Has anyone read Montefiore's Young Stalin and Court of the Red Tzar? Those books were an absolutely wild ride. Stalin really comes across as one of the more unusual characters of history. No one in his native Georgia liked him, so they were happy to dish dirt on his youth and give the full story free of obvious glorification.
I think the most unusual characteristics of his story was that everyone tried to control him. First, the priests at the seminary by disciplining him, then his father, who wanted him to be a shoe cobbler, then the czars by putting him in prison and exiling him, then his fellow party members by trying to out politic him, and absolutely nothing worked on him. The guy did not budge an inch from his mission or ever got discouraged no matter what happened. The guy, like a serial killer, was completely emotionally unmoved and undeterred by any obstacle or opinion of anyone.
They put him in prison, he started taking control of the prison. They sent him to Siberia he came back and dove right back into revolution after always seeming to father an illegitimate child while in exile. He remembered everyone who he ever met and punished them or rewarded them later accordingly. He seemingly did everything for the sole purpose of global Marxist revolution and he got rid of anyone, or group of people or thing that got in his way. He wasn't even vulnerable to flattery. He was just dead set and committed to his goal of global marxist revolution and brutal vengeance against all his enemies who tried to keep him from achieving that.
I've been reading recently books on the former Soviet Union. "Beria, my Father" by Sergo Beria, "Krushcev" by William Taubman, "Conversations with Molotov" by Feliks Ciuev...
Then tried "Stalin's Daughter: The Extraordinary and Tumultuous Life of Svetlana Alliluyeva" by Rosemary Sullivan but could't finish it. Compared with the 'bad guys' her biography is just dull.
His granddaughter: https://nypost.com/2016/03/17/stalin-granddaughter-is-an-all...
And for a little background, even though Svetlana is a relatively minor character in it, don't miss The Death of Stalin - surely one of the best black comedies of recent years.
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