Certainly there was discord in the family, and the drunken Besarion let loose with his fists. Soso was apparently beaten by both parents. But as Suny rightly observes, the evidence we have is insufficient either to judge whether violence within the Jughashvili family was unusual for that place and time or to assess its impact on Soso’s perception of the world.5 Stalin’s childhood and adolescence seem to have been utterly typical of the environment from which he came—the world of poor, but not destitute, craftsmen and shopkeepers in a small town at the outskirts of the empire. This was a world where coarse mores coexisted with traditions of neighbor helping neighbor and periods of relative well-being alternated with hard times. Children were exposed to severity and cruelty as well as to affection and indulgence. Soso Jughashvili experienced the good and the bad—his father’s harshness and his mother’s limitless affection—in relatively balanced proportion. The family’s financial difficulties, which came when Soso was in school, were eased by the help of friends and relatives. While at the local theological school and later at the seminary in Tiflis, Ioseb received assistance from the state and benefited from the intercession of sympathetic protectors. Despite their modest means, mother and son were fully accepted into their small community.
During an interview many years later, Stalin said, “My parents were uneducated, but they did not treat me badly by any means.”6 It is possible he was not being candid or was suppressing unpleasant childhood memories. There is little evidence regarding Stalin’s feelings toward his father, who died young. To all appearances, however, he felt genuine affection for his mother. His letters to her in her later years contain lines such as the following: “Hello Mama dear! How are you getting on, how are you feeling? I haven’t had any letters from you in a long time—you must be upset with me, but what can I do? I’m really very busy,” and “Greetings dear mother! I’m sending you a shawl, a jacket, and medicines. Show the medicines to your doctor before taking them because a doctor has to set the dose.”7 Despite her son’s meteoric rise, Keke remained in Georgia, living in a position of respect and comfort. Stalin did not attend her funeral in 1937. Throughout that year, the height of the Great Terror, he did not set foot outside of Moscow. The dedication he wrote for a memorial wreath in both Georgian and Russian still survives: “To my dear and beloved mother from her son Ioseb Jughashvili (from Stalin).”8
Stalin owed her a true debt of gratitude. She worked hard to protect her son from want and to enable him to get an education, and she nursed him through numerous illnesses, including smallpox, which pockmarked his face for the rest of his life. Soso also suffered a childhood mishap, exacerbated by poor medical treatment, that rendered his left arm severely disabled. The joints remained atrophied for the rest of his life, and the arm never functioned properly. Another physical defect was congenitaclass="underline" two toes on his left foot were joined. It seems unlikely that these defects remained unremarked in the often heartless company of boys. Yet Soso was not an outcast. He remained on an equal footing with his peers and took part in all of their games. He had an excellent memory, always a respected quality. It does not appear that a difficult childhood sowed in Ioseb Jughashvili the cruelty that emerged in Joseph Stalin. There is also no obvious sign of what in his childhood might have turned him into a rebel.
Ioseb’s mother, whose efforts were inspired by the hope that her son would successfully overcome the social circumstances of his birth, was not the only one who noticed his intellectual abilities. When the time came to send the boy to school, Keke was able to solicit the support of well-wishers who felt strongly that the boy could profit from an education. Her aspiration that Ioseb would become a priest seemed entirely fitting. The well-wishers were the family of a priest named Khristofor Charkviani, in whose home the Jughashvilis rented a room. They helped Soso gain admission to the Gori Theological School. The Charkviani children also taught him Russian, the language of instruction. These language lessons enabled Soso to immediately enter the school’s highest preparatory class—undoubtedly a significant moment in the future leader’s life. Ten-year-old Soso was making an important step into the Russophone world.
He spent almost six years, from 1888 to 1894, at the Gori Theological School, a period that saw dramatic changes in the Jughashvili family. After much domestic strife, Besarion left Gori, depriving his wife and son of their means of support and imperiling Soso’s continued attendance at the school. Keke was able to find help, a task undoubtedly made easier by Soso’s academic success. He was a model student and was even granted a stipend. The mother took care that her son would in no way feel inferior to his classmates and always ensured that he was dressed well and appropriately for the weather. According to numerous reminiscences, Soso distinguished himself at school by his diligence and hard work. He was reputed to be a fine reader of prayers and singer in the church choir, and he got along well with the teachers. The Russian teacher, whom the children called “the gendarme” behind his back, made Soso his assistant in charge of distributing books.9 Many decades later, in 1949, another former teacher at the school, S. V. Malinovsky, took the bold step of contacting his former pupil. “In my old age,” he wrote, “I am proud that my humble efforts contributed to your education.” Malinovsky requested that he be awarded a personal pension, “so that in the twilight of my days my basic needs can be met and I can die in the happy awareness that my Great Pupil did not leave me in poverty.”10 While there is evidence that this letter was placed before Stalin, the record is unclear on whether assistance was granted.
Ioseb graduated in May 1894. The certificate issued to him lists the courses he took and the grades he received. He earned a grade of “excellent” for behavior, as well as for Sacred History, Orthodox Catechism, Liturgical Exegesis and Ecclesiastical Typikon, Russian and Church Slavonic, Georgian, geography, penmanship, and liturgical chant. In Greek and arithmetic, his weakest subjects, he managed a grade of “very good.” His academic success yielded a recommendation for entry into a theological seminary.11 Despite the narrow curriculum, Soso acquired a great deal of skill and knowledge at the school in Gori and developed a passion for reading. More significant, he developed a mastery of Russian. Recollections of his time at the school paint a picture of an active child with pretentions toward leadership, pretentions undoubtedly affirmed by his standing as a top student. He seems to have had pleasant recollections of these years. Many decades later he remembered his school friends and even tried to help them. In notes dated May 1944, when he was sixty-five, Stalin wrote: “1) To my friend Petya—40,000, 2) 30,000 rubles to Grisha, 3) 30,000 rubles to Dzeradze,” and “Grisha! Accept this small gift from me.… Yours, Soso.”12 Written in Georgian, these documents hint at bursts of nostalgia felt by an old man reflecting fondly on his adolescence.