Hello, and thank you for listening to the history of World War II podcast, Episode 157,

Stalin Bio, Part 3.

Last time, Teenage Eosoph Soso Jugešvili had entered the Taflis seminary school, with

thoughts of getting through its six-year course and then seeing what he could make of his

future in whatever capacity, as a priest or school teacher.

But as we have also seen, the seminary was already and had been a battleground of ideas and

Russian loyalty.

Soso did well at first in his grades, he sang in the choir, but was also exposed to ideas,

bigger ideas, than the church wanted or found offensive and disloyal.

Soso, like every other boy soon to be man on the planet, had looked up to older men.

First, there was his father, Beso, who had much to admire, except when he was drunk and

violent.

Then there was the family friend, the older Soso, who had had some success in life, had

been able to put his own sons through school, and had been willing to help out our Soso,

with his school bills.

Was that because he and Eosoph's mother, KKK, had been intimate?

We will never know.

Either way, the boy was now in school, which is where he met other boys, older boys, who

had already suffered at the hands of their priest teachers, and specifically their priest

handlers.

The men whose duty was to simply watch over their charges mortal souls.

And yet, in their application of said duty, came clashes.

...