Tag: იოსებ ჯუღაშვილი

The 1878 Register of Infant Births kept in the Orthodox Episcopal Church of Gori City (Georgia) states (on page 33): “On December 6th, Gori resident and peasant Vissarion Ivanovich Dzhugashvili and his legal wife Ekaterina Gebrienovna gave birth to a son, Joseph”. This reference is taken as Stalin’s “actual” or “material” birthdate by many historians – although the former Catholic monk – Joseph McCabe – runs with the official date (explained below) which I find curious as he might well have had contacts who could have accessed the Church Records in Georgia. One reason might be that the politicised “Church” was viewed as acting hand-in-glove with the bourgeois (or “feudal” State in the Russian context) and therefore part of the problem that must be overthrown (that is, shifted from “public” to “private”). In this sense, who cares what the Church records? As the Secular State is primary (as the vehicle through which “Socialism” is achieved that leads to “Communism” and the dissolving of the State) – it should decide material reality and its manifestation.