This is CBS I In The World. I'm John Boucher with Jeffrey Roberts, professor at the University

of College Cork, an emeritus professor of history, and his new book is Stalin's Library,

a dictator in his books. Stalin is now a young man, eager for more about Marxism, and in

1905 he travels to Petersburg outside of Petersburg. There's a very famous painting you can all

witness it, of Stalin standing at a table where Lenin is seated and writing out documents

or signing books. Lenin is famous. His name is Olyanov, he's the son of a middle-class

educator, and Stalin is the wayward son of a poor cobbler, and at this point he's also

traveled from Georgia all the way to Petersburg, the capital of the Russian Empire. Professor,

the fact of the matter is that Stalin adored Lenin, celebrated Lenin, made Lenin into the

center of his world. What was it that attracted him? Had he read Lenin at this point? Or did

he see something in Lenin's eyes? I'm trying to imagine what that painting is supposed

to convey.

Okay, so Stalin drops out of the seminary where he was trying to be a priest, because

he's Olyanov's life is changed from reading, actually, and he now considers himself to be

a sociologist. He gravitates towards the revolutionary movement in Russia, and the movement

that he joins, the party joins is the Russian social democratic and the Labour party, Marxist

based organisation, but that party, not long after, so Stalin joins in 1898, but few years

later, not many years later, that party splits, it splits into two factions, right? So called

Bolshevik faction or majority faction, headed by Lenin, and there's also a faction called

Dimensionics, or not a minority faction.

Okay, so Stalin aligns himself with Lenin's Bolshevik faction, and from then on, Lenin

is a completely committed supporter of Bolshevism and a completely committed supporter of Lenin.

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