Stalin's Seminary Training

According to Roy Medvedev,

[Stalin] graduated with honors from the church school and in 1894 entered the Tiflis seminary.
In both institutions obscurantism, hypocrisy, constant petty supervision, and a system of
informing prevailed. The rules were very strict, with virtually military discipline being enforced.
It is not surprising that the seminaries of Russia produced revolutionaries as well as loyal servants
of the church and government . . . The Tiflis seminary gave Russia not only Stalin, but such
prominent revolutionaries as Mikha Tskhakaya, Noi Zhordania, Lado Ketskhoveli, Sylvester
Dzhibladze, Nikolai Chkheidze, and Filipp Makharadze. The seminary in
Armenia produced just as many important revolutionaries.


(Let History Judge: The Origins and Consequences of Stalinism. Ed. and translated by George Shriver.
New York: Columbia University Press, 1989, p. 28.)

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