Stalin: A Biography

Dzhughashvili, though, was undeterred. He had begun to make a mark for himself. Having moved involuntarily from Tbilisi, he did not gain a reputation as a congenial comrade; but this did not prevent him from imposing himself. In Batumi he found a set of workers ripe for being influenced by his summons to revolutionary activity; and he helped to organise the strikes and demonstrations against the monarchy. From Batumi he kept in touch with Baku, and Dzhughashvili was developing his skills in Marxist propaganda. Detention in Batumi Prison cut short his literary career, but he went on discussing his controversial strategic inclinations and giving papers on them.³⁴ He was held there for a year before being transferred to Kutaisi. Transferred back to Batumi, he was finally — in autumn 1903 — dispatched to the southern part of mid-Siberia. The destination was Novaya Uda in Irkutsk Province, where he arrived on 27 November. He escaped in early 1904 and made for Tbilisi. (This required two attempts. On the first occasion he foolishly failed to kit himself out with warm clothing for the Siberian winter and he was recaptured with badly frozen ears and face.)³⁵ The second attempt succeeded. From Tbilisi he travelled the length and breadth of the south Caucasus.

Grigol Uratadze, fellow prisoner in Kutaisi Prison, left a helpful memoir of Dzhughashvili in these years. He wrote long after Dzhughashvili had become Stalin and dictator of the USSR; and the two men were long-standing political opponents. Nevertheless the memoir has some credibility since Uratadze made no pretence that Dzhughashvili already seemed a potential dictator. Uratadze started by saying: ‘As an individual Stalin had no special distinguishing features.’ But then he contradicted himself:³⁶

He was a very dry person; one might even say that he was desiccated. For example, when we were let outside for exercise and all of us in our particular groups made for this or that corner of the prison yard, Stalin stayed by himself and walked backwards and forwards with his short paces, and if anyone tried speaking to him, he would open his mouth into that cold smile of his and perhaps say a few words. And this unsociability attracted general attention.

This was extraordinary behaviour for a prisoner with only a limited opportunity to talk to others. He had arrived in Kutaisi Prison as the sole ‘intellectual’ in the group of prisoners transferred from Batumi.³⁷ Yet he neither helped to keep up their morale nor sought out contact with intellectuals from his own party.³⁸

Kutaisi Prison was nostalgically remembered as a ‘university’ for its inmates.³⁹ Marxist prisoners read books and discussed ideas. Dzhughashvili, however, kept to himself. His strangeness impressed Uratadze:⁴⁰

He was scruffy and his pockmarked face made him not particularly neat in appearance… In prison he wore a beard and had long hair brushed back. He had a creeping way of walking, taking short steps. He never opened his mouth to laugh but only at most to smile. And the size of the smile depended on the volume of emotion evoked in him by a specific event; but his smile never turned into a full-mouthed laugh. He was completely imperturbable. We lived together in Kutaisi Prison for more than half a year and not once did I see him get agitated, lose control, get angry, shout, swear or — in short — reveal himself in any other aspect than complete calmness. And his voice exactly corresponded to the ‘glacial character’ which those who knew him well attributed to him.

If this were to be the only such testimony about him, it would be easily dismissed. But it fits with everything said about his personality before and after his period of confinement.