Synopsis
A portrait of the Soviet leader describes Stalin's childhood, his roles as student, revolutionary, and communist theoretician, his clash with Lenin, the great Terror, and the Nazi-Soviet pact
Reviews
YA-- Written in a fast-moving informative style, this absorbing biography charts Stalin's rise from obscure revolutionary flunky to power-mad dictator. Borrowing liberally from unsealed memoirs of survivors of the Stalinist era, Conquest offers psychological insights into the man who condemned millions of his countrymen to death in the purges of the 1930s and led his nation to become a leading world power. A compelling portrait for students and teachers of modern Russian and European history alike. --Richard Lisker, Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Drawing on a wealth of new material from the Soviet Union, Conquest presents a chilling portrait of a mass murderer who gave personal instructions on how his victims should be tortured. Stalin (1879-1953), a rebellious young seminarian who wrote poetry, would later have poets executed. Conquest ( The Great Terror ) portrays the Soviet dictator as an insufferably rude husband, a Georgian who hated his roots and Russified himself, a crude boor who yearned to be a backslapping man of the people. Although omitting intricate political details and focusing instead on the person himself, this masterful biography provides fresh insight into a progressively paranoid leader who ruled by terror and falsification, deported millions to slave labor camps, engineered the famine of 1932 that killed some five million Ukrainians, and launched an anti-Semitic campaign of murders and arrests. Photos.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Blending impeccable scholarship and deeply revealing anecdotes, noted Soviet scholar Conquest (Stalin and the Kirov Murder, 1989, etc.) illuminates Stalin's role in history as well as his private character. ``Overall he gives the impression of a large and crude claylike figure, a golem, into which a demonic spark has been instilled,'' writes Conquest of ``a man who perhaps more than any other determined the course of the twentieth century.'' Conquest sifts through post-glasnost material to pursue the truth about the author of the Big Lie, who ``ruled not only by terror but also by falsification'' (the emblem of which was, Conquest notes, torture to extract false confessions). In revisiting the stages of Stalin's upbringing, rise to power, and despotism, Conquest excels at finding the telling detail to reveal the man: Stalin's claim to party leaders that Lenin had asked Stalin to procure poison for him; Stalin's telephone call to Pasternak inviting him to plea for the poet Mandelstam's life; his praise of Hitler for murdering much of the Sturmabteilung--the Nazi storm troopers--one night. At the height of the 1932 famine in which millions were dying (and which the Soviet government made a state secret and simply denied worldwide), Stalin's second wife, Nadezhda, told him of the famine, which resulted in a fight and may have led a few days later to a public scene of brutality--after which Nadezhda shot herself. In the larger historical events (collectivization, the purges, the Great Patriotic War, the show trials), Conquest shows a masterful grasp, quickly and lucidly drawing fresh assessments without getting mired in the nonessential. Said to be the first post-glasnost Stalin bio by a Westerner, this is a must for anyone interested in the dictator, and helps to illumine the recent, denser study by Soviet military man Dmitri Volkogonov (Stalin: Triumph and Tragedy, p. 921). (Eight pages of photographs--not seen.) -- Copyright ©1991, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
Joseph Stalin, a leader with many biographers, has become the subject of renewed study as a consequence of Soviet glasnost and the opening of formerly closed archives. Both of these books describe Stalin's development as a revolutionary, his rise to power upon Lenin's death, the Terror and consolidation of his control, his triumph in World War II, and his decline and death as the Cold War expanded. Conquest, a respected Western scholar, incorporates new details of Stalin's life and establishes a broad context for understanding his actions, highlighting how he was underestimated by both colleagues and foreign diplomats. Volkogonov, a Soviet researcher and the head of the Institute of Military History, sets forth a study of Stalin the man, centering upon his actions and thoughts. Reflecting new Soviet openness, he finds that Stalin rejected socialism and scorned freedom to the detriment of his nation. Greater access to records, such as those showing the depth of Stalin's control over military decision-making and the truth regarding the Katyn Forest massacre of Polish officers by the NKVD, will afford many opportunities for further study. These works are both carefully researched and well written (well edited and translated in the case of Volkgonov's book), offering new information and insights into Stalin's life and era. Volkogonov's work is noteworthy for the sense it conveys of the Soviet struggle to come to terms with the meaning of Stalin's rule. Conquest's work excels in its sophisticated portrayal of Stalin's life against the map of world politics and society. Both are of interest to general and specialist readers and are recommended for larger collections and those of Soviet studies. Conquest's book previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 7/91.--Ed.
- Rena Fowler, Northern Michigan Univ. Lib., Marquette
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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