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Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism

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I am glad to see that this book has finally been reprinted in English. It wasn't easy to find the 1939 book. I have not read the new edition but the old one; I assume there are no differences between the two.

Simply put, this is one of the best books about Stalin that have ever been written. In the pre-war world, when opinions about communism were just starting to crystallize and a large number of French intellectuals were blinded by soviet propaganda or soviet money, Souvarine, himself a disappointed ex-party member, showed the unmistakable talent of a true historian: he analyzes the facts and the numbers and draws the right conclusions. His writing is not blurred by his former sympathies or by his recent conversion. He is among the few who could, at that time, affirm beyond any doubt that Stalin was the utmost evil totalitarian leader (my words, not his), and bring irrefutable arguments for it.

The mastery of this book resides in its detailed analysis of Stalin's approach to gaining power, maintaining power and ultimately eliminating all potential threats that could endanger his hold on absolute power within the party. Stalin's method was simple and ruthless: to gain absolute power he had to first gain the control of an almost insignificant office of the central committee: the secretariat. This office had a function which at first glance seemed purely technical, but which would, in time, prove of an enormous importance: it controlled the appointments. As secretary general, Stalin controlled movement within the party. Once he had this office in hand, it was only a matter of time until he could own the politbureau, the central committee and ultimately the whole party.

To make the story complete, this analysis is part of the larger construction that expounds how the revolution, which started out with the "best intentions" of achieving "liberte, egalite, fraternite" for all, ended up turning the country into an immense machine under the complete control of the party, itself in turn ruled by one man. Lenin knew it, he started this process almost single-handed, he understood what was going to happen and foresaw the conclusion, as his writings prove.

The book and its crystal-clear prose lead one to the conclusion, often ignored in political debates, that Stalin was not an aberration in a process that would have otherwise run toward the noble ideals of the fathers of Russian social-democracy. Instead, he was the natural outcome of a revolution which stayed true to its principles.