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Stalin and the Scientists: A History of Triumph and Tragedy, 1905–1953
by Simon Ings&“One of the finest, most gripping surveys of the history of Russian science in the twentieth century.&” —Douglas Smith, author of Former People: The Final Days of the Russian Aristocracy Stalin and the Scientists tells the story of the many gifted scientists who worked in Russia from the years leading up to the revolution through the death of the &“Great Scientist&” himself, Joseph Stalin. It weaves together the stories of scientists, politicians, and ideologues into an intimate and sometimes horrifying portrait of a state determined to remake the world. They often wreaked great harm. Stalin was himself an amateur botanist, and by falling under the sway of dangerous charlatans like Trofim Lysenko (who denied the existence of genes), and by relying on antiquated ideas of biology, he not only destroyed the lives of hundreds of brilliant scientists, he caused the death of millions through famine. But from atomic physics to management theory, and from radiation biology to neuroscience and psychology, these Soviet experts also made breakthroughs that forever changed agriculture, education, and medicine. A masterful book that deepens our understanding of Russian history, Stalin and the Scientists is a great achievement of research and storytelling, and a gripping look at what happens when science falls prey to politics. Longlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction in 2016 A New York Times Book Review &“Paperback Row&” selection &“Ings&’s research is impressive and his exposition of the science is lucid . . . Filled with priceless nuggets and a cast of frauds, crackpots and tyrants, this is a lively and interesting book, and utterly relevant today.&” —The New York Times Book Review &“A must read for understanding how the ideas of scientific knowledge and technology were distorted and subverted for decades across the Soviet Union.&” —The Washington Post
Stalin and the Struggle for Supremacy in Eurasia
by Alfred J. RieberThis is a major new study of the successor states that emerged in the wake of the collapse of the great Russian, Habsburg, Iranian, Ottoman and Qing Empires and of the expansionist powers who renewed their struggle over the Eurasian borderlands through to the end of the Second World War. Surveying the great power rivalry between the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan for control over the Western and Far Eastern boundaries of Eurasia, Alfred J. Rieber provides a new framework for understanding the evolution of Soviet policy from the Revolution through to the beginning of the Cold War. Paying particular attention to the Soviet Union, the book charts how these powers adopted similar methods to the old ruling elites to expand and consolidate their conquests, ranging from colonisation and deportation to forced assimilation, but applied them with a force that far surpassed the practices of their imperial predecessors.
Stalin as Warlord
by Alfred J. RieberAn authoritative account of Stalin as a wartime leader—showing how his paradoxical policies of mass mobilization and repression affected all aspects of Soviet society The Second World War was the defining moment in the history of the Soviet Union. With Stalin at the helm, it emerged victorious at a huge economic and human cost. But even before the fighting had ended, Stalin began to turn against the architects of success. In this original and comprehensive study, Alfred J. Rieber examines Stalin as a wartime leader, arguing that his policies were profoundly paradoxical. In preparation for the war, Stalin mobilized the whole of Soviet society in pursuit of his military goals and intensified the centralization of his power. Yet at the same time, his use of terror weakened the forces vital to the defense of the country. In his efforts to rebuild the country after the devastating losses and destruction, he suppressed groups that had contributed immeasurably to victory. His steady, ruthless leadership cultivated a legacy that was to burden the Soviet Union and Russia to the present day.
Stalin's Curse
by Robert GellatelyA chilling, riveting account based on newly released Russian documentation that reveals Joseph Stalin's true motives--and the extent of his enduring commitment to expanding the Soviet empire--during the years in which he seemingly collaborated with Franklin D. Roosevelt, Winston Churchill, and the capitalist West. At the Big Three conferences of World War II, Stalin persuasively played the role of a great world leader. Even astute observers like George F. Kennan concluded that the United States and Great Britain should view Stalin as a modern-day tsarist-like figure whose primary concerns lay in international strategy and power politics, not in ideology. Now Robert Gellately uses recently uncovered documents to make clear that, in fact, the dictator was an unwavering revolutionary merely biding his time, determined as ever to establish Communist regimes across Europe and beyond, and that his actions during these years (and the poorly calculated Western responses) set in motion what would eventually become the Cold War. Gellately takes us behind the scenes. We see the dictator disguising his political ambitions and prioritizing the future of Communism, even as he pursued the war against Hitler. Along the way, the ascetic dictator's Machiavellian moves and bouts of irrationality kept the Western leaders on their toes, in a world that became more dangerous and divided year by year. Exciting, deeply engaging, and shrewdly perceptive, Stalin's Curse is an unprecedented revelation of the sinister machinations of the Soviet dictator.
Stalin's Englishman: Guy Burgess, the Cold War, and the Cambridge Spy Ring
by Andrew LownieGuy Burgess was the most important, complex, and fascinating of "The Cambridge Spies"--Maclean, Philby, Blunt--brilliant young men recruited in the 1930s to betray their country to the Soviet Union. An engaging and charming companion to many, an unappealing, utterly ruthless manipulator to others, Burgess rose through academia, the BBC, the Foreign Office, MI5 and MI6, gaining access to thousands of highly sensitive secret documents which he passed to his Russian handlers.In this first full biography, Andrew Lownie shows us how even Burgess's chaotic personal life of drunken philandering did nothing to stop his penetration and betrayal of the British Intelligence Service. Even when he was under suspicion, the fabled charm which had enabled many close personal relationships with influential Establishment figures (including Winston Churchill) prevented his exposure as a spy for many years.Through interviews with more than a hundred people who knew Burgess personally, many of whom have never spoken about him before, and the discovery of hitherto secret files, Stalin's Englishman brilliantly unravels the many lives of Guy Burgess in all their intriguing, chilling, colorful, tragi-comic wonder.
Stalin's Great Game: War and Neutrality, 1939-1941
by Michael Jabara CarleyThe period from September 1939 to early 1942 was crucial for Soviet foreign policy and coincided with the early stages of the Second World War, including the Great Patriotic War. In Stalin’s Great Game, Michael Jabara Carley unpacks the complexities of Soviet diplomacy during this time, addressing key issues such as the Soviet-Finnish Winter War, Soviet views on the fall of France and the Battle of Britain, efforts to remain neutral in Europe, Soviet relations with both Britain and Nazi Germany, and the formation of the Grand Alliance against the Axis powers.Drawing on extensive research from multilingual archives in France, Britain, the United States, and the USSR, Carley offers a comprehensive narrative that explores Soviet intelligence activities, especially of the “Cambridge Five” spy ring and Nazi Germany’s preparations for Operation Barbarossa, the invasion of the Soviet Union. The book also re-evaluates historiographical debates on Stalin’s interpretation of Soviet intelligence and Hitler’s intentions towards the USSR. The third volume in Carley’s trilogy on the origins and early conduct of the Second World War, Stalin’s Great Game provides a fresh re-examination of key events and interpretations by both Western and Soviet historians, introducing new ideas and perspectives on this critical period.
Stalin's Holy War
by Steven Merritt MinerHistories of the USSR during World War II generally portray the Kremlin's restoration of the Russian Orthodox Church as an attempt by an ideologically bankrupt regime to appeal to Russian nationalism in order to counter the mortal threat of Nazism. Here, Steven Merritt Miner argues that this version of events, while not wholly untrue, is incomplete. Using newly opened Soviet-era archives as well as neglected British and American sources, he examines the complex and profound role of religion, especially Russian Orthodoxy, in the policies of Stalin's government during World War II.Miner demonstrates that Stalin decided to restore the Church to prominence not primarily as a means to stoke the fires of Russian nationalism but as a tool for restoring Soviet power to areas that the Red Army recovered from German occupation. The Kremlin also harnessed the Church for propaganda campaigns aimed at convincing the Western Allies that the USSR, far from being a source of religious repression, was a bastion of religious freedom. In his conclusion, Miner explores how Stalin's religious policy helped shape the postwar history of the USSR.
Stalin's Last Crime
by Vladimir Naumov Jonathan BrentA new investigation, based on previously unseen KGB documents, reveals the startling truth behind Stalin's last great conspiracy. On January 13, 1953, a stunned world learned that a vast conspiracy had been unmasked among Jewish doctors in the USSR to murder Kremlin leaders. Mass arrests quickly followed. The Doctors' Plot, as this alleged scheme came to be called, was Stalin's last crime. In the fifty years since Stalin's death many myths have grown up about the Doctors' Plot. Did Stalin himself invent the conspiracy against the Jewish doctors or was it engineered by subordinates who wished to eliminate Kremlin rivals? Did Stalin intend a purge of all Jews from Moscow, Leningrad, and other major cities, which might lead to a Soviet Holocaust? How was this plot related to the cold war then dividing Europe, and the hot war in Korea? Finally, was the Doctors' Plot connected with Stalin's fortuitous death? Brent and Naumov have explored an astounding arra of previously unknown, top-secret documents from the KGB, the presidential archives, and other state and party archives in order to probe the mechanism of on of Stalin's greatest intrigues -- and to tell for the first time the incredible full story of the Doctors' Plot.
Stalin's Library: A Dictator and his Books
by Geoffrey RobertsA compelling intellectual biography of Stalin told through his personal library &“[A] fascinating new study.&”—Michael O&’Donnell, Wall Street Journal In this engaging life of the twentieth century&’s most self-consciously learned dictator, Geoffrey Roberts explores the books Stalin read, how he read them, and what they taught him. Stalin firmly believed in the transformative potential of words and his voracious appetite for reading guided him throughout his years. A biography as well as an intellectual portrait, this book explores all aspects of Stalin&’s tumultuous life and politics. Stalin, an avid reader from an early age, amassed a surprisingly diverse personal collection of thousands of books, many of which he marked and annotated revealing his intimate thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Based on his wide-ranging research in Russian archives, Roberts tells the story of the creation, fragmentation, and resurrection of Stalin&’s personal library. As a true believer in communist ideology, Stalin was a fanatical idealist who hated his enemies—the bourgeoisie, kulaks, capitalists, imperialists, reactionaries, counter-revolutionaries, traitors—but detested their ideas even more.
Stalin's Loyal Executioner: People's Commissar Nikolai Ezhov, 1895-1940
by Nikita Petrov Marc JansenStalin's Loyal Executioner, drawn from still-classified Soviet archives, chronicles the meteoric and bloody career of Nikolai Ezhov, NKVD leader and security chief, revealing the tragic scope of communist terrorism under Joseph Stalin.
Stalin's Master Narrative: A Critical Edition of the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks), Short Course (Annals of Communism Series)
by David Brandenberger Mikhail V. ZelenovA critical edition of the text that defined communist party ideology in Stalin’s Soviet Union The Short Course on the History of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) defined Stalinist ideology both at home and abroad. It was quite literally the the master narrative of the USSR—a hegemonic statement on history, politics, and Marxism-Leninism that scripted Soviet society for a generation. This study exposes the enormous role that Stalin played in the development of this all-important text, as well as the unparalleled influence that he wielded over the Soviet historical imagination.
Stalin's Meteorologist: One Man's Untold Story of Love, Life, and Death
by Olivier RolinWinner of the 2014 Prix du Style "Masterful . . . An eloquent addition to a violent episode in the history of science in the twentieth century." —Nature In 1934, the highly respected head of the Soviet Union’s meteorology department, Alexei Feodosievich Wangenheim, was suddenly arrested without cause and sentenced to a gulag. Less than a year after being hailed by Stalin as a national hero, he ended up with thousands of other "political prisoners" in a camp on Solovetsky Island, under vast northern skies and surrounded by water that was, for more than six months of the year, a sheet of motionless ice. He was violently executed in 1937—a fact kept from his family for nearly twenty years. Olivier Rolin masterfully weaves together Alexei's story and his eventual fate, drawing on an archive of letters and delicate drawings of the natural world that Wangenheim sent to his family from prison. Tragically, Wangenheim never stopped believing in the Revolution, maintaining that he'd been incarcerated by accident, that any day Stalin would find out and free him. His stubbornness suffuses the narrative with tension, and offers insight as to how he survived an impossible situation for so long. Stalin’s Meteorologist is a fascinating work that casts light on the devastating consequences of politically inspired paranoia and the mindlessness and trauma of totalitarianism—relevant revelations for our time.
Stalin's Nose: Across the Face of Europe
by Rory MacleanThis surreal and darkly comic tale is based on the author's journey from Berlin to Moscow, through Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland and Romania, only weeks after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Stalin's Quest for Gold: The Torgsin Hard-Currency Shops and Soviet Industrialization
by Elena OsokinaStalin's Quest for Gold tells the story of Torgsin, a chain of retail shops established in 1930 with the aim of raising the hard currency needed to finance the USSR's ambitious industrialization program. At a time of desperate scarcity, Torgsin had access to the country's best foodstuffs and goods. Initially, only foreigners were allowed to shop in Torgsin, but the acute demand for hard-currency revenues forced Stalin to open Torgsin to Soviet citizens who could exchange tsarist gold coins and objects made of precious metals and gemstones, as well as foreign monies, for foods and goods in its shops. Through her analysis of the large-scale, state-run entrepreneurship represented by Torgsin, Elena Osokina highlights the complexity and contradictions of Stalinism. Driven by the state's hunger for gold and the people's starvation, Torgsin rejected Marxist postulates of the socialist political economy: the notorious class approach and the state hard-currency monopoly. In its pursuit for gold, Torgsin advertised in the capitalist West, encouraging foreigners to purchase goods for their relatives in the USSR; and its seaport shops and restaurants operated semilegally as brothels, inducing foreign sailors to spend hard currency for Soviet industrialization. Examining Torgsin from multiple perspectives—economic expediency, state and police surveillance, consumerism, even interior design and personnel—Stalin's Quest for Gold radically transforms the stereotypical view of the Soviet economy and enriches our understanding of everyday life in Stalin's Russia.
Stalin's Russia: And the Crisis in Socialism (Routledge Revivals)
by Max EastmanFirst published in 1940, Stalin’s Russia is a close study of the development of the Stalinist regime and the flaws in socialist doctrine that made it possible. The book examines the contrasts between the "free and equal" society heralded by the Marxist-Leninist programme and the totalitarian state that emerged in its place. It makes use of a wealth of material to cast light on the inner workings of Stalin’s regime. It explores the significance of the Stalin-Hitler pact, and argues that the word "socialism" itself became a liability to any genuine movement of liberation as a result.
Stalin's Scribe: Literature, Ambition, And Survival: The Life Of Mikhail Sholokhov
by Brian BoeckA masterful and definitive biography of one of the most misunderstood and controversial writers in Russian literature. Mikhail Sholokhov is arguable one of the most contentious recipients of the Nobel Prize in Literature. As a young man, Sholokhov’s epic novel, Quiet Don, became an unprecedented overnight success. Stalin’s Scribe is the first biography of a man who was once one of the Soviet Union’s most prominent political figures. Thanks to the opening of Russia’s archives, Brian Boeck discovers that Sholokhov’s official Soviet biography is actually a tangled web of legends, half-truths, and contradictions. Boeck examines the complex connection between an author and a dictator, revealing how a Stalinist courtier became an ideological acrobat and consummate politician in order to stay in favor and remain relevant after the dictator’s death. Stalin's Scribe is remarkable biography that both reinforces and clashes with our understanding of the Soviet system. It reveals a Sholokhov who is bold, uncompromising, and sympathetic—and reconciles him with the vindictive and mean-spirited man described in so many accounts of late Soviet history. Shockingly, at the height of the terror, which claimed over a million lives, Sholokhov became a member of the most minuscule subset of the Soviet Union’s population—the handful of individuals whom Stalin personally intervened to save.
Stalin's Usable Past: A Critical Edition of the 1937 Short History of the USSR (Stanford–Hoover Series on Authoritarianism)
by David BrandenbergerAt the height of the Great Terror in 1937, Joseph Stalin took a break from the purges to edit a new textbook on the history of the USSR. Published shortly thereafter, the Short History of the USSR amounted to an ideological sea change. Stalin had literally rewritten Russo-Soviet History, breaking with two decades of Bolshevik propaganda that styled the 1917 Revolution as the start of a new era. In its place, he established a thousand-year pedigree for the Soviet state that stretched back through the Russian empire and Muscovy to the very dawn of Slavic civilization. Appearing in million-copy print runs through 1955, the Short History transformed how a generation of Soviet citizens were to understand the past, not only in public school and adult indoctrination courses, but on the printed page, the theatrical stage, and the silver screen. Stalin's Usable Past supplies a critical edition of the Short History that both analyzes the text and places it in historical context. By highlighting Stalin's precise redactions and embellishments, historian David Brandenberger reveals the scope of Stalin's personal involvement in the textbook's development, documenting in unprecedented detail his plans for the transformation of Soviet society's historical imagination.
Stalin's War: A New History of World War II
by Sean McMeekinA prize-winning historian reveals how Stalin—not Hitler—was the animating force of World War II in this major new history.We remember World War II as a struggle between good and evil, with Hitler propelling events and the Allied powers saving the day. But Hitler's armies did not fight in multiple theaters, his empire did not span the Eurasian continent, and he did not inherit the spoils of war. That role belonged to Joseph Stalin. Hitler's genocidal ambition may have unleashed Armageddon, but as celebrated historian Sean McMeekin shows, the conflicts that emerged were the result of Stalin's maneuverings, orchestrated to unleash a war between capitalist powers in Europe and between Japan and the Anglo-American forces in the Pacific. Meanwhile, the United States and Britain's self-defeating strategy of supporting Stalin and his armies at all costs allowed the Soviets to conquer most of Eurasia, from Berlin to Beijing, for Communism.A groundbreaking reassessment, Stalin's War is essential reading for anyone looking to understand the roots of the current world order.
Stalin's World
by James Harris Sarah DaviesDrawing on declassified material from Stalin's personal archive, this is the first systematic attempt to analyze how Stalin saw his world--both the Soviet system he was trying to build and its wider international context. Stalin rarely left his offices and viewed the world largely through the prism of verbal and written reports, meetings, articles, letters, and books. Analyzing these materials, Sarah Davies and James Harris provide a new understanding of Stalin's thought process and leadership style and explore not only his perceptions and misperceptions of the world but the consequences of these perceptions and misperceptions.
Stalin: A Pocket Biography
by Harold ShukmanJoseph Stalin was one of the most ruthless and authoritarian dictators in world history, who plunged Russia into a barbarous nightmare, leaving behind a damaged nation and a legacy of grief.This concise biography presents Lenin’s heir from his humble and troubled beginnings to the highest rank of all: General Secretary of the Communist Party. Stalin: A Pocket Biography is an accessible account of a complex tyrant, perfect for students or anyone taking a first look into modern Russian history.
Stalin: From the Caucasus to the Kremlin (Routledge Historical Biographies)
by Christopher ReadThis new biography of Stalin offers an accessible and up-to-date representation of one of the twentieth-century’s defining figures, as well as new insights, analysis and illumination to deepen our understanding of his actions, intentions and the nature of the power that he wielded. Christopher Read examines Stalin’s contribution to and impact on Russian and world events in the first half of the twentieth century. The biography brings together the avalanche of sources and scholarship which followed the collapse of the system Stalin constructed, including the often neglected writings and speeches of Stalin himself. In addition to a detailed narrative and analysis of Stalin’s rule, chapters also cover his early years and humble beginnings in a small town at a remote outpost of the Russian Empire, his role in the revolution, his relationships with Lenin, Trotsky and others in the 1920s, and his rise to become one of the most powerful figures in human history. The book closes with an account of Stalin’s afterlife and legacy, both in the immediate aftermath of his death and in the decades since. This concise account of Stalin’s life is the perfect introduction for students of modern Russian history.
Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator (The\yale-hoover Series On Authoritarian Regimes Ser.)
by Oleg V. KhlevniukAn engrossing biography of the notorious Russian dictator by an author whose knowledge of Soviet-era archives far surpasses all others.Josef Stalin exercised supreme power in the Soviet Union from 1929 until his death in 1953. During that quarter-century, by Oleg Khlevniuk&’s estimate, he caused the imprisonment and execution of no fewer than a million Soviet citizens per year. Millions more were victims of famine directly resulting from Stalin&’s policies. What drove him toward such ruthlessness? This essential biography offers an unprecedented, fine-grained portrait of Stalin the man and dictator. Without mythologizing Stalin as either benevolent or an evil genius, Khlevniuk resolves numerous controversies about specific events in the dictator&’s life while assembling many hundreds of previously unknown letters, memos, reports, and diaries into a comprehensive, compelling narrative of a life that altered the course of world history. In brief, revealing prologues to each chapter, Khlevniuk takes his reader into Stalin&’s favorite dacha, where the innermost circle of Soviet leadership gathered as their vozhd lay dying. Chronological chapters then illuminate major themes: Stalin&’s childhood, his involvement in the Revolution and the early Bolshevik government under Lenin, his assumption of undivided power and mandate for industrialization and collectivization, the Terror, World War II, and the postwar period. At the book&’s conclusion, the author presents a cogent warning against nostalgia for the Stalinist era. &“This brilliant, authoritative, opinionated biography ranks as the best on Stalin in any language.&”—Martin McCauley East-West Review&“A historiographical and literary masterpiece.&”—Mark Edele, Australian Book Review&“A very digestible biography, yet one packed with revelations.&”—Paul E. Richardson, Russian Life Magazine
Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928
by Stephen KotkinA magnificent new biography that revolutionizes our understanding of Stalin and his worldIt has the quality of myth: a poor cobbler&’s son, a seminarian from an oppressed outer province of the Russian empire, reinvents himself as a top leader in a band of revolutionary zealots. When the band seizes control of the country in the aftermath of total world war, the former seminarian ruthlessly dominates the new regime until he stands as absolute ruler of a vast and terrible state apparatus, with dominion over Eurasia. While still building his power base within the Bolshevik dictatorship, he embarks upon the greatest gamble of his political life and the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted: the collectivization of all agriculture and industry across one sixth of the earth. Millions will die, and many more millions will suffer, but the man will push through to the end against all resistance and doubts.Where did such power come from? In Stalin, Stephen Kotkin offers a biography that, at long last, is equal to this shrewd, sociopathic, charismatic dictator in all his dimensions. The character of Stalin emerges as both astute and blinkered, cynical and true believing, people oriented and vicious, canny enough to see through people but prone to nonsensical beliefs. We see a man inclined to despotism who could be utterly charming, a pragmatic ideologue, a leader who obsessed over slights yet was a precocious geostrategic thinker—unique among Bolsheviks—and yet who made egregious strategic blunders. Through it all, we see Stalin&’s unflinching persistence, his sheer force of will—perhaps the ultimate key to understanding his indelible mark on history.Stalin gives an intimate view of the Bolshevik regime&’s inner geography of power, bringing to the fore fresh materials from Soviet military intelligence and the secret police. Kotkin rejects the inherited wisdom about Stalin&’s psychological makeup, showing us instead how Stalin&’s near paranoia was fundamentally political, and closely tracks the Bolshevik revolution&’s structural paranoia, the predicament of a Communist regime in an overwhelmingly capitalist world, surrounded and penetrated by enemies. At the same time, Kotkin demonstrates the impossibility of understanding Stalin&’s momentous decisions outside of the context of the tragic history of imperial Russia.The product of a decade of intrepid research, Stalin is a landmark achievement, a work that recasts the way we think about the Soviet Union, revolution, dictatorship, the twentieth century, and indeed the art of history itself.Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 will be published by Penguin Press in October 2017
Stalin: Passage to Revolution
by Ronald Grigor SunyA spellbinding new biography of Stalin in his formative yearsThis is the definitive biography of Joseph Stalin from his birth to the October Revolution of 1917, a panoramic and often chilling account of how an impoverished, idealistic youth from the provinces of tsarist Russia was transformed into a cunning and fearsome outlaw who would one day become one of the twentieth century's most ruthless dictators.In this monumental book, Ronald Grigor Suny sheds light on the least understood years of Stalin's career, bringing to life the turbulent world in which he lived and the extraordinary historical events that shaped him. Suny draws on a wealth of new archival evidence from Stalin's early years in the Caucasus to chart the psychological metamorphosis of the young Stalin, taking readers from his boyhood as a Georgian nationalist and romantic poet, through his harsh years of schooling, to his commitment to violent engagement in the underground movement to topple the tsarist autocracy. Stalin emerges as an ambitious climber within the Bolshevik ranks, a resourceful leader of a small terrorist band, and a writer and thinker who was deeply engaged with some of the most incendiary debates of his time.A landmark achievement, Stalin paints an unforgettable portrait of a driven young man who abandoned his religious faith to become a skilled political operative and a single-minded and ruthless rebel.
Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar (Orion 20th Anniversary Editions Ser.)
by Simon Sebag MontefioreThis widely acclaimed biography provides a vivid and riveting account of Stalin and his courtiers--killers, fanatics, women, and children--during the terrifying decades of his supreme power. In a seamless meshing of exhaustive research and narrative ?lan, Simon Sebag Montefiore gives us the everyday details of a monstrous life.We see Stalin playing his deadly game of power and paranoia at debauched dinners at Black Sea villas and in the apartments of the Kremlin. We witness first-hand how the dictator and his magnates carried out the Great Terror and the war against the Nazis, and how their families lived in this secret world of fear, betrayal, murder, and sexual degeneracy. Montefiore gives an unprecedented understanding of Stalin's dictatorship, and a Stalin as human and complicated as he is brutal.From the Trade Paperback edition.otov, Beria and Yezhov among them-the author sheds new light on the oligarchy that attempted to create a new world by exterminating the old. He gives us the details of their quotidian and monstrous lives: Stalin's favorites in music, movies, literature (Hemmingway, The Forsyte Saga and The Last of the Mohicans were at the top of his list), food and history (he took Ivan the Terrible as his role model and swore by Lenin's dictum, "A revolution without firing squads is meaningless"). We see him among his courtiers, his informal but deadly game of power played out at dinners and parties at Black Sea villas and in the apartments of the Kremlin. We see the debauchery, paranoia and cravenness that ruled the lives of Stalin's inner court, and we see how the dictator played them one against the other in order to hone the awful efficiency of his killing machine.With stunning attention to detail, Montefiore documents the crimes, small and large, of all the members of Stalin's court. And he traces the intricate and shifting web of their relationships as the relative warmth of Stalin's rule in the early 1930s gives way to the Great Terror of the late 1930s, the upheaval of World War II (there has never been as acute an account of Stalin's meeting at Yalta with Churchill and Roosevelt) and the horrific postwar years when he terrorized his closest associates as unrelentingly as he did the rest of his country.Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar gives an unprecedented understanding of Stalin's dictatorship, and, as well, a Stalin as human and complicated as he is brutal. It is a galvanizing portrait: razor-sharp, sensitive and unforgiving.From the Hardcover edition.