Quotes About Djugashvili

Djugashvili had furnished evidence in writing of the theoretical learning that he was to display in the Baku prison. In a series of articles published in Bolshevik newspapers in Tiflis under the general title Anarchism or Socialism?, he defended Marxism against critical attacks that were being leveled against it by Georgian followers of the Russian anarchist philosopher Pyotr Kropotkin.

The first version of the articles, published in mid-1906, was followed by an expanded second version that appeared in late 1906 and early 1907 but remained incomplete owing to Djugashvili's departure for the London congress in April and his subsequent move from Tiflis to Baku.

It has been suggested, by Trotsky for one, that Djugashvili began his activities as a Menshevik and aligned himself with the Bolsheviks only on the eve of 1905, after much hesitation.[

Judging by the pervasiveness of this theme in Djugashvili's early writings, and the way he emphasized it, he was strongly attracted to Marxism's vision of past and present society as a great battleground whereon two hostile forces—bourgeoisie and proletariat—are locked in mortal combat.

Although further evidence of Djugashvili's involvement is lacking, we do have confirmation that a group of forty or so students was forced to leave the seminary in the fall of 1899 in a manner very strongly suggesting that the school authorities found them to be engaged in forbidden clandestine activities.[

The "humiliating regime" undoubtedly contributed something to the transformation of seminarian Djugashvili into a revolutionary. But other factors were also involved, among them the fact that rebellion had already become a tradition in the seminary.

Why Djugashvili became a revolutionary is a question posed above but not adequately answered. We noted, first, that he himself explained it in later life as a reaction against the Jesuitical regime in the seminary; and secondly, that revolt was a living tradition in the institution when he entered it. A further contributing factor was personality.

A knowledge of the fundamentals of Marxism and the ability to explain them to ordinary workers were Djugashvili's chief stock-in-trade as a professional revolutionary.