of Gori, Tiflis province in the family of a shoemaker and a daughter of a serf. In 1894 he graduated from the Gori church school, the same year he entered the Tiflis Orthodox Seminary. In August 1898 he joined the RSDLP. In 1899, excluded from the final year of seminary for participation in Marxist circles. In 1901, the first arrested for organizing a May Day demonstration in Tbilisi and has since led the life of a professional revolutionary underground. Repeatedly referred to the remote northern and eastern regions of the country, which, as a rule, escapes. Having started its operations in the Caucasus, Stalin eventually moved to the national level. In 1912, after the Prague Conference of the RSDLP (B), in absentia, co-opted into the Central Committee and head of its Russian office. With the active participation of Stalin prepared and published the first issue of the newspaper "Pravda". At the same time, he takes his world-famous nickname, and publishes it under his first major theoretical work - "Marxism and the National Question", highly valued by Lenin.