Young Stalin is a story about the youth of Joseph (Iosif) Dzhugashvili (jew-gosh-vee-lee).
Stalin was known to have been a native Georgian, top of the class seminary student, excellent singer, charismatic, lame armed, son of an alcoholic. Both of his parents beat him sadistically. His father was a cobbler, who bragged about being able to make two pairs of shoes per day. His mother was very attractive when young and was able to land the cobbler though many young girls were vying for his hand.
Stalin's other siblings, all died prematurely or were miscarried (if I remember correctly), and his mother was so pleased that her son Joseph lived, she promised to do a pilgrimage in thanks.
Now the whole part about Stalin being a seminary student has to be taken with a grain of salt. It's not like today, where folks only enter the seminary if they hear a calling to God and want to become priests. In the middle ages up until the early 20th century, the best European schools were "seminaries", so it was more a matter of getting the best possible education, than hearing a higher calling.
The idea of Stalin being a "criminal" also must be taken with a grain of salt. In the time of the Russian Czar's, the different republics (Ukraine, Georgia, etc) were native enclaves, who were very patriotic and loving of their native lands. So to wish to overthrown the Czar's was a popular political intrigue. In fact, in the time of the Czar's, there were in essence two "political" parties. Those who believed in and benefited from the Czar's and those that wished to overthrow him.
Most of Stalin's criminal activities were centered on fund raising activities for Vladimir Lenin. And in this time, to raise funds, was to be a bank robber and thief.
Stalin organized a heist of a bank that netted Lenin and his party $3.5 million dollars in today's currency, although the purchasing power was much greater (in a time when the major expenditures of a household were clothing wine/vodka and food, and not "entertainment" cable, electricity, cars, etc, etc, etc.
Stalin was a voracious reader of many "banned" text, which was in essence all Western European philosophy, poetry, fiction and art. He also was capable of getting perfect marks in all of his classes, ranking as high as #5 in his class. When he sang, he could bring tears to the eyes of those who listened. He also showed wit, the ability to organize and negotiate ruthlessly.
In the bank robbery he organized, he was able to not only train and organize most of his crew, but he also compromised several of the bank employees through his poetry... yes, Stalin was also a great poet who had several poems published in one of the major Poetry anthologies in Russia from when he was a school boy, until well after his death. He also mastered many languages.
There are those who would say that Stalin was inept. But such arguments can be refuted. His grip on power was total. He ruled one of the largest and most powerful nations on earth. he defeated the Nazi's, outmaneuvered Churchill and Truman and always played his hand close to the chest, relying on a small, insular, ever changing cadre of command personnel to exact and extract his due.
One of the major players in the creation of the man that would become Stalin and lead one of the bloodiest terrors in the history of the world was his mother. Time and again, she was able to solicit benefactors and powerful and influential people to intercede, advocate, fund and extricate Stalin from many problems and dead ends. On many occasions her advocacy and maneuverings got him into prestigious schools, paid his tuition, circumvented punishments and placed him in positions from which he could cultivate the skills that would one day rule a nation.
It was in fact Stalin's ability to be at once, a great poet, student, organizer, and artist, and at the same time, a top notch ruthless criminal mastermind, that made him invaluable to Lenin's Bolsheviks. With his hard-scrabble obtained skill set and intelligence, Stalin was no match for his cohorts in the upper political elite. With these tools, both legitimate and illegitimate, he had too many tools to contend with. With his political cronies playing the role his mother used to play in clearing out problems from the periphery and sometimes from his path, the man Stalin would make his indelible mark upon the world.
"Under the pretext of constructing `socialism in one country', Stalin terrorized large segments of the Soviet population, such as the Kulaks, a term for prosperous farmers who were disinherited when agriculture was collectivized. He also orchestrated a massive famine in the Ukraine in which an estimated 5 million people died. It is believed that with the purges, forced famines, state terrorism, labor camps, and forced migrations, Stalin was responsible for the death of as many as 40 million people within the borders of the Soviet Union... ...By some estimates, one quarter of the Russian population was wiped out in the war."
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