Is this really Joseph Stalin as a young man?

[Zoe]

**Dewey:**The first one looks more like an illustration than a photograph.

Colophone: That’s what I was going to say. At the very least it looks heavily retouched.

Portraits from that period often had that altered or retouched look to them. I have a large portrait of my great-grandparents that has the same quality. I don’t know what process was used.

I think the notion that we can detect evil in a face is probably nonsense. Most mug shots look like hell except Sinatra’s.

http://www.allposters.com/-sp/Frank-Sinatra-Mugshot-Posters_i8960054_.htm

Judging from the eyebrows alone, I think all three in the OP are the same person.

[astro]

@Dewey_Finn

The first one looks more like an illustration than a photograph.

This. That first 15 YO pic does not look like a photo.

[BrotherCadfael]

The middle one looks like you would find him in a coffeehouse giving bad poetry readings and putting the moves on the hippie girls.

[Slithy_Tove]

Somewhere I read that Beria kept on his good side by keeping him supplied with women. He was a major do-them-on-the-stone-floor horndog like Mussolini, but when he wanted one he didn’t want to make much effort getting her. And his preference was for big girls.

[MEBuckner]

@BrotherCadfael

The middle one looks like you would find him in a coffeehouse giving bad poetry readings and putting the moves on the hippie girls.

No information about the hippie girls, but: Stalin’s poetry.

[Asympotically_fat]

Yes definitely, all those pictures appear in the book Young Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore.