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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
This is a fascinating glimpse into Stalin's criminal mind, July 13, 1998
Stalin hatched a devious plot to assassinate his comrade in arms Sergei Kirov. The " Congress of Victors" , that is the Congress of the Communist Party which celebrated the fulfillment of the First 5-year Plan, convened and secretly voted to have Stalin replaced. This was a secret protest vote against the brutality used enforcing Stalin's 5-year plan, which involved the starvation of 7 million in the Ukraine, millions more sent to the gulag to perish in slave labor, as well as millions of deportations of peoples to remote resettlement areas. All the while the Soviet regime was exporting grain in exchange for Western industrial expertise and machinery in order to comply with Stalin's massive heavy industrial buildup. It is for these reasons that the Congress secretly voted for Sergei Kirov to replace Stalin as the leader of the Bolshevik regime. Stalin's leadership was considered disastrous. Kirov was one of the most popular Bolshevik leaders, and therefore wa! ! s the choice of the Congress. Stalin had the vote falsified, and after the Congress adjourned, plotted to avenge himself against the 1000 members of the Congress and against Kirov personally. He plotted with his secret police, and then carried out an incredibly bold assassination of Kirov. He then launched one phony investigation after another in which he blamed the act of terror on different groups. He created an hysterical witchhunt atmosphere, which he used as the basis for his purges and show-trials of the thirties. All in all, there were four different phony explanations that were carefully laid out one after the other over time to explain Kirov's assassination. But the real criminal was none other than Stalin himself. During the purges of the thirties, almost every member of the "Congress of Victors" was murdered, thus earning them the title "Congress of Victims". This book puts the issue of Stalin's guilt, long suspected, beyond doubt, and is also ! ! a fascinating crime story. Robert Conquest is one of the to! p scholars of the Stalinist tyranny. Since the book was written before the fall of communism, the newly opened secret Russian archives will supply fascinating confirmation of this book.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
The most significant person killed on Stalin's orders, April 10, 2002
As a brutal manipulator of people, there are few historical figures that can match Joseph Stalin. However, there was a time when he was not absolute ruler of Russia. There was a key point in the early thirties when the block of remaining old Bolsheviks seemed to be coming together with some of the newer figures to mount attacks on Stalin to reduce his power or even have him removed as leader. This opposition was jelling around Sergei Kirov, the leader of the Leningrad party and a member of the ruling Politburo. In 1934, Kirov was assassinated by a dissident party member, thereby removing the focus of the anti Stalin opposition. In this book, the author describes the events of the crime in great detail, including how, in a very short time, the witnesses also began dying, as well as those who witnessed their dying. After describing the events, Conquest goes to great lengths to present an even-handed reconstruction and finally conclude that the murder and subsequent deaths of all others involved were at the orders of Stalin himself. While you cannot help but admire his principles in avoiding any leap to the result, there is no question Stalin was the force behind the events and that conclusion can be reached well before the author does. In criminal trials, circumstantial evidence can be very convincing and in this case it is overwhelmingly so. The pattern of deaths and forced confessions of high ranking officials is clearly one that could not have been managed by anyone not possessing power on the order of Stalin. Having Kirov murdered was the first step in his final movement to absolute power and he of course succeeded, with consequences that destroyed many people. Stalin was responsible for the death of millions of Soviet citizens at the hands of their fellow citizens, all directly traceable to his policies. However, there is one death that stands out and made more difference than all the others. This is an account of how that death took place, and is an example of how power can be executed by a policy of execution. It is an excellent example of how the Soviet Union was governed under one of the most brutal men the human race has produced.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
throw a stone in the water and the ripples spread outward..., August 17, 2008
This review is from: Stalin and the Kirov Murder (Paperback)
In 1934 Sergei Kirov, friend and colleague of Stalin, member of the Moscow Politburo and Secretary of the Leningrad Party Organization was shot down and killed by a gunman. Stalin, terribly upset by the death of his comrade, organized all the power of the state and Party to hunt down the killers. Of course, as always with Stalin, there was a subplot. Bolshevist leaders from all over the Soviet Empire had voted to replace the frightening Stalin with the supposedly more moderate Kirov. Anyway, Kirov was dead and the raging Stalin set about systematically and cynically to ferret out the antirevolutionary killers. It was much like throwing a stone into the water. There's the initial splash and then rings of wavelets spread out from the center. There are the initial arrests with torture, confessions and executions. The next tier of suspects are arrested with torture, confessions and executions. Then the third tier ad infinitum. Before it is over, more than one million Communist Party members die and the Soviet officer corps--with the death of 50% of the officer class--are dead, lubricating the way for the Nazi invasion. How could it happen? It happened with the death of Kirov. Conquest offers fascinating evidence that Kirov's murder--and the murder of hundreds of thousands--was Stalin's doing. Ron Braithwaite author of novels, "Skull Rack" and "Hummingbird God", on the Spanish Conquest of Mexico
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