Young Stalin (Vintage) Review

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Young Stalin (Vintage) ReviewMontefiore paints a very vivid picture of Stalin's youth, providing a comprehensive narrative from his birth in Georgia to his rise to power as a member of the inner circle of the Bolshevik revolution of 1917. He shows a youthful Stalin who was variously a seminary student, a star choirboy, a proud Georgian poet and a rabble-rousing Marxist fanatic. He shows his development as an undercover party leader, including his role as an organizer of bank robberies and extortions, and emphasizes his early ruthlessness in organizing the executions of "traitors". He explores the different facets of Stalin's life as a Siberian exile, an escapee, a charming philanderer, and an absentee father. And finally he shows the rising Bolshevik leader: a founder of Pravda, one of Lenin's most trusted lieutenants, ruthless and pragmatic, who could be relied on to do the dirty work, and who was already one of the innermost circle when the Bolsheviks seized power.
Montefiore uses a variety of materials, but especially unpublished memoirs from Stalin's early friends and colleagues newly available in the Georgian communist party archives. Material from these was sometimes used in the official Stalinist biographies, but anything that deviated from the official dull accounts was quietly buried. Montefiore explains that both Stalin and Trotsky were eager to obscure Stalin's early life: Trotsky wished to belittle him as a mere party bureaucrat, while Stalin feared that his unruly past would be an obstacle as he moved towards supreme power. Montefiore acknowledges the difficulties in assessing the accuracy of the various memoirs, but observes that there are enough different accounts (and also independent accounts from refugees in the West) that even if we can't be sure of all the details, the overall picture seems sound.
In Montefiore's portrayal, one striking aspect of Stalin's youth is that he was genuinely immersed in a world of treachery and betrayal. A wanted man, always on the run, several times betrayed and captured due to Tsarist double agents deep in the Bolshevik leadership, he was right to be distrustful and paranoid. At this time in Stalin's life there really were traitors everywhere.
Overall, this is a fascinating account of a wild young revolutionary daredevil. But probably its greatest value is in providing insights towards the underlying strengths and weaknesses of the later General Secretary Stalin. We see his considerable personal charm and his vast capacity for organization. But we also see his cynicism, his mistrustfulness, and his willingness to use force and terror as everyday tactics.
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