![]() ![]() ![]() But we can also show that he was much more than a gangster godfather: he was also a political organizer, enforcer and master at infiltrating the Tsarist security services. For the first time, we can document his role in the bank robberies, protection-rackets, extortion, arson, piracy, murder-the political gangsterism-that impressed Lenin and trained Stalin in the very skills that would prove invaluable in the political jungle of the Soviet Union. Stalin’s pre-revolutionary achievements and crimes were much greater than we knew. Stalin’s early life may have been shadowy but it was every bit as extraordinary as, and even more turbulent than, those of Lenin and Trotsky-and it equipped him (and damaged him) for the triumphs, tragedies and predations of supreme power. A wealth of vivid new material that brings to life his childhood and his career as revolutionary, gangster, poet, trainee priest, husband and prolific lover, abandoning women and illegitimate children in his wake, lay hidden in the newly opened archives, especially those of oftenneglected Georgia. There are few works on early Stalin (compared to many on young Hitler), but this is because there seemed to be so little material. ![]() “There are,” he mused, “no secrets that won’t be revealed for everyone later.” For me as a historian unveiling his clandestine life up to his emergence as one of Lenin’s top henchmen in the new Soviet government, he was right about the secrets: many of them can now be revealed. When in old age he reflected on the mysteries of his early years, he seemed to change his mind. His youth was dramatic, adventurous and exceptional. about the young Stalin?” Yet he was wrong: he was always different. Fee Download Young Stalin SIMON SEBAG MONTEFIORE PDFĪll young people are the same,” said Stalin, “so why write. ![]()
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