"Rise of a Gangster," by Orlando Figes - NYRB 11/8/07
In 1902, Stalin was arrested, charged with organizing the disturbances in Batumi where seven thousand workers had clashed with mounted Cossacks, and imprisoned while he awaited sentencing. He soon became the boss of the whole city jail, "dominating his friends, terrorizing the intellectuals, suborning the guards and befriending the criminals," . . . It was significant, and a sign of things to come, that Stalin, by his own admission, preferred the company of criminals to that of revolutionaries, "because there were so many rats among the politicals." He always had a loathing and mistrust of revolutionary intellectuals; he suspected them of treachery, kept them at a distance from himself (or simply wiped them out), and relied instead on criminals whose loyalty he could easily manipulate. . . .
Stalin was certainly the mastermind of the spectacular attack carried out by Kamo and his gang on the State Bank in Tiflis in June 1907. . . . [T]he robbers gunned down guards and threw bombs under horse-drawn carriages, before running off with heavy bags of rubles worth approximately $3.4 million in today's money--enough to fund the Bolsheviks for several years.
Stalin was certainly the mastermind of the spectacular attack carried out by Kamo and his gang on the State Bank in Tiflis in June 1907. . . . [T]he robbers gunned down guards and threw bombs under horse-drawn carriages, before running off with heavy bags of rubles worth approximately $3.4 million in today's money--enough to fund the Bolsheviks for several years.