and his mother a respectable pension, upon which Adolf was to rely during his youth up to the First World War. His mother saw to it that Adolf went to good schools; but he was an indifferent student. Leaving secondary school in 1905, he applied to the Vienna Academy of Fine Arts, determined to become an artist. Rejected twice, he ended up wandering the streets of Vienna for several years, living off his family's pensions and eventually becoming nearly destitute just prior to the First World War.
As can be seen, their backgrounds up to adulthood were somewhat similar. While neither was born or raised in a destitute family, they did not benefit from any family connections which might have helped them in their later public lives; both had to start their political careers from scratch. Both had stern and authoritarian fathers and loving mothers who may have spoiled them. Stalin did well in academic subjects in school but had trouble following authority; Hitler, on the other hand, did not distinguish himself, academically or otherwise, in school. The respective paths of their lives diverged considerably after they left school: Stalin immediately immersed himself in the Marxist movement while Hitler wandered aimlessly as a loner in Vienna. While Stalin began working towards his ambition as leader of the Marxist movement in Russia at age 20, Hitler envisioned himself as an "artist" and virtually withdrew from normal human contact. Both developed opinions of themselves as being different from and superior to others, opinions which would carry them through their adult lives.
During Stalin's tenure in the Marxist movement prior to the 1917 Revolution, he established a definite character which would stay with him throughout his life. Never an accomplished public speaker, he nevertheless became one of the leaders in the movement, primarily by playing at party politics better than the others. During party meetings, he would leav...