Thread by @DrAlakbarov

Thread about Joseph Stalin's adventures in Caucasus since most media outlets often ignore this part of his life.

In 1905, Stalin was in Baku when a spate of ethnic violence broke out between Armenians and Azerbaijanis; at least 2000 were killed.

Stalin formed a Bolshevik Battle Squad which he ordered to try and keep the warring ethnic factions apart, also using the unrest to steal printing equipment.

He proceeded to Tbilisi, where he organised a demonstration of ethnic reconciliation.

Amid the growing violence, Stalin organised his own armed Red Battle Squads, with the Mensheviks doing the same.

These armed revolutionary groups disarmed local police and troops, and gained further weaponry by raiding government arsenals.

Stalin's militia launched attacks on the government's Cossack troops and Black Hundreds.

The Black Hundred was an ultra-nationalist movement in Russia, was a staunch supporter of the House of Romanov and opposed any retreat from the autocracy of the reigning monarch.

After Cossacks opened fire on a student meeting, killing 60 of those assembled, Stalin retaliated in September by launching 9 simultaneous attacks on the Cossacks. In October, Stalin's militia agreed to co-operate many of its attacks with the local Menshevik militia.

On 26 November 1905, the Georgian Bolsheviks elected Stalin and two others as their delegates to a Bolshevik conference due to be held in Saint Petersburg.

Using the nickname of "Ivanovitch", Stalin set off by train in early December, and on arrival met with Lenin's wife Nadezhda Krupskaya, who informed them that the venue had been moved to Tammerfors in the Grand Duchy of Finland.

It was at the conference that Stalin met Lenin for the first time.

Although back then Stalin held Lenin in deep respect, he was vocal in his disagreement with Lenin's view that the Bolsheviks should field candidates for the forthcoming election to the State Duma.

n Stalin's absence, General Fyodor Griiazanov had crushed the Tiflis rebels. Stalin's Battle Squads had to go into hiding and operate from the underground.

When Stalin returned to the city, he co-organised the assassination of Griiazanov with local Mensheviks.

Stalin also established a small group which he called the Bolshevik Expropriators Club, although it would more widely be known as the Outfit. Containing about 10 members, 3 of whom were women, the group procured arms, facilitated prison escapes, raided banks + executed traitors.

During 1906, the Outfit carried out a series of bank robberies and hold-ups of stage coaches transporting money.

Stalin had continued to edit this newspaper, and also contributed articles to it using the pseudonyms "Koba" and "Besoshvili".

In Baku, he moved his family into a seafront house just outside the city. There, he edited two Bolshevik newspapers, Bakinsky Proletary and Gudok.

In August 1907, Stalin travelled to Germany to attend the Seventh Congress of the II International, which took place in Stuttgart.

Stalin had returned to Baku in September, where the city was undergoing another spate of ethnic violence.

In Baku, he helped to secure Bolshevik domination of the local RSDLP branch. While devoting himself to revolutionary activity, Stalin had been neglecting his wife and child.

Stalin's beloved Kato fell ill with typhus, and so he took her back to Tbilisi to be with her family.

She died in Stalin's arms on 22 November 1907. Fearing that he would commit suicide, Stalin's friends confiscated his revolver.

During the funeral, Stalin threw himself onto the coffin in grief; he then had to escape the churchyard when he saw Okhrana members approaching.

Shortly after Kato's death, Stalin reassembled the Outfit and began publicly calling for more workers' strikes. #Businessasusual

Not long after, the Outfit carried out a raid on Baku's naval arsenal, during which several guards were killed.

Stalin also co-operated with Hummat, the Muslim Bolshevik group, & was involved in assisting the arming of the Persian Revolution against Mohammad Ali Shah Qajar (pic)

At some point in 1908 Stalin travelled to Geneva to meet with Lenin.

On 25 March 1908, Stalin was arrested in a police raid and interred in Baku's notorius Bailov Prison (now demolished).

In prison, he studied Esperanto, then regarding it as the language of the future.

Leading the Bolsheviks imprisoned there, he organised discussion groups and had those suspected of being police spies killed. Stalin planned an escape attempt but it was later cancelled.

He was eventually sentenced to 2 years exile in the village of Solvychegodsk, Russia.

According to my great grandfather, Stalin never faced any violence in Bailov prison.

A lot of inmates were badly beaten there but Stalin had a lot of "freedom". His allies bribed the guards, so Stalin can roam free during the day.

When Stalin gained power, a lot of inmates that served with him in Bailov prison, went to see him to ask favours.

All of them were shot dead.

By July 1909, Stalin was back in Baku. There he began to express the need for the Bolsheviks to help boost their ailing fortunes by re-uniting with the Mensheviks. He was increasingly frustrated with Lenin's factionalist attitudes.

In October 1909, Stalin was arrested alongside several fellow Bolsheviks, but bribed the police officers into letting them escape.

He was arrested again on 23 March 1910, this time with Petrovskaya.

Stalin was sentenced into internal exile and sent back to Solvychegodsk, being banned from returning to the South Caucasus for five years.