The beginning of Stalin's intellectual life lies in the last decade of the nineteenth century. Thousands of men, looking exactly like him, walk in the streets and thoroughfares of the Near East ; they sell fruits and carpets, drive camels and mules, polish shoes. He is of middle size, robust, muscular; he is about fifty-five. Toil has set its seal upon this organism; nevertheless, even today he is stronger than many of the younger generation. He has a sound, prim- itive nature; his ancestors lived a simple life, breathed pure mountain air, were not poisoned with city culture, worked more with their hands than with their brains. Even now he has tendons instead of nerves. But the countless wrinkles in his face betray a permanent inward activity. He is always dressed with exaggerated simplicity. The same simplicity marks his whole behavior; among people he tries to remain in the shade. This is not an inborn trait, but a gesture bor- rowed from Lenin. In his youth Stalin believed that the "leaders" must differ from other people by their exterior. Only later he realized that Lenin's modesty and simplicity exerted a powerful attraction upon the masses