Born Ioseb Besarionis dze Jughashvili in Gori, Georgia , to a cobbler and a house cleaner, he grew up in the city and attended school there before moving to Tiflis modern-day Tbilisi to join the Tiflis Seminary. While a student at the seminary he embraced Marxism and became an avid follower of Vladimir Lenin , and left the seminary to become a revolutionary.
After being marked by Russian secret police for his activities, he became a full-time revolutionary and was involved in a various criminal activities as a robber , gangster and arsonist. Stalin was captured and exiled to Siberia numerous times, but often escaped. He became one of Lenin's closest associates, which helped him rise to the heights of power after the Russian Revolution. In Stalin was exiled to Siberia for the final time, and remained in exile until the February Revolution of led to the overthrow of the Russian Empire.
He was baptised on 29 December [ O. He was their third child; the first two, Mikheil and Giorgi, had died in infancy.
Stalin's father, Besarion, was a shoemaker and owned a workshop that at one point employed as many as ten people, [ 7 ] but which slid into ruin as Stalin grew up. The family found themselves living in poverty. Besarion also became violent towards his family. Although Keke was poor, she ensured that her son was well dressed when he went to school, likely through the financial support of family friends.
When Stalin was twelve, he was seriously injured after having been hit by a phaeton. He was hospitalised in Tiflis for several months, and sustained a lifelong disability to his left arm. In July , Stalin passed his exams and his teachers recommended him to the Tiflis Seminary.
