Autopsy for an Empire : The Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime [Hardcover]

Dmitri Volkogonov (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 8, 1998

A revered scholar and tireless chronicler of his times, Dmitri Volkogonov raced against time to finish his final book before his death from cancer in 1995. The result is a brillant magnus opus -- a complete protrait of the U.S.S.R. from the bloody 1917 Russian Revolution to the political coup of 1991.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

In accordance with his belief that "it is often easier to become acquainted with the history of a period if it is seen through the lives of individuals," Dmitri Volkogonov's last book before his 1995 death addresses the lives of the seven men who ruled the Soviet Union during its seven decades of existence. Making full use of the access granted to him as a high-ranking officer of the Soviet Army (and later as military advisor to Boris Yeltsin) to the secret archives of the Communist Party, he amplifys and expands upon the themes of his full length biographies of Lenin and Stalin, then proceeds to take on their successors up to Mikhail Gorbachev. With painstaking details drawn from a true insider's perspective, he recreates both the stagnation of the Soviet bureaucracy and the collapse set in motion by perestroika. "Perhaps the only thing I achieved in this life," Volkogonov wrote, "was to break with the faith I had held for so long." That is untrue; he also brilliantly chronicled how that faith came to impose itself upon an entire society. is a fitting conclusion to that legacy.

From Publishers Weekly

Volkogonov, a Soviet historian, military general and debunking biographer of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky, completed this illuminating study shortly before his death in 1995. Of the seven Soviet rulers profiled, Gorbachev gets the highest marks for initiating epochal reforms, though the author stresses that Gorbachev could have accomplished much more had he relinquished his faith in the communist system. Volkogonov cogently argues for a seamless connection between Lenin's absolutism and Stalin's merciless dictatorship. Drawing on new material, including declassified documents from state and Party archives, he reveals Lenin's paranoia toward foreigners as well as Stalin's pivotal role in egging on his puppet in North Korea, Kim Il-sung, to start a war with the South in 1950. Khrushchev, though he repudiated the Stalinist cult of personality, was out of touch with the masses, in Volkogonov's estimate, while indecisive, mediocre, suave Brezhnev mistook economic and social stagnation for stability. Both Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko were "political pygmies" who strived to preserve a sclerotic system. Bristling with startling revelations, this scathing panorama of seven decades of Soviet rule brims with much treachery, intrigue, reversals of fortune and personal idiosyncrasies. Photos not seen by PW.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 608 pages
• Publisher: Free Press; First Printing edition (April 8, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0684834200
• ISBN-13: 978-0684834207
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,542,176 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Factual and Informative Political History, July 31, 2001

By 

unraveler "unraveler" (Nevada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Autopsy For An Empire: The Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime (Paperback)

This is one of the most informative books ever written about the people who ruled the Soviet Union. Being a highly centralized, totalitarian state, the Soviet Union acquired and lost much of its character as its rulers came and went. And the rulers were General Secrertaries of the communist party. Stalin brought crush indurstrialization, famine, and purges--millions of innocent people died, inclduing some of the most devoted communist revolutionaries. Khruschev tried reform, with some success in political liberalization, but his agricultural policy failed miserably. Brezhnev was compromise incarnate and, in his later years, aloof and passive. Andropov had a vision of reform based on social discipline and strict control, and economic accountability. Chernenko, who was a tireless bureaucrat in his youth, was simply a cripple almost the moment he assumed power. Then came Gorbachev and changed the course of history.

The book makes for a fascinating read. The leaders of the Soviet state were all too human, with this exception, that perhaps they craved power more than ordinary people do and could play politics like Paganini could play the violin. However, Stalin's lust for power, combined with his paranoia, may put him in a qualitatively different category--that of the world's most cruel dictators.

The book can be challenging at times, because it presents so many facts. Its highly archival nature does disrupt the smooth flow of the narrative. But for the fact starved Russians at least this may be a welcome change. The Soviet Union, outside the most elite circles, was almost devoid of any meaningful information about politics and political history. Ideology and propaganda ruled. Rhetorical arguments and logical exercises always came before fact, and before feelings of real living Soviet people. Thus in a way, even Volkogonov's factual excess is a welcome change.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Excellent Overview of the Rise and Fall of the USSR, February 20, 2005

By 

Leonard Fleisig "Len" (Washington, D.C.) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Autopsy for an Empire : The Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime (Hardcover)

In 1937, when Dmitri Volkogonov was 9 years old his father Anton was swept up in Stalin's purges, branded a traitor, and never seen again. Despite, or perhaps because of, his father's alleged criminal activities, Volkogonov enlisted in the Soviet army in 1945. Rising to the rank of Colonel-General, he was appointed the director of the USSR's Institute for Military History, a position he held from 1985 through 1991. From 1991 through 1993 he served as the head of the commission responsible for declassifying Soviet state papers located in their numerous archives. As a result of these appointments Volkogonov had access to the archives of the Ministry of Defense, the Central Party, the General Staff of the Armed Forces and virtually every other Soviet institution where party ad military records were stored. In addition, he had access to Western documentary material not generally available in the USSR. Relying heavily on those resources, Volkogonov penned well received biographies of Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin. Autopsy for an Empire, The Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime, was written while Volkogonov fought a last, losing battle against cancer. He died shortly after the completion of this manuscript.

Autopsy for an Empire contains seven sections, each section analyzing the reign of one of the seven Soviet leaders: Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, and, finally, Gorbachev. Although Volkogonov's writing is down-to-earth and covers a lot of ground in an efficient manner, he was not a historian by training nor was he a writer. There are portions of the book that do not read as fluently as one would hope. I think, however, that Volkogonov's use of previously unknown source material more than makes up for any deficiencies in his prose style.

Volkogonov's Autopsy tracks the arc-like trajectory of the Soviet Union. He shows Lenin achieving and consolidating power both in the USSR and within his party while establishing the police state that reached its apogee under Stalin. Subsequent to Lenin's death we are exposed to Stalin's rise to power, the consolidation of total power, his great purges and the fear and horror of the first days after the Nazi invasion. It is clear, however, that Soviet power reached its peak during Stalin's years. The segment on Khrushchev takes a critical and relatively sympathetic look at a man who sat at Stalin's right hand during the last years of his regime but who managed to denounce the cult of Stalin and institute same slight reforms that came to represent what became known as "the thaw". By the time we get to Brezhnev the ossification of the Soviet state seems to proceed at a pace similar to the increasingly visible ossification of Brezhnev himself. The short-lived reigns of the already aged and decrepit Andropov and Chernenko are disposed of in short order. Finally, we get to Gorbachev, the onset of Perestroika, and the ultimate dissolution of the Soviet empire.

No single section of the book contains a fully formed biography of any individual Soviet leader and as such the book may be disappointing to some. Certainly there is a vast body of literature available about the lives of Lenin, Stalin, and to a lesser extent Khrushchev. Yet, because the leader loomed so large in Soviet life, a nation effectively run from the top down, Autopsy for an Empire represents an excellent starting point for anyone looking for a good general overview of Soviet history.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars interesting history for those who care to read it., May 5, 1999

By 

J. Guberman (USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Autopsy for an Empire : The Seven Leaders Who Built the Soviet Regime (Hardcover)

Volkogonov has not produced his best work here, but a work which is wholly approachable, entertaining and interesting...the way a good history should be written. Reading an historical text need not be like washing down a bowl of cornflakes with sand rather then milk. Volkogonov has become the "Suetonius" of Soviet Russia....and his text with its humor and occasional intimate details and also personal experiences is as interesting a read as the former's "Lives of the Twelve Caesars."