In exploring the sources of Stalin’s rebelliousness and ruthlessness, many historians have pointed to the atmosphere that reigned in the outlying regions of the Russian Empire. Alfred Rieber has called him a “man of the borderlands.”31 The Caucasus, a roiling cauldron of social and ethnic conflict where industrial enclaves emerged amid tribal traditions, would inevitably have played a role in shaping Stalin’s character. Jörg Baberowski has written that Stalin and his comrades-in-arms “brought into the party, both at the center and edges of the empire, the culture of violence of the Caucasian periphery, the blood feud and archaic conceptions of honor.”32 Such opinions are supported by Boris Nicolaevsky, a Social Democrat who later became a well-known historian. Before the revolution, Nicolaevsky had spent time in Transcaucasia and had even met with Jughashvili. He described the future dictator as “exceptionally vicious and vindictive” and capable of applying “the most extreme measures” in his struggle to dominate the party. Yet many of Jughashvili’s opponents within the Social Democratic movement were no different. Nicolaevsky said he was told that these traits resulted from “the injection of Caucasian mores into the intraparty struggle.”33
It is not unreasonable to take into account the mentality forged by the hardships and tragic history of the Russian borderlands. Yet the entire Russian Empire was one vast borderland: between Asia and Europe, between the promises of modernization and the deteriorating traditional ways of life, between the city and the country, between authoritarianism and democratic strivings, between the obscurantism of the regime and the bloodthirstiness of many revolutionaries. Whatever features may be particular to the Caucasus must be seen within the context of the Russian culture of extremism and violence, which merely provided an outlet for the impulse. Such a context does not, of course, relieve young Jughashvili of personal responsibility for his choices.
Revolutionaries are not all cut from the same cloth. Many throw themselves into the fight under the influence of youth, ardor, and thrill seeking. These factors were probably not what led Stalin onto this path, though they should not be discounted entirely. The future dictator could be described as a calculating revolutionary, the sort who doggedly and methodically—even cautiously—moved the revolution forward and later, when success came, had the best chance of solidifying power. He had just the right balance of decisiveness and caution, obsession and cynicism, to emerge unscathed through the revolution’s countless dangers.
An overview of the activities of the Tiflis Social Democratic organization found in the files of the local gendarme administration describes Ioseb Jughashvili as “conducting himself with complete caution and constantly looking over his shoulder as he walks.”34 He managed to avoid arrest for some time, giving him a significant advantage, since many members of the Social Democratic Party were in prison, and facilitating his rise within the Tiflis party leadership. Apparently to evade arrest, he moved from Tiflis to Batum, a major center of the empire’s petroleum industry. A propaganda campaign by him and his associates evidently had an effect, as Batum workers staged a spate of strikes and demonstrations. The government response was severe. On 9 March 1902, when workers stormed a prison where many of their comrades were being held, troops opened fire. At least thirteen people were killed and dozens were wounded. News of violence in Batum spread, and Jughashvili, one of the organizers of the demonstration, was arrested.
In an effort to avoid punishment, Jughashvili denied his guilt, asserting that he had been nowhere near Batum during the period leading up to the attack. In notes sent from prison, he asked his mother, friends, and relatives to give him an alibi by falsely testifying that he had arrived in Gori before mid-March.35 One such note fell into the hands of the police. The police in Batum still could not prove that Jughashvili was directly involved in organizing the storming of the prison, but in probing his background, they brought to light his activities in Tiflis. The investigation inched along. Languishing in prison, Ioseb did what he could to improve the outcome of his case. In October and November 1902, seven and eight months after his arrest, he sent two petitions to the offices of the administrator-in-chief for the Caucasus. Citing a “worsening asphyxiating cough and the helpless situation of my aged mother, who has been abandoned by her husband for 12 years now and sees me as the only person she can count on in life,” he asked to be released under police supervision. “I beseech the office of the Administrator-in-Chief not to neglect me and to respond to my request.” In January 1903 Ekaterine also submitted a request to the authorities that her son be freed. Her petition, written in Russian but signed in Georgian, stated that her son, “as the breadwinner for himself and his mother, has neither the time nor the occasion to participate in conspiracies or disturbances.”36
These entreaties proved ineffective. Ioseb remained in prison for several more months, suffering deprivation and harassment. Not until the fall of 1903, one and a half years after his arrest, was he finally sent into exile in eastern Siberia. Soon, in early 1904, he escaped from his place of banishment. Such an escape was not at all unusual. Lax security enabled many revolutionaries to flee their places of exile, although such escapes demanded careful preparation, courage, and physical endurance. Jughashvili learned from his first stint in exile and later had several opportunities to put that experience to use.
There is evidence to suggest that during the first months after his return to Transcaucasia, Jughashvili was suspected of being a double agent.37 Social Democrats were being arrested throughout the region. Although these arrests cast a pall of suspicion over him, the lack of personnel began to facilitate his ascent within the underground movement. He rose through the ranks to the governing committee of the Transcaucasian Social Democratic organization. Other factors in his success were his active efforts in the underground and his ability to generate fiery prose. Rumors that he was collaborating with the police remained just that.
During the two years that Jughashvili spent in prison and exile, Russia’s Social Democratic Party had undergone major changes. While formally a single party, in actuality it was divided between the adherents of Lenin—Bolsheviks—and the more moderate Mensheviks. Lenin advocated the creation of a militant and cohesive underground party that would serve as an instrument of revolution. It was Lenin’s belief that the workers, who were to be the main force in the revolution, were not capable of developing proper revolutionary thinking on their own. They had to be taught by professional revolutionaries. Lenin’s teachings were aimed at hastening revolution and speeding up “historical time.” The Mensheviks felt that the party should be less rigid and accept among its ranks sympathizers as well as activists. The Mensheviks had greater respect for the workers and placed less emphasis on their own role as teachers. This approach was a natural byproduct of their core belief that the revolutionary process would move gradually and organically forward as the objective preconditions for socialism reached fruition. Jughashvili was temperamentally inclined to accept Lenin’s viewpoint and to embrace his radicalism and calls to action. Furthermore, as a member of the party intelligentsia, Jughashvili welcomed the idea that professional revolutionaries must lead the workers’ movement.38 To be leaders, to show the masses the way forward—surely this was the intelligentsia’s proper place within the revolution? Many of his articles were devoted to promoting Lenin’s ideas.