Stalin & Stalinism (3rd Edition) [Paperback]

Martin McCauley (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0582505879 | ISBN-13: 978-0582505872 | Publication Date: May 11, 2003 | Edition: 3

Who was Stalin and what did he achieve? Why did he come to power and how did he use that power? The third edition of this best-selling Seminar Study answers these questions and provides the latest research, interpretations and historiographical debates about one of the most fascinating figures of the twentieth century. One of the most successful and lethal dictators of the twentieth century, Stalin transformed the Soviet Union into a modern industrial state. While he demonstrated Russia's huge potential if harnessed correctly, Stalin's brand of coercive socialism sent millions to their deaths in the process.  The debate about Stalin's role in creating the Soviet superpower still rages. Was the violence justified? To what extent was Stalin the master of events? Now thoroughly updated to incorporate the most recent research, and including a completely new chapter on Stalin's personality and power, the new edition provides the essential introduction to the Stalin phenomenon.

Editorial Reviews

From the Back Cover

One of the most successful dictators of the twentieth century, Stalin believed that fashioning a better tomorrow was worth sacrificing the lives of millions today. He built a modern Russia on the corpses of millions of its citizens.

First published in 1983, Stalin and Stalinism has established itself as one of the most popular textbooks for those who want to understand the Stalin phenomenon. Written in a clear and accessible manner, this updated third edition provides:

• Up to date analysis of the Stalin era
• A new chapter analysing Stalin¿s personality
• New documents which graphically illustrate the bloodletting
• An examination of the Stalin cult and why it was so successful ¿ even today

Fully updated throughout to incorporate recent research findings, the book also contains a Chronology of key events, Who¿s Who and Guide to Further Reading. This concise assessment of one of the major figures of twentieth century world history remains an essential purchase for students studying the subject.

 

Martin McCauley is a seasoned writer and broadcaster who has a wealth of experience in Russian and international affairs. His previous publications include The Origins of the Cold War, 3rd Edition (Longman) and Russia, America and the Cold War (Longman).

About the Author

Martin McCauley is a seasoned writer and broadcaster who has a wealth of experience in Russian and international affairs. His previous books include Afghanistan (Longman 2001), and The Soviet Union 1971-1991(Longman 1993.

Product Details

• Paperback: 204 pages
• Publisher: Longman; 3 edition (May 11, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0582505879
• ISBN-13: 978-0582505872
• Product Dimensions: 9.1 x 6.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 1.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #262,255 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars True Stalin, August 19, 2011

By 

Dennis - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Stalin & Stalinism (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

Stalin was an intensely devious person. He fooled many people. This book is interesting in showing how this deception continues. We forget communism was a religion to many and this still occurs. (though less and less). The interesting aspect is what Stalin really believed. His hand written notes would help if they are ever released. Lenin said he was basically Asian in the sense of demanding total power. His father beat him and he beat Russia. It is a dark and dreadful period that shows how dark human beings can be. I liked this book because it reveals many sides of this terrible man.

13 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Awful, November 22, 2006

By 

Gary Malone (Australia) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Stalin & Stalinism (3rd Edition) (Paperback)

It is near-impossible to describe the sickly feeling one gets from reading this book, but I will try.

Consider the following plain facts about Joseph Stalin, facts not even disputed by those who even now still hold a flickering torch for him:

1. In quantitative terms, a greater murderer than Hitler;
2. The GULAG: a brutal, high-mortality prison camp and slave labour system into which one could be thrown for the most trivial crime - e.g., the deaf and dumb carpenter who got ten years for hanging his coat on a bust of Lenin, (See Solzhenitsyn, Vol II, p. 294);
3. The Great Terror: show trials beginning in 1937 which led to the purging of his own party members, nationwide repression, arbitrary imprisonment and killings (number of executions ran into six digits);
5. Ruthless Cold War antagonist, swallowing and subjugating all of eastern Europe;
6. The Holodomor: the 1930s state-orchestrated Ukrainian Terror-famine which alone claimed over five million lives;
7. The Hitler-Stalin pact;
8. Murderer of Trotsky (ice pick to the head); slayer of Tukachevsky (blood bespattered the pages of his confession); killer of Vsevolod Meyerhold's wife Zinaida (her eyes gouged out by the secret police, seventeen stab wounds).

And then consider the following choice quotes from Mr. McCaulay's scholary tract on this era (my comments added):

1. "Who would seize Lenin's mantle and steer the ship of state back towards socialism? It turned out to be Stalin. Beginning in 1929 he launched a violent, phenomenally ambitious economic modernisation of the country.
[The debut of this 'modernisation' plan was the White Sea - Baltic canal, built almost entirely by manual labour: trees were felled without axes or saws; boulders were excavated by men dragging on nets, occasional use was made of cranes, which were wooden. Estimated death toll in the first three months alone: 100,000. (See Solzhenitsyn, Vol II, p. 98)]

Forced industrialisation and forced collectivisation transformed the country.
[As documented in Robert Conquest's books, the 'transformation' of the agricultural sector reduced the citizens of the Ukraine to cannibalism and Conquest is quoted as stating that 'about twenty human lives were lost for, not every word, but every letter in this book'. The book runs to 411 pages. (Quoted in Amis, Koba the Dread, p. 3)]
...
There was logic in this seeming madness. Only when Russia was the strongest state in the world could it feel secure.
[Would this same 'logic' apply to say, Malta?]
...
All the efforts and sacrifices turned out to be worth while." (p. 6)
[No comment, just stunned silence.]

2. "Calling Stalinism a civilisation is a bold move and reveals how far Soviet studies have come since the heyday of the totalitarian school. The great warhorses of that era would turn in their graves at the suggestion that Stalinism was a new civilisation. One reason for taking a more relaxed attitude to Stalinism and chronicling its successes (whatever one thinks about the goals and the methods deployed) is that no one fears Stalinism anymore. It has failed everywhere except perhaps in North Korea." (p. 11)
[Yes, indeed: the 'Stalinist' sense is about the only one in which the North Korean slave state could be considered a 'success'. And oh, the irritating pedantry of those Stalin-skeptics who keep bringing up the twenty million dead! Incidentally, I look forward to reading about the more 'relaxed attitude' that might be taken to analysing, say, Stalin's April 1935 decision to subject children as young as twelve to capital punishment. (See Solzhenitsyn, Vol II, p. 449)]

All of the quotes are from just the *first chapter*. Which also features the breezy assertion that "Despite the exploitation and the terror, people still thought that they were building socialism, guided by the wise father of the nation, Stalin" (p. 12); the jaw-dropping claim (repeated throughout the book) that Stalinism was "born of the Enlightenment" (p. 11) and the concept of "Russia's addiction to socialism" (p. 7) - presumably the tens of thousands of miners dying in the Kolyma were 'addicted' to propping up the slave state that was beating them down?

There is, is there not, something of a tonal contrast between the salient facts of the Stalin era and the manner in which they are rendered by Mr. McCauley? Or should that be ... avoided by Mr. McCauley?

Under 'G' in the index there is no entry for 'GULAG'. Similarly, the reader will look in vain under 'S' for any mention of the names Solzhenitsyn or Shalamov. (The same goes for the 'References' section and the 'Guide to Further Reading'. Robert Conquest is mentioned grudgingly and hurriedly.) Could one imagine reading a volume on Hitler that made *no reference* to the Nazi Holocaust? Or studiously avoided citing any of its chief chroniclers? Enough said? Not quite.

Suffused with the sublimated impatience that Stalinism somehow inexplicably wound up getting a bum rap from historians, this is, quite simply, a volume of astounding political and historical ignorance. Not even the most blinkered apparatchik could have written a tract as morbidly asinine as this. Beneath the weasel-wording, one can sense at every turn the song of praise to Uncle Joe trying to burst through a lake of anguished evasions. To have to trawl through this book was a morally disgusting experience. And remember: this is the *third* edition: it is as though Mr. McCauley has lived for years in a parallel universe in which all of the dreadful revelations about life in the USSR never saw the light of day. Hands pressed tightly against his ears, he simply ploughs through his argument as though the millions of lives devoured by Stalin's unspeakable cruelty were all an accident of some otherwise well-intentioned plan. It was all a misunderstanding ... and like all good apparatchiks, Mr. McCauley implies throughout that the misunderstanding belonged to the *critics* of Stalinism.