DBWI: Ioseb Jughashvili the Marxist

[Mort the Reaper]

Ioseb Jughashvili is widely considered to have been one of the most important religious leaders of the 20th century. But his life could very easily have taken a different path. While many have speculated how things might have changed had he decided to focus on becoming a poet, I'm going to take a somewhat different tack.

The Tbilisi Spiritual Seminary was notorious for the segments of its student body that followed radical ideologies, such as Marxism. Considering Jughashvili's self-admitted rebellious streak, it's not too difficult to imagine him falling in with these Marxists.

What if he had?

 

[PobreCesar]

While that’s certainly an interesting idea, I doubt the Russian Empire, as highly nationalistic as it was in the 20th century could have been persuaded to listen to a Georgian. Once the Communists came to power, things would only get a little better for him. Jughashvili lacked Trotsky’s charisma and would probably be given some minor bureaucratic function, which seems like a waste of such a great mind. But given the great contempt Jughashvili showed for exploitation of the poor in our timeline, I feel that he would wind up getting killed for speaking out against the Ten-Year Plan. Which would have been a tremendous waste of a great mind.