This account of Stalin's life begins with his early years, the family breakup caused by the suspicion that the boy was the result of an adulterous affair, the abuse by his father and the growth of the traumatized boy into criminal, spy, and finally one of the 20th century's political monsters.

About the Author

Roman Brackman was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1931. In 1935 his father, an engineer, was imprisoned in Gulag camp near Dmitrov. As a boy Roman stayed for weeks with his father in the camp’s barracks and saw the barb wire, watch towers and columns of prisoners going to and from work. He grew up during the Great Purges when many of his relatives were arrested and perished. He graduated from high school in 1948 and enrolled in the Moscow Oriental Institute, Arabic division. In 1949 Roman and two of his school friends tried to escape from the Soviet Union by swimming from the Black Sea port Batumi to Turkey. They were arrested and sentenced to 10 years in Special Political prison camps. Roman was sent to Norylsk Gulag where he took an active part in prisoners’ uprising in the summer of 1953 only to be released in 1955 in the first post-Stalin amnesty. In 1959 Roman managed to leave the Soviet Union legally - his wife was a Polish citizen. In 1962 he, his wife and their two sons immigrated to the United States. In 1965 Roman graduated from City College of New York with bachelor degree in science and in 1980 he received the doctorate degree in history from New York University. During Carter-Reagan election campaign in 1979-1980 Roman published his first book “Jimmy Carter Provocateur-in-Chief.” The first edition of his book “The Secret File of Joseph Stalin - A Hidden Life” was published in 2001 in London and translated to several languages, including Russian.

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Joe Orlik Books specialises in postwar 20th century history, poetry, art, graphic design, advertising, propaganda, art history and cultural theory with a sprinkling of science fiction, fiction mostly of an historical nature as well as more general titles. All books are from a personal library accumulated over the last 50 years.

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