Joseph Stalin: Russia’s Last Czar
“The Father of All the Russia” may lie in a tomb, but his existence and cruelty haunt Russia to this very day. Steven Otfinoski wrote the biography Joseph Stalin: Russia’s Last Czar. Unlike Stalin’s own autobiography, Otfinoski’s biography covers the real facts, and this is why it is a good source of information.
Iosif Vissarionovich Djugashvili, aka Joseph Stalin, was born in Gori, a village in Georgia, Russia on December 21, 1879. His father was a brooding, drunken violent man and a shoemaker by trade. At age seven, Iosif almost died of smallpox, but he survived with facial and psychological scars. He grew to hate his father, and one time he threw a knife at him to defend his mother. The knife missed its target, but did cause Iosif to run away to live with a neighbor. At age ten, his father died. A short time after the death of his father, his mother, Ekaterina, sent him to the village church school using money she earned by working in upper class homes. It was the only way she could get him away from the poverty of their daily lives. He became a choirboy, and because he graduated at the top of his class, Iosif received a small scholarship to the Seminary in Tbilisi. At the Seminary, young Iosif was introduced to the world of czarist Russia. Russia, during the time of the czars, was oppressive. Bureaucrats ran the government, the church and the educational system, and any infringement of the rules lead to very harsh punishment. The Tbilisi Seminary used religion as a weapon, pounding the students into submission. At first, Iosif excelled at his studies and caused little trouble, but the Seminary hardened him, and he learned to hate religion and all authority. He soon became devious, hypocritical and met secretly with other students to read Karl Marx’s Das Kapital. He became fascinated the Marx’s writings and soon lost all interest in his studies. Only a week from the end of his five-year course, he was expelled because of his insolent behavior. He had found his true vocation, one of a revolutionary.
Joseph Stalin became the leader of Russia after Lenin’s death. Stalin had many physical characteristics that were unique. After having smallpox as a...