Stalin: The Man of Steel

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Joseph Djugasvilli, better known as Joseph Stalin, is a man who will never be forgotten. Leader of the communist super power, The U.S.S.R. from 1929 till his death in 1953, Stalin made himself known around the world for many things, both good and bad. While Stalin administered great changes during his reign and industrialized Russia at a pace unheard of before in history, these were at the cost of millions of lives. Born on December 21st, 1879 in the small village of Gori, Georgia to a cobbler father and a mother who washed clothes, Joseph was the only surviving child out of four. Health problems kept Stalin at home most of the time, and his mother kept a close watch over him. At a young age, Joseph contracted smallpox. The disease left him with a disfigured arm and pock marks all over his face, which is the reasoning behind his cruel childhood nickname of “Pocky”. Djugasvilli’s mother worked hard to get him into a local church school, where he excelled at every subject. Even though extremely intelligent himself, Joseph found it hard to trust educated people and always felt inferior to and threatened by others, nobody is sure why. After he completed school, Stalin earned a scholarship to a seminary in Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, and studied to become a priest. There, Djugasvilli was introduced to big cities, and the ideas of revolution that dwelled inside them. Soon Joseph became so involved with revolutionary circles and groups, his grades started to slip. Djugasvilli was expelled from school in May of 1899 for challenging authority, spreading Marxism, and distributing unauthorized reading material. After his expulsion, Djugasvilli spent several months looking for work. He ended up teaching middle class children school lesso...

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http://www.sparknotes.com/biography/stalin/context.html

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