 A mass amnesty for those imprisoned for non-political crimes was issued, halving the country's inmate population, while the state security and Gulag systems were reformed, with torture being banned in April 1953.Stalin claimed to have embraced Marxism at the age of fifteen, and it served as the guiding philosophy throughout his adult life; according to Kotkin, Stalin held "zealous Marxist convictions", while Montefiore suggested that Marxism held a "quasi-religious" value for Stalin.Although he never became a Georgian nationalist, during his early life elements from Georgian nationalist thought blended with Marxism in his outlook.