Thanks Don

Don Nield wrote:
>
> James Mahaffy wrote:
>
> >I don't recall that anyone (myself included) asked James if Pearcy
> >footnoted her reference. I don't
> >recall that James gave a reference from Pearcy's account. Did she
> >provide a written source for her
> >assertion that Stalin read Darwin in seminary and afterwards became an
> >atheist? If she gave a
> >reference, then one could check it out and assess the soundness of the
> >source. If she did not, then
> >I wonder about the quality of her scholarship. How about it, James?
> >
> >In response to George I said:
> >
> >[snip] Nancy's footnote says the story was originally told in E.
> >Yaroslavsky Landmarks in the Life of stalin, 8-9."
> >
> >However, i don't know this source.
> >
> >
> I have just been to our library.
> Landmarks in the Life of Stalin, by E. Yaroslavsy, 1st English ed. 1942,
> Lawrence & Wishhart, London, reads: pp. 8-9. (Stalin was born 21
> Dec.1979) " From 1888 to 1894 he attended the eccelesiastical school in
> Gori ... While still a schoolboy, Stalin would often talk to workers and
> peasants and explain to them the causes of their poverty. G.
> Elisabedashvili, a schoolfellow of Stalin's tells how once, while
> walking in the country they came upon a group of ploughmen resting in a
> field; " ... Comrade Stalin explained step by step why the peasants
> lived so poorly, who exploited them, who were their friends and who
> their enemies. he spoke so simply and interestingly that the peasants
> begged him to come and talk to them."
> At a very early age, while still a pupil in the ecclesiatical school, he
> developed a critical mind and revolutionary sentiments; he began to read
> Darwin and became an atheist.
> G. Glurdjidze, a boyhood friend of Stalin's, relates:
> " I began to speak of God. Joseph heard me out, and after a moment's
> silence said:
> " ' You know, they are fooling us, there is no God.....
> I'll lend you a book to read; it will show you that the world and all
> living things are quite different from what you imagine, and all this
> talk about God is sheer nonsense,' Joseph said.
> " ' What book is that?" I enquired.
> ' ' Darwin. You must read it,' Joseph impressed on me."
>
> Judging by the number of copies in our library, the standard biography
> of Stalin is
> Stalin: A Political Biography, by I. Deutscher, Oxford U.P., New York,
> 1949. Page 8 reads.
> "Official Soviet biographers and memoirists claim that already at Gori
> their hero had read Darwin and become an atheist. One may doubt whether

Which means that there was more than one biographer that claimed this.
But perhaps as official biographers they might not be reliable.

> he could have read Darwin at so early an age. But he may have acquired a
> vague notion of the theory from popular summaries, and his mind may have
> turned against religion.

Again it sounds like he is giving possible credence to the story, while
raising some doubts.

>
> Joseph Stalin: Man and Legend, by Ronald Hingley, McGraw-Hill, New York,
> 1974, page 7, wrote:
> "Turning from such frivolities to the sensitive topic of politics, we
> find one gospeller of the developed Cult period-- Yaroslavsky--
> antedating the boy's active interest in this key theme. He has the child
> Joseph haranguing the worker and peasants of Gori on the causes of their
> poverty ... Yet Stalin himself had virtually disclaimed such political
> precociousness when he stated that he had not joined the revolutionary
> movement until his sixteenth year. Yaroslavsky may also be improving on
> Stalin's own version of the Gospel when he reports G. Glurdzhidze's tale
> of the boy Comrade converting his friend to atheism at Gori ... '
> ...I'll lend you a book to read ..."
>
> Draw your own conclusions about Nancy's scholarship!
> Don

It sounds like this historian is raising some doubt about the
credibility of Yaroslavsky as a solid historical source. So the story
may have had some truth (my interpretation of the quote from Deutsher
above) but Yaroslavsky was probably not the best source to cite.

Thanks Don this is the information that I was looking for.

And although Stalin did bad things lets not read things into Nancy's
book things that are not there. She is ONLY talking about his losing his
faith and NOT suggesting that Stalin's reading of Darwin caused his mass
murders. You should really look at how she uses the story and not jump
to conclusions. She also talks about the social Darwinism on other
figures (where she is on solid historical grounds). The story about
Stalin struck me as something that I should check out and again Don
provided the historical analysis I was after.

As I said before I think Nancy's book has a lot of good things to say
and much of it is about culture looks at the world and "facts". But if
we are going to talk about the strength and or weaknesses of the book
lets at least have looked at the book.

-- 
James and Florence Mahaffy    712 722-0381 (Home)
227 S. Main St.               712 722-6279 (Office)
Sioux Center, IA 51250