This revelatory account unveils how Stalin became Stalin, examining his shadowy journey from obscurity to power-from master historian Simon Sebag Montefiore. Based on ten years of research, Young Stalin-companion to the prizewinning Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar-is a brilliant prehistory of the USSR, a chronicle of the Revolution, and an intimate biography. Montefiore tells the story of a charismatic, darkly turbulent boy born into poverty, scarred by his upbringing but possessed of unusual talents. Admired as a romantic poet and trained as a priest, he found his true mission as a murderous revolutionary. Here is the dramatic story of his friendships and hatreds, his