Mr. Stalin - bi-sexual epoch - Revol

JOSEPH STALIN
(1879-1953). One of the most ruthless dictators of modern times was Stalin, the despot who transformed the Soviet Union into a major world power. The victims of his campaigns of political terror included some of his followers. His real name was Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili. In 1912 he took the alias of "Stalin", from the Russian word meaning "steel".

Joseph Stalin was born in Gori, a village in Transcaucasian Georgia, on Dec. 21, 1879. His father was Vissarion Dzhugashvili, a poor shoemaker who drank heavily and beat the boy savagely. His mother, a peasant's daughter, took in sewing and washing to help support the family. When Stalin was about 7, he caught smallpox, which left him pockmarked for life.

Stalin entered a church school at the age of 9. When he was 14 his father died, and Stalin was sent to the Orthodox Russian seminary at Tiflis to be educated for the priesthood. He was more interested in Communism, however, than in theology, and the seminary expelled him in 1899 as an agitator.

He remained in Tiflis, working briefly at one job after another. He soon joined the Tiflis branch of the Russian Social Democrat party.

Stalin then became a paid agitator, trying to incite revolt against the czar. He edited illegal pamphlets and helped distribute them secretly. He organized strikes among the factory workers in Tiflis. His ability won the attention of party leaders, and they sent him to form a Communist organization in Batumi, a large port on the Black Sea.

His revolutionist activities brought his first arrest, in 1902. He was exiled to Siberia in 1903 but soon escaped. From 1902 to 1913 Stalin was arrested and exiled six times. He escaped five times and was released once. Like his fellow revolutionaries, he adopted one alias after another in order to evade arrest. He first called himself Koba, after a legendary Georgian hero. Later he changed his name to David, Soso, Chiijikov, Nijeradze, and, finally, Stalin.