Stalin: Man and Ruler - Hardcover

McNeal, Robert H.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0333373510 ISBN 13: 9780333373514

Publisher: Macmillan in association with St. Antony's College, Oxford, 1988

Synopsis

Drawng on a range of previously unavailable sources, this incisive new portrait of Stalin examines the man, his political career, his personal and professional relationships, his philosophy, and his impact on the Soviet Union and twentieth-century history

About this title

Book Description

This is the first thoroughly new and comprehensive biography of Stalin to appear in many years. It is based on years of research by author Robert McNeal and on extensive work in previously unexplored and untapped Soviet and Western sources. Excitingly as well as accessibly written, the book offers a great wealth of fresh information on Stalin and provides the reader with a particularly vivid portrait of Stalin's character and his imposing and - McNeal argues - his underestimated political talents. The story opens with important evidence that as a youth Stalin was deeply committed to Christianity, dropping his faith for the Marxism to which he devoted the rest of his life. He shows that Stalin operated successfully in a relatively democratic setting with the Communist party following Lenin's death, and that he played a moderating role in the disastrous collectivism that the party sponsored at the end of the 1920s. McNeal adds to the understanding of the establishment of Stalin's police state and offers the first extended description of the rise and character of the cult of personality, a means of control that Stalin used as effectively as physical coercion. He provides a wealth of information on Stalin's declining years including the first documented account of the Stalin-Mao talks. He discusses the ways in which Stalin wielded power during these years. Stalin's physical and mental deterioration, his alcohol abuse and a careful analysis of evidence that he did not die of natural causes are examined as part of a larger story. Even-handed, thoughtful, unpolemical, McNeal's account of Stalin the man and of Stalin the ruler, is a major reassessment of the man who more than anyone other than Lenin himself shaped the Soviet Union of today.

From Publishers Weekly

The author argues that he does not wish to rehabilitate Stalin, only to demythologize him. Power-hungry schemer, sadistic monster, secretive tyrantthese are the familiar images. But in this controversial biography, McNeal, professor of history at the University of Massachusetts, paints the Soviet ruler as an "immensely gifted politician" who rose to the top through unrelenting hard work and flexibility. According to McNeal, whose books include The Bolshevik Tradition and Bride of the Revolution , the collectivizing drive in the 1920s and the annihilation of the kulaks were ripples in a vast agrarian upheaval that had wide grass-roots support before Stalin became involved. Dismissing the notion that Stalin went crazy, he presents a ruthless leader whose commitment to class war made terror acceptable and brought tragedy to his nation. In attempting to set the record straight, McNeal poses the chilling paradox of a hyperrational ruler whose politics bordered on insanity. This full-scale biography is filled with juicy human/inhuman details such as the probable suicide of the dictator's wife, his psychological war with his daughter, his snubbing of Mao. History Book Club selection.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Macmillan in association with St. Antony's College, Oxford
• Publication date: 1988
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0333373510
• ISBN 13: 9780333373514
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 389