Early Life, 1878-1912

About the lecture

In this module, we think about Stalin's early life, focusing in particular on the idea of Stalin as a revolutionary. As we move through the module, we consider his parents and his early education, the impact of the Russian government's 'Russification' policy, his involvement with the railway workers in Tiflis and later with the oil workers in Baku, his role in the 1907 Tiflis bank robbery, and his (unrelated) later arrests and time spent in prison.

About the lecturer

Christopher Read is Professor of Twentieth-Century European History at the University of Warwick. He specialises in the intellectual history of the Russian intelligentsia in the crucial years between 1900 and 1925 and the social history of the Russian Revolution. His recent publications include Lenin: A Revolutionary Life (2005) and War and Revolution in Russia: 1914-22 (2013).