Special Tasks; The Memoirs of an Unwanted Witness-A Soviet Spymaster. [Import] [Hardcover]

Pavel, et al. SUDOPLATOV (Author)

Product Details

• Hardcover: 509 pages
• Publisher: -; 1st UK ed. edition (1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316912174
• ISBN-13: 978-0316912174
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.1 x 1.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (14 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,949,487 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The face of idealistic evil., April 28, 1999

By 

Stephen M. St Onge "Stephen M. St. Onge" (Mpls, MN USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Special Tasks (Paperback)

4/28/99 Pavel Sudoplatov joined the secret police as a boy, and rose to be one of Beria's most trusted assistants, in charge of sabotage, assassinations, and atomic bomb espionage. Though Sudoplatov sometimes gets things wrong (not suprising when working from memory fifty years later), he has a wealth of information on how Stalin's secret police worked, and presents a chilling picture of the kind of people who thought they were building a better world through mass murder. After reading this, you'll have better understanding of how so many Westerners could betray their countries to the USSR, and why so many are still trying to pretend it didn't happen. This new edition has some interesting material that answers criticisms made of the first edition, especially his claim that Los Alamos director J. Robert Oppenheimer passed on information about the atomic bomb (I seem to be the only serious student of the Oppenheimer case who believes Sudoplatov on this). Recommended.

18 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A chilling first-person account of Stalinism, May 15, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Special Tasks (Paperback)

I read the first edition and bought the second edition just to read the reactions which are printed in the book. Predictably, many still cling to their version of sugar-coated history. Fortunately, historians like Robert Conquest know the real truth. And Conquest said "This is the most sensational, the most devastating, and in many ways the most informative autobiography ever to emerge from the Stalinist milieu". In the updated foreword he again defends the overall veracity of this document. He has good reason to do this.

You won't believe the documentation in the back of the book. Atomic espionage documents, Katyn Forest Massacre, and more.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Essential, August 21, 2002

By 

"lawrence_98" (Lisbon, Portugal) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Special Tasks (Paperback)

This book is ESSENTIAL to understand Power in the former Soviet Union. It's almost the history of the first decades of the soviet intelligence services written in a reasonably detailled manner. It's revealing on the nature of Power under Stalin rule. I also recommend the Portuguese translation (if you happen to speak Portuguese) since it was very carefully done. If you study this subject in particular get every translation you are able to read! Great book!