The abreks caused greater damage to civil society than Qazbegi allowed. As a Georgian urban story-teller he strove to suggest that the old ways of the Caucasus had a certain nobility. Russian writers such as Pushkin, Lermontov and Tolstoi also put Caucasian robbers into their works but seldom — until Tolstoi’s Hadji Murat in 1912 — gave a convincing interior view of the mind of mountain outlaws. Qazbegi was not in their class as a literary figure, but his immediate popularity with Georgian readers was enormous. His treatment of the Shamil resistance ignored reference to its Islamist purpose. He provided Georgians with a sense of national worth. Qazbegi was offering an admiring portrait of the violent traditions of the mountains: blood feud, vengeance, personal honour and life beyond the law. This was a romantic view more extreme in its particular aspects than anything offered in Walter Scott, Lord Byron or Alexander Pushkin. Qazbegi implied that the dominant values in cities and towns in Georgia — Christianity, commerce, education, law and administration — were inferior to the savage beliefs and customs of the mountains.
Gori lies in a valley and its inhabitants were not the rough mountaineers who lived by thievery, kidnapping and murder. One of his school friends, however, recalled how impressed Joseph was by Qazbegi’s work:17
Koba was Soso’s ideal and the image of his dreams. Koba became Soso’s God, the meaning of his life. He wanted to be the second Koba, a fighter and hero — like him — covered with glory… From then onwards he called himself Koba, he absolutely didn’t want us to call him by any other name.
Works of literature allow for diverse interpretations. Qazbegi’s story is unusually straightforward, and Stalin’s subsequent preoccupation with revenge and personal honour indicate that the basic message was successfully transmitted.
It is in this connection that one of the most gruesome events of Joseph’s childhood should be interpreted. While he was a schoolboy, two ‘bandits’ were hanged on the gibbet in the centre of Gori.18 The event left a deep imprint on the boy’s mind, and many years later — when biographical details about him were published — he allowed an account of the hanging to be reproduced. His biographers have frequently adduced his remembrance of the events as evidence of his psychological peculiarity. That Joseph developed a gross personality disorder can hardly be denied. But he was not alone in witnessing or remembering the hanging. It was the most remarkable event in Gori of the last quarter of the nineteenth century. What happened was as follows. Two men of the mountains were being pursued by a policeman on horseback who tried to take possession of their cow. They resisted. In the ensuing altercation they shot him. Strife between brigands and the police was not unknown in Gori and the surrounding area. Shoot-outs occurred not infrequently. Urban inhabitants more often than not took the side opposed to the police. Hatred of the authorities was widespread. Defence of family, property and native village was thought justifiable regardless of Imperial legislation. So when the captured brigands were sentenced to death, the popular interest — and not just Joseph’s — was intense.19
Police chief Davrishevi had anticipated the potential for unrest near the gibbet and forbade his own son to go outdoors. Joseph Dzhughashvili went accompanied by two other friends. What did they see? The popularity of the convicts led the authorities to order drummers to march to the square and to keep up a din. The sentence was announced in Russian. This too was scarcely well designed to quieten the mood of spectators. Someone tossed a stone from the crowd as the executioner, defended by soldiers, went about his business. A disturbance broke out. The police were on the point of panic as the brigands were strung up. Death was not swift in coming. The ropes had been tied inefficiently and the victims took an unbearably long time to expire.20 The town’s inhabitants did not think the punishment fitted the crime. The miscreants had not offended the local honour code: they were protecting what they thought was their own. They were local heroes. Young Davrishevi, himself the son of one of the town’s highest officials, described them as ‘holy martyrs’.21 When Joseph and his mates attended the hanging, they partook of the general atmosphere.
This is not to deny that Joseph had an unusual attraction to violence in dealing with enemies. The Empire was meting out punishment to its recalcitrant subjects. The inhabitants of Gori resented this but could do nothing to stop the process. Neither Joseph nor his friends left a record of his impressions. But it would not be improbable that he concluded that state power was a crucial determining factor in the life of society and that, if any basic change was going to happen in society, force would be needed to countervail against the status quo. He may also have thought that the drastic punishment of delinquents helped to secure a regime. Certainly there was little in his early years that discouraged a viewpoint on human affairs without a place for purposive violence.
Joseph completed his course at the end of the summer term 1894 and the Board of the Gori Spiritual School recommended him for transfer to the Tiflis Spiritual Seminary, and the paperwork was put in hand.22 His behaviour on the streets was not reproduced in the classroom, where he was a well-behaved boy as well as a quick learner who earned warm plaudits. He swiftly picked up Russian even if his accent remained heavily Georgian; he assimilated arithmetic and literature and the Bible. His schoolwork in Gori had been exemplary and he had a stupendous memory and agile intellect. He attended church regularly and had a decent singing voice, an asset for an aspiring priest as Orthodox Church services have always involved an emphasis upon choral chants. Sermons were rare and pastoral duties outside the liturgy were few. Joseph was dutiful. In Gori he was remembered as ‘very devout’. One of his fellow students, when asked for his memories in 1939, said that Joseph had punctually attended all divine services and had led the church choir: ‘I remember that he not only performed the religious rites but also always reminded us of their significance.’23
Despite the disruption caused by illness and factory employment, he had caught up with other pupils. The School Board was impressed. The scroll he received gave him the highest marks in every subject except arithmetic. (This was not a permanent defect: in later life he was in fact careful and effective at checking the statistical tables proffered to him by subordinates.)24 The Board Chairman inscribed the scroll with ‘excellent’ against the behaviour category. For other subjects, too, he got top marks: Old Testament, New Testament, Orthodox catechism, liturgy, Russian with Church-Slavonic, Georgian, geography, handwriting and Russian and Georgian church music. He obtained a four instead of a five in ancient Greek.25 But the blemishes were minor. Joseph Dzhughashvili had completed the course at the Gori Spiritual School with distinction. The Georgian ecclesiastical world lay at his feet. But he was a boy with a complex personality that made many acquaintances feel uncomfortable. Academically talented, he wanted to be admired as a tough lad on the streets. He loved his mother and accepted her ambitions for him and yet he was bright and had a mind of his own. Priests wrote highly of him. Yet his friends, when they came to write memoirs, recalled things about him which had echoes in his later career. They may have invented or exaggerated everything. But probably they were right that Joseph Dzhughashvili was demonstrably Stalin in the making.