he tried to destroy all copies of this Credo, and many of those who had read it were shot). The following month, the Russo-Japanese War

Russo-Japanese War

The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...

broke out between Japan and Russia. The war, which would eventually end in Russia's defeat, severely strained the Russian economy and caused a great deal of restlessness in Georgia

Georgia (country)

. Stalin travelled across Georgia conducting political activity for his party. He also worked to undermine the Mensheviks through a campaign of slander and intrigue. These efforts brought him to Lenin's attention.

On 22 January 1905, Stalin was in Baku

Baku

when Cossacks attacked a mass demonstration of workers, killing 200. This was part of a series of events which sparked off the Russian Revolution of 1905. Riots, peasant uprisings and ethnic massacres swept the Russian Empire. In February, ethnic Azeris and Armenians

Armenians

Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....

were slaughtering each other in the streets of Baku. Commanding a squad of armed Bolsheviks, Stalin ran protection rackets to raise party funds and stole printing equipment. Afterward, he headed west, where he continued to campaign against the Mensheviks, who enjoyed overwhelming support in Georgia. In the mining town of Chiatura

Chiatura

Chiatura is a city in the Imereti region of Western Georgia. In 1989, it had a population of about 30,000. It is inland, in a mountain valley on the banks of the Kvirila River, and since 1879 has been a major centre of manganese production in the Caucasus. There is a rail link to transport...

, both Stalin and the Mensheviks competed for the support of the miners; they chose Jughashvili, preferring his plain and concise manner of speaking to the flamboyant oratory of the Menshevik speaker. From Chiatura, Stalin organized and armed Bolshevik militias across Georgia. With them, he ran protection rackets among the wealthy and waged guerrilla warfare on Cossacks, policemen and the Okhrana. Later that year, in the townhouse in which he had moved in Tiflis, he met Ekaterina Svanidze

Ekaterina Svanidze

Ekaterina "Kato" Svanidze was the Georgian first wife of Joseph Stalin. They were married in 1906.She was a daughter of Semon Svanadze and Sephora...

, who would become his first wife.

Meeting Lenin and early politics

In December 1905, Stalin and two other activists were elected to represent the Caucasus at the next Bolshevik conference, which took place in Tampere

Tampere

Tampere is a city in southern Finland. It is the most populous inland city in any of the Nordic countries. The city has a population of , growing to approximately 300,000 people in the conurbation and over 340,000 in the metropolitan area. Tampere is the third most-populous municipality in...

, Finland

Finland

Finland , officially the Republic of Finland, is a Nordic country situated in the Fennoscandian region of Northern Europe. It is bordered by Sweden in the west, Norway in the north and Russia in the east, while Estonia lies to its south across the Gulf of Finland.Around 5.4 million people reside...

. There, on 7 January 1906, Stalin met Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

in person for the first time. Although Stalin was impressed by Lenin's personality and intellect, he was not afraid to contradict him. He objected to Lenin's proposal that they take part in elections to the recently formed Russian parliament, the Duma

Duma

A Duma is any of various representative assemblies in modern Russia and Russian history. The State Duma in the Russian Empire and Russian Federation corresponds to the lower house of the parliament. Simply it is a form of Russian governmental institution, that was formed during the reign of the...

. At the conference he also met Yemelyan Yaroslavsky

Yemelyan Yaroslavsky

Yemelyan Mikhailovich Yaroslavsky was a Russian revolutionary, Soviet politician, communist party organizer and activist, journalist, and historian...

, his future propaganda chief, and Solomon Lozovsky

Solomon Lozovsky

Solomon Lozovsky was a prominent Bolshevik revolutionary, a high official in various parts of the Soviet government, including as a Presidium member of the All-Union Central Council of Soviet Trade Unions, a Central Committee member of the Communist Party, a member of the Supreme Soviet, a deputy...

, his future Deputy Foreign Commissar. After the conference, Stalin returned to Georgia, where Cossack troops were brutally trying to reconquer the rebellious region for the Tsar. In Tiflis, Stalin and the Mensheviks plotted the assassination of Major General Fyodor Gryaznov, which was carried out at the end of January 1906. Stalin continued to raise money for the Bolsheviks through extortion, bank robberies and hold-ups.

In April 1906, Stalin attended the Fourth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

4th Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

The Fourth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party that took place in Stockholm, Sweden, from April 10-25 , 1906....

. At the conference, he met Kliment Voroshilov

Kliment Voroshilov

Kliment Yefremovich Voroshilov , popularly known as Klim Voroshilov was a Soviet military officer, politician, and statesman...

, his future Defence Commissar and First Marshal; Felix Dzerzhinsky, future founder of the Cheka

Cheka

Cheka was the first of a succession of Soviet state security organizations. It was created by a decree issued on December 20, 1917, by Vladimir Lenin and subsequently led by aristocrat-turned-communist Felix Dzerzhinsky...

; and Grigory Zinoviev

Grigory Zinoviev

Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev , born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky Apfelbaum , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician...

, with whom he would share power after Lenin's death. The Congress, in which the Bolsheviks were outnumbered, voted to ban bank robberies. This upset Lenin, who needed the bank robberies to raise money.

Stalin married Ekaterina Svanidze

Ekaterina Svanidze

Ekaterina "Kato" Svanidze was the Georgian first wife of Joseph Stalin. They were married in 1906.She was a daughter of Semon Svanadze and Sephora...

on 28 July 1906. On 31 March 1907, she gave birth to Stalin's first child, Yakov

Yakov Dzhugashvili

Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili was one of Joseph Stalin's four children . Yakov was the son of Stalin's first wife, Ekaterina Svanidze...

. Stalin and Lenin both attended the Fifth Congress of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party

Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union

The Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union was the gathering of the delegates of the Communist Party and its predecessors. According the party statute, it was the supreme ruling body of the entire Communist Party....

in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

in 1907. This Congress consolidated the supremacy of Lenin's Bolshevik faction and debated strategy for communist revolution in Russia. Here, Stalin first met Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky

Leon Trotsky , born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, was a Russian Marxist revolutionary and theorist, Soviet politician, and the founder and first leader of the Red Army....

in person; Stalin immediately came to hate him, calling him "pretty but useless". After the conference, Stalin would begin to switch his focus away from Georgia, which was rife with feuding and dominated by the Mensheviks, to Russia, and he began writing in Russian.

After returning to Tiflis, Stalin organized the robbing of a large delivery of money to the Imperial Bank

1907 Tiflis bank robbery

The 1907 Tiflis bank robbery, also known as the Yerevan Square expropriation, was an armed robbery by Bolshevik revolutionaries of a bank cash shipment in the Georgian city of Tiflis . The robbery occurred on 26 June 1907 in Yerevan Square...

on 26 June 1907. Stalin's gang ambushed the armed convoy in Yerevan Square

Freedom Square, Tbilisi

Freedom Square , formerly known as Erivan Square under Imperial Russia and Lenin Square under the Soviet Union, is located in the center of Tbilisi at the eastern end of...

with gunfire and homemade bombs. Around 40 people were killed, but all of Stalin's gang managed to escape alive with 250,000 roubles (about US$3.4 million in modern terms). Stalin and his family fled Tiflis two days later. A henchman delivered the money to Lenin in Finland

Finland

, who then fled with it to Geneva

Geneva

Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...

. The Mensheviks, who had banned bank robberies (and did not get to share in the loot), were outraged. Stalin escaped expulsion, though the affair would cause him trouble for years to come.

Return to Baku

Stalin's family moved to Baku

Baku

. Whilst Stalin continued his revolutionary activities, his wife fell ill from Baku's pollution, heat, stress and malnutrition. She contracted typhus

Typhus

Epidemic typhus is a form of typhus so named because the disease often causes epidemics following wars and natural disasters...

and died on 5 December 1907. Stalin was overcome with grief and retreated into mourning for several months. The loss also hardened him; he told a friend: "with her died my last warm feelings for humanity". He abandoned his son, Yakov, who was raised by his deceased wife's family.

When Stalin resumed his activities, he organized more strikes and agitation, this time focusing on the Muslim Azeri and Persian

Iranian peoples

The Iranian peoples are an Indo-European ethnic-linguistic group, consisting of the speakers of Iranian languages, a major branch of the Indo-European language family, as such forming a branch of Indo-European-speaking peoples...

workers in Baku

Baku

. He helped found a Muslim Bolshevik group called Hummet

Muslim Social Democratic Party

The Muslim Social Democratic Party, usually referred to as Hummet , was a political party in South Caucasus. In 1920, it merged with "Adalat" communist cell in Baku, forming the first Communist Party of Azerbaijan.- "Old" Hummet :...

, and also supported the Persian Constitutional Revolution with manpower and weapons, and even visited Persia to organize partisans. Stalin ordered the murders of many Black Hundreds (radical supporters of the Tsar) and conducted protection rackets and ransom kidnappings against the oil tycoons of Baku. He also conducted counterfeiting operations and robberies. He befriended criminal gangs, and used them to obstruct the Mensheviks. Stalin's gangsterism upset the Bolshevik intelligentsia, but he was too influential and indispensable to oppose.

The Okhrana tracked down and arrested Stalin on 7 April 1908. After seven months in prison, he was sentenced to two years' exile. He arrived in the village of Solvychegodsk

Solvychegodsk

Solvychegodsk is a town in the southern part of Arkhangelsk Oblast, Russia, located on the right-hand bank of the Vychegda River northeast of Kotlas. Administratively, it is a part of Kotlassky District. Municipally, it is incorporated as Solvychegodskoye Urban Settlement of Kotlassky Municipal...

in early March 1909. After seven months in exile, he disguised himself as a woman and escaped on a train to St Petersburg. He returned to Baku

Baku

in late July.

Spy hunting and exile

The Bolsheviks were on the verge of collapse due to Okhrana oppression within the Empire and infighting among the intelligentsia abroad. In desperation, he advocated a reconciliation with the Mensheviks (which Lenin opposed). He demanded the creation of a Russian Bureau to run the Social-Democratic Party from within the Empire, to which he was appointed. Stalin soon realized the Bolsheviks had been heavily infiltrated by Tsarist spies. He initiated a hunt for the traitors, but failed to root out any real spies - as revealed by Okhrana records - and caused much disarray in the Party.

On 5 April 1910 Stalin was yet again arrested by the Okhrana. He was banned from the Caucasus

Caucasus

The Caucasus, also Caucas or Caucasia , is a geopolitical region at the border of Europe and Asia, and situated between the Black and the Caspian sea...

for five years and sentenced to complete his previous exile in Solvychegodsk

Solvychegodsk

. He was deported back there in September. In early 1911, Stalin's friends tried to sneak him some money to help his escape, but the fellow exile who was supposed to deliver the money instead kept it for himself (Stalin had this traitor shot in 1937), and he was forced to return to Solvychegodsk

Solvychegodsk

. During his exile, he had an affair with his landlady, Maria Kuzakova, with whom he fathered a son, Constantine

Constantine Kuzakov

Konstantin Stepanovich Kuzakov possibly was the illegitimate second child of Joseph Stalin. Konstantin's mother was Maria Kuzakova, who was Stalin's landlady during his 1911 exile in Solvychegodsk, with whom he had an affair...

. Stalin was released on 1 July 1911, while Maria was still pregnant. Stalin moved to Vologda

Vologda

Vologda is a city and the administrative, cultural, and scientific center of Vologda Oblast, Russia, located on the Vologda River. The city is a major transport knot of the Northwest of Russia. Vologda is among the Russian cities possessing an especially valuable historical heritage...

in late July, where he had been ordered to reside for two months.

In January 1912, at the Prague Party Conference

Prague Party Conference

The Prague Party Conference was the sixth party conference of Vladimir Lenin's Bolshevik faction of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. It was in Prague January 5-17 1912, 18 Bolsheviks attended. Stalin and Sverdlov were in exile at the time and couldn't attend. Georgi Plekhanov claimed he...

, Lenin led his Bolshevik faction out of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party, founding the separate Bolshevik Party. A Central Committee was elected, but when some of its members returned to Russia, they were arrested by the Okhrana, having been secretly betrayed by fellow CC member Roman Malinovsky

Roman Malinovsky

Roman Vaslavovich Malinovsky was a prominent Russian Bolshevik politician before the revolution, while at the same time working as the best paid agent for the Okhrana. They codenamed him 'Portnoi' ....

, an Okhrana spy. To fill the void, Lenin and Grigory Zinoviev

Grigory Zinoviev

Grigory Yevseevich Zinoviev , born Ovsei-Gershon Aronovich Radomyslsky Apfelbaum , was a Bolshevik revolutionary and a Soviet Communist politician...

coopted Stalin as a member of the Central Committee. When Stalin was informed of this, he left Vologda

Vologda

in late February.

Creating Pravda and further exile

Stalin moved to Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

in April 1912, where he took control of the Bolshevik weekly newspaper Zvezda. Stalin had been assigned to convert Zvezda into a daily and rename it Pravda. The first issue was published on 5 May.

Shortly afterwards, the Okhrana caught up with him again, and in July 1912 he was again exiled to Siberia for three years, this time to the small village of Narym

Narym

Narym is a village in Parabelsky District of Tomsk Oblast, Russia, located on the banks of the Ob River near its confluence with the Ket River, from the village of Parabel...

. He escaped just thirty-eight days after arriving; this was his shortest exile. He returned to Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

in September.

Stalin renewed his efforts to reconcile the Bolsheviks with the Mensheviks in the hope of salvaging the then struggling Marxist movement. He published editorials in Pravda

Pravda

Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....

advocating reconciliation, and secretly met with Menshevik leaders on several occasions. This angered Lenin, who twice summoned Stalin to Kraków

Kraków

Kraków also Krakow, or Cracow , is the second largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in the Lesser Poland region, the city dates back to the 7th century. Kraków has traditionally been one of the leading centres of Polish academic, cultural, and artistic life...

to argue policy. On the second visit at the end of 1912, Stalin was removed from his post as editor of Pravda

Pravda

Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....

, but was made a leader of the Russian Bureau of the Bolshevik Party. Lenin also asked Stalin to write an essay laying out the Bolshevik position on national minorities.

After Kraków

Kraków

, Stalin spent several weeks in Vienna

Vienna

Vienna is the capital and largest city of the Republic of Austria and one of the nine states of Austria. Vienna is Austria's primary city, with a population of about 1.723 million , and is by far the largest city in Austria, as well as its cultural, economic, and political centre...

with a wealthy Bolshevik couple he met with Lenin in Kraków. While there he met for the first time Nikolai Bukharin

Nikolai Bukharin

Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin , was a Russian Marxist, Bolshevik revolutionary, and Soviet politician. He was a member of the Politburo and Central Committee , chairman of the Communist International , and the editor in chief of Pravda , the journal Bolshevik , Izvestia , and the Great Soviet...

, who would become a leading politician in the future Soviet government. They continued to discuss the issue of nationalities. Stalin completed his essay on the topic, entitled "Marxism and the National Question", which was published in March 1913.

Return and another exile

Stalin returned to Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg

Saint Petersburg is a city and a federal subject of Russia located on the Neva River at the head of the Gulf of Finland on the Baltic Sea...

in February 1913. During this time, many Bolsheviks, including almost the entire Central Committee, had been arrested by the Okhrana, having been betrayed by Roman Malinovsky

Roman Malinovsky

, a high-ranking Bolshevik who for years had been an Okhrana spy and agent provocateur. That month, an article had been published that outed Malinovsky as a spy, but the Bolsheviks dismissed it as Menshevik

Menshevik

The Mensheviks were a faction of the Russian revolutionary movement that emerged in 1904 after a dispute between Vladimir Lenin and Julius Martov, both members of the Russian Social-Democratic Labour Party. The dispute originated at the Second Congress of that party, ostensibly over minor issues...

libel (ironically, Lenin and Stalin were his strongest defenders). On 8 March Malinovsky persuaded Stalin to attend a Bolshevik fundraising ball, which was raided by the Okhrana.

Stalin was condemned to four years in the remote Siberian province of Turukhansk

Turukhansk

Turukhansk is a village in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia. It is located 1474 km north of Krasnoyarsk, at the confluence of the Yenisei and Lower Tunguska rivers. The Turukhan River joins the Yenisei about 20 km northwest. Population: 4,849 ; 8,900 ; 200...

. He was eventually joined by Kamenev

Lev Kamenev

and several other Bolshevik exiles. He spent six months in the small hamlet of Kostino on the Yenisei River

Yenisei River

Yenisei , also written as Yenisey, is the largest river system flowing to the Arctic Ocean. It is the central of the three great Siberian rivers that flow into the Arctic Ocean...

. After learning that Stalin was planning an escape (he had received money and supplies from his comrades), the authorities moved him north to Kureika, a hamlet on the edge of the Arctic Circle. There, he lived the life of a hunter-gatherer, having learned fishing and hunting from local Siberian tribesmen. While there he began a 2-year affair with Lidia Pereprygina, then aged 13, with whom he fathered two children. The first died in infancy; the second, named Alexander, was born in April 1917.

In late 1916, Stalin was conscripted into the army. He was taken to Krasnoyarsk

Krasnoyarsk

Krasnoyarsk is a city and the administrative center of Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the Yenisei River. It is the third largest city in Siberia, with the population of 973,891. Krasnoyarsk is an important junction of the Trans-Siberian Railway and one of Russia's largest producers of...

in February 1917, but the medical examiner there found him unfit for service due to his damaged left arm (a childhood injury). He spent his last four months of exile in the village of Achinsk

Achinsk

Achinsk is a city in Krasnoyarsk Krai, Russia, located on the right bank of the Chulym River near its intersection with the Trans-Siberian Railway, west of Krasnoyarsk. Area: . Population:...

Name and aliases

Stalin's first name is also transliterated as "". His original surname, , is transliterated as "" or . The Russian

Russian language

transliteration is "", which is in turn transliterated into English as "" and ""; ("") is a Georgian suffix meaning "child" or "son".

There are several etymologies of the root. In one version, the name derives from the village of Jugaani in Kakhetia, eastern Georgia.

Neo-Nazi and other anti-Semitic sources have claimed that "Dzhuga" or "Jugha" means "Jew" in Georgian and hence "Dzhugashvili" literally means "Jew-son" or son of a Jew. This, however, is incorrect as the word for "Jew" in Georgian

Georgian language

is "" .

An article in the newspaper Pravda
Pravda
Pravda was a leading newspaper of the Soviet Union and an official organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party between 1912 and 1991....

in 1988 claimed the word derives from the Old Georgian for "steel

Steel

Steel is an alloy that consists mostly of iron and has a carbon content between 0.2% and 2.1% by weight, depending on the grade. Carbon is the most common alloying material for iron, but various other alloying elements are used, such as manganese, chromium, vanadium, and tungsten...

" which might be the reason for his adoption of the name Stalin. ("") is derived from combining the Russian (""), "steel", with the possessive suffix (""), a formula used by many other Bolsheviks, including Lenin.

According to theories Mihail Vayskopf version, it is the Ossetian

Ossetic language

Ossetian , also sometimes called Ossete, is an East Iranian language spoken in Ossetia, a region on the slopes of the Caucasus Mountains....

for "herd of sheep"; the surname "Jugayev" is common among Ossetians

Ossetians

The Ossetians are an Iranic ethnic group of the Caucasus Mountains, eponymous of the region known as Ossetia.They speak Ossetic, an Iranian language of the Eastern branch, with most also fluent in Russian as a second language....

, and before the revolution the names in South Ossetia

South Ossetia

South Ossetia or Tskhinvali Region is a disputed region and partly recognized state in the South Caucasus, located in the territory of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast within the former Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic....

were traditionally written with the Georgian suffix, especially among Christianized Ossetians. Allusions to the hypothesis of Ossetian ethnicity of Stalin are present in the important Stalin Epigram

Stalin Epigram

The Stalin epigram, also known as The Kremlin Highlander is a satirical poem by the Russian Acmeist poet Osip Mandelstam, dated as being written in November 1933...

by Osip Mandelstam

Osip Mandelstam

Osip Emilyevich Mandelstam was a Russian poet and essayist who lived in Russia during and after its revolution and the rise of the Soviet Union. He was one of the foremost members of the Acmeist school of poets...

..When he has an execution it's a special treat,

..And the Ossetian chest swells (Translation by A. S. Kline

A. S. Kline

A. S. Kline, known as Tony Kline is a British poet and translator, living in England.He graduated with a degree in Mathematics from the University of Manchester, and was Chief Information Officer of a large UK Company before dedicating himself to his literary work and interests...

Like other Bolsheviks, he became commonly known by one of his revolutionary noms de guerre, of which "Stalin" was only the last. During his education in Tiflis, he picked up the nickname "Koba", the Robin Hood

Robin Hood

Robin Hood was a heroic outlaw in English folklore. A highly skilled archer and swordsman, he is known for "robbing from the rich and giving to the poor", assisted by a group of fellow outlaws known as his "Merry Men". Traditionally, Robin Hood and his men are depicted wearing Lincoln green clothes....

-like protagonist from the 1883 novel The Patricide
The Patricide
The Patricide is a novel by Alexander Kazbegi, first published in 1882. The novel is a love story, but it also addresses many socio-political issues of 19th century Georgia. The novel portrays critical realism of the 19th century.-Analysis:...

by Alexander Kazbegi

Alexander Kazbegi

Alexander Kazbegi was a Georgian writer, famous for his 1883 novel The Patricide.Kazbegi was the great grandson of Kazibek Chopikashvili, a local feudal magnate who was in charge of collecting tolls on the Georgian Military Highway...

. This became his favorite nickname throughout his revolutionary life. Stalin continued to use Koba as his Party name in the underground world of the RSDLP. During conversations, Vladimir Lenin called Stalin "Koba". Among his friends he was sometimes known by his childhood nickname "Soso" – a Georgian diminutive form of the name Iosif (Ioseb).

Stalin is also reported to have used at least a dozen other nicknames, pseudonyms and aliases such as "Josef Besoshvili"; "Ivanov"; "A. Ivanovich"; "Soselo" (a youthful nickname), "K. Kato"; "G. Nizheradze"; "Chizhikov" or "Chizhnikov"; "Petrov"; "Vissarionovich"; "Vassilyi". Directly following World War II, as the Soviets were negotiating with the Allies, Stalin often sent directions to Molotov as "Druzhkov".

Date of birth

For a long time, the date of birth of Stalin was falsified. Although there is an inconsistency among published sources about Stalin's year and date of birth, Iosif Dzhugashvili is found in the records of the Uspensky Church in Gori

Gori, Georgia

, Georgia

Georgia (country)

as born on 18 December (Old Style

Julian calendar

The Julian calendar began in 45 BC as a reform of the Roman calendar by Julius Caesar. It was chosen after consultation with the astronomer Sosigenes of Alexandria and was probably designed to approximate the tropical year .The Julian calendar has a regular year of 365 days divided into 12 months...

: 6 December) 1878. This birth date is maintained in his School Leaving Certificate, his extensive tsarist Russia police file, a police arrest record from 18 April 1902 which gave his age as 23 years, and all other surviving pre-Revolution documents. As late as 1921, Stalin himself listed his birthday as 18 December 1878 in a curriculum vitae in his own handwriting. However, after his coming to power in 1922, Stalin changed the date to . That became the day his birthday was celebrated in the Soviet Union

Soviet Union

The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....

Rumored real fathers

There are a number of hypotheses and popular rumors about the "real" father of Stalin.

Rumours of being an Okhrana agent

Stalin's apparent ease in escaping from Tsarist persecution and very light sentences bore rumours of him being an Okhrana agent. His efforts in 1909 to root out traitors caused much strife within the party; some accused him of doing this deliberately on the orders of the Okhrana. The Menshevik Razhden Arsenidze

Razhden Arsenidze

Razhden Arsenidze was a Georgian jurist, journalist, and politician.He was involved with the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and sided with its Menshevik wing in 1903...

accused Stalin of betraying comrades he didn't like to the Okhrana. The prominent Bolshevik Stepan Shahumyan

Stepan Shahumyan

Stepan Gevorgi Shahumyan was a Bolshevist Russian communist politician and revolutionary active throughout the Caucasus. Shahumyan was an ethnic Armenian and his role as a leader of the Russian revolution in the Caucasus earned him the nickname of the "Caucasian Lenin", a reference to the leader...

directly accused Stalin of being an Okhrana agent in 1916. According to his personal secretary Olga Shatunovskaya, these opinions were shared by Stanislav Kosior

Stanislav Kosior

Stanislav Vikentyevich Kosior, sometimes spelled Kossior was one of three Kosior brothers, Polish-born Soviet politicians. He was General Secretary of the Ukrainian Communist Party, deputy prime minister of the USSR, and a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union...

, Iona Yakir

Iona Yakir

Iona Emmanuilovich Yakir was the Red Army commander and one of the world's major military reformers between World War I and World War II.-Early years:...

and other prominent Bolsheviks. The rumours were reinforced by being published in the Soviet Union memoirs of Domenty Vadachkory who wrote of Stalin using an Okhrana badge (supposedly stolen) to help him escape exile. It also appears suspicious that Stalin played down the number of his escapes from prisons and exiles. Still there was no hard evidence of Stalin collaboration with the Okhrana were found and a few alleged reports from Stalin to the Okhrana published by media appear to be forgeries.

Historians have also disagreed on this matter. Russian writer Edvard Radzinsky

Edvard Radzinsky

Edvard Stanislavovich Radzinsky is a Russian playwright, writer, TV personality, and film screenwriter. He is also known as an author of several books on history which were characterized as "folk history" by journalists and academic historians.-Biography:Edvard Stanislavovich Radzinsky was born...

in his book Stalin suggested that Stalin as well as Roman Malinovsky

Roman Malinovsky

might have been double agents who pretended to work for Okhrana while manipulating them by providing information selected by Vladimir Lenin

Vladimir Lenin

. However, another historian, Simon Sebag Montefiore, found that in all surviving Okhrana records Stalin is described as a revolutionary and never a spy. Montefiore argues Stalin escaped from his exiles so frequently because the exile system was not secure: an exile only needed money and false papers to escape the village where he was settled, and thousands did. Stalin also had spies of his own in the Okhrana, warning him of their actions. In 1956, the magazine Life published a letter by Colonel Ermin, head of the Tiflis Okhrana, that said Stalin was an agent, but it has since been shown to be a forgery. In his 1967 biography of Stalin, Edward Ellis Smith argued that Stalin was an Okhrana agent by citing his suspicious ability to escape from Okhrana dragnets, travel unimpeded, and rabble-rouse full time with no apparent source of income. One such example was the raid that occurred on the night of April 3, 1901, when most everyone of importance in the Socialist-Democratic movement in Tiflis was arrested, except for Stalin, who was apparently "enjoying the balmy spring air, and in one of his to-hell-with-the-revolution moods, [which] is too impossible for serious consideration." Montefiore, however, wrote that Stalin spotted Okhrana agents waiting for him outside his place of employment whilst he was riding a tram; he stayed on the tram and immediately went into hiding.

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