Chapter One - Gori

CHAPTER ONE

Gori

STALIN WAS BORN in 1878 in a small town in Georgia called Gori. Back then, Georgia was part of the Russian Empire, but it wasn’t Russian. The people spoke a different language, followed different customs, and didn’t exactly love being ruled by the tsar.

His real name wasn’t Stalin. It was Ioseb Jughashvili. Everyone called him Soso.

He grew up poor. His father was a shoemaker who drank too much and beat him often. His mother, a deeply religious woman, worked as a laundress and pushed him toward the church. She wanted him to become a priest. She saw that as his best shot at escaping poverty.

The house he grew up in was small, cramped, and violent. His father eventually left, or was thrown out depending on the story, and after that, it was just Soso and his mother. She kept him focused, got him into the local church school, and made sure he stayed on track.

That school changed everything.

Soso was smart. He could memorize long passages of text and recite them word-for-word. He didn’t talk much, but when he did, people listened. He kept to himself, but he watched everything. He got into fights but didn’t lose them. Even as a kid, he held grudges. And he didn’t let things go.

When he was six, he got smallpox. It left his face scarred for life. A few years later, he was hit by a horse-drawn carriage and injured his left arm. It never healed correctly. The arm was shorter, slightly deformed, and he hated talking about it.

By the time he was a teenager, he had already learned a few important lessons: the world wasn’t fair, weakness got punished, and control was everything.

That’s the version of childhood he brought with him into adulthood. He wasn’t nostalgic. He didn’t glorify it. He carried it like a weapon.

And the people who grew up with him? Most of them didn’t recognize the man he became.

Because Soso didn’t stay in Gori.
He became something else.