He was a complicated guy. Grew up with an abusive father and a mother who left his dad and basically raised Stalin by herself.

Isn't a lot of that sourced from historical fabricator Simon Sebag Montefiore's Young Stalin? From my understanding of what's written by him and about him from reputable authors and historians, his father was not abusive nor entirely absent from his life up till his departure to seminary school. That's not saying he didn't get his ass whooped, as such was a historical and cultural norm of the period.

As I recall reading from both Kotkin, Barbusse, and G. Roberts, Stalin was more closer to a scholarly type than a rough and tumble gangster. I think to save myself time from writing another Stalin dissertation, I'll wrap up by saying even the modern communist understanding of who Stalin was is incredibly flawed as well.