Young Stalin

By Simon Sebag Montefiore
496 pp. Knopf, 2007 $30.00

Reviewed by Zack Barnett

From his acne-scarred Georgian youth to his reign as Soviet tyrant, Joseph Stalin was more Vito Corleone than Winston Churchill, more Tony Soprano than Adolph Hitler, rubbing out enemies sometimes en masse to ensure not only his own survival, but the prosperity of his Soviet "family." At least that's how Simon Sebag Montefiore's intimate history Young Stalin (Knopf 2007) portrays him. At times Young Stalin reads like a Mario Puzo novel, with extortion, bank robbery, banditry and murder rolled together with ideals of loyalty and honor. Dramatic storytelling, however, should not overshadow the historical veracity of Sebag Montefiore's writing, the result of 10 years of research in 23 cities, including expeditions into recently opened archives in Eastern Europe and the former USSR.

Early in Young Stalin, Sebag Montefiore, a London-based historian and writer, wonders, "What missing empathy in Stalin's youth allowed him to kill so easily?" The nature of such a question, especially one about the rather secretive life of a man long dead, might tempt a narrative writer to delve into the shady realm of pseudo-non-fiction, filling in factual cracks with the liquid of fiction, molded for dramatic convenience. Instead, Sebag Montefiore seems to resist the temptation, using countless footnotes and more than 50 pages of source notes and bibliography in his pursuit of an answer to the age-old query, "What compels a psychopath?" The question lays the groundwork for an intriguing narrative, tracing the youth of the Soviet leader, born as Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, through 1913 when he took the name Stalin from stal, the Russian word for steel, to the October revolution of 1917. Young Stalin is a prequel to Sebag Montefiore's award-winning 2004 work, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, which begins with Stalin taking Soviet power and ends with his death.

Sebag Montefiore writes that Stalin's childhood of violence was "the ideal upbringing for the terrorist-gangster." Even before he entered a life of crime, Stalin wreaked havoc in his studies at seminary, recruiting Bolshevists, refusing to bow to teachers, growing his hair long, and laughing and chatting through prayers before ultimately announcing himself an atheist and leaving seminary. Stalin then plunged headlong into a life that ended up helping to shape the world. He worked to agitate workers and helped plot the murder of an uncooperative railroad boss. He engineered bank robberies and even eluded surveillance by jumping from a moving carriage into a snow bank, where he hid until his followers passed by. That Stalin accomplished these deeds in an effort to advance the revolutionary Soviet cause highlights the gangster-terrorist's cunning, organized and ruthless leadership.

The inner workings of tyrants and gangsters have long captivated readers as well as moviegoers. And perhaps more than anything, intimate and human portrayals of gangsters, from the Godfather franchise to HBO's Sopranos, have enjoyed success across generations. In combining scores of research with compelling narrative, Sebag Montefiore links gangster cultures across continents and history. In fact, perhaps the most troubling conclusion of all comes as reports of assassinations and rigged elections filter in from contemporary Russia. Stalin's legacy reigns supreme. Now, just as then, it's the ruthless gangsters who rise to power.