Home » History » World War II » Uncle Joe

Uncle Joe

© Ralph Zuljan

Joseph Stalin was born December 21, 1879, in Gori, a small town in the Russian vassal state of Georgia. His birth name was Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashivili, son of a hard-drinking cobbler and a religious, protective mother. Dzhuasghivili deserted his family when Iosif was quite young, leaving his wife to support herself, her only surviving child and to provide for his education. She took a number of menial jobs, eventually landing the position of (probably) live-in housekeeper to the parish priest. This was a beneficial arrangement, for Iosif was a pious boy, whose mother intended to become a priest. Iosif attended the Gori church school, the only school available to peasant children, from 1888 to 1894 where he was an excellent student, earning a scholarship. He then attended the Tiflis Theological Seminary, from which he was expelled for subversive activities in 1899. It was during his school days that Stalin learned to speak Russian, studied Marxism and developed a taste for revolution.

In 1900 Stalin joined the revolutionary underground while working as a clerk at the Tiflis Observatory. Even at this early stage he displayed a complete disregard for his fellows and antagonized many of them by his zeal for violent action. By March, 1901 he had attracted the attention of the police, who searched his lodgings. He was not arrested at this time but became a full-time revolutionary after that and went underground, with the Party name of "Koba"-- the name of a Georgian folk-hero rather like Robin Hood.

"Koba" spent much of the time between 1902 and 1916 being exiled to, and escaping from, Siberia, fomenting revolution all the while. During this time he served as political advisor to Lenin's newspaper Pravda and published articles under the name "K. Stalin". "Stalin" is derived from the Russian word for steel.

In 1905 Stalin also found time to marry Ekaterina Svanidze. She died in 1907, shortly after the birth of their son Yakov. Stalin had no hand in raising the boy, and apparently despised him. (During World War II, Yakov was captured by the Germans and Stalin refused an offer to have the boy returned.)

Stalin remarried in 1918. His wife, Nadezhda Alilleuva, was a devoted Party member who avidly pursued education and tried to persuade her husband to moderate some of his more extreme policies. They had two children, Vasili, born in 1921 and who eventually died of chronic alcoholism and Svetlana, born in 1926. Svetlana recalled her father as being an affectionate parent. She later emigrated to America and much of what we know of her father's personal life comes from her published memoirs. Nadezhda, however, was moody and depressive, she committed suicide in 1932. There were rumours that Stalin had murdered her, but these were unsubstantiated and have since been discredited.