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Stalin: The First In-depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives

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I read this book over a year ago, yet the images it conveys still disturb me. First recommended to be by an uncle, I read it to further understand why and how Communism acquired such a nasty reputation, and it did not take long to learn that Joseph Stalin was the focal point behind this bad rap. Even though this book is a translation from Russian, it reads and flows well; Radzinsky is an excellent writer. His book first appeared in 1996, almost in the form of a breakthrough, because it used newly declassified Russian documents on Stalin, who took every effort in purging archives (and people) in keeping his life and details a secret.

Radzinsky meticulously chronicles the life of Stalin (born as Iosif Dzhugashvili in Georgia) from his troubled and rabble-rousing youth growing up in the Caucasus, to his life as a young revolutionary at Lenins side. Radzinsky writes that during those years, Stalin went through two transitions: one as Soso, the child, and as Koba, the revolutionary. With gripping narration, he chronicles how Stalin (his nom de guerre) scrambled for absolute power following the death of Lenin, the founder of Bolshevism.

What stands out in Radzinskys biography is not just the now-illuminated life of Stalin, which had deliberately been shrouded in mystery and speculation for fifty years, but more importantly the details of Stalins crimes. Although known for his complacency in mass murder during his years in power, both sympathizers and others that wanted to keep Stalins tyranny a secret never revealed the full extent of such crimes. Radzinsky chronicles them, and shows that this malevolent dictator was even more blood-crazed and paranoid than ever imagined. To Stalin, no human life was sacred, hence the atrocious scope of his show trials, liquidations and deportations to Siberia.

A perfect example of Stalins culpability in massacre after massacre is the infamous killing at Katyn Forest, which Radzinsky does not date; the reader can be confused as to the precise date, which was in the fall of 1939, in the wake of Hitlers invasion of Poland. About 20,000 Polish prisoners were quartered in camps close to the Soviet border, and when Stalin was later preparing a counterattack on Germany, he had them all massacred in a forest in Katyn, balking at the idea of having so many potential enemies within his grasp. He later released some two thousand Polish prisoners from other camps, trying to hide his culpability, but Poles abroad kept wondering how so many thousands of soldiers had just vanished. The answer given was that they had run away from the camps at the beginning of the war (p. 498). In the presence of a Polish representative, Stalin playacted that Poles from all Soviet prisons had been released. When the Germans occupied Smolensk, they found evidence of a massacre at Katyn and the decayed (and shot) remains of the Polish officers. Stalin changed the story altogether: accusing Hitler of provocation, he said the Poles had not run off, but had been transferred to Smolensk to build, where it was made to believe that the Germans caught them and shot them. In all, it became known that 21,857 Poles had been massacred. (pp. 498-499). The Germans were the first ones to be blamed for the killings, without surprise, but Stalin was the true architect from the very beginning. All documents on the Katyn massacre were ordered destroyed by Khrushchev in 1959, though some had evidently been overlooked, and preserved.

Katyn is one instance of many in Stalins years in power. If anything, Radzinskys biography serves to hold Stalin accountable for the terror he inflicted and to let the truth be known, for the sake of those lives lost under Stalin. On pp. 3-4, in Radzinskys Prologue, he symbolically refers to a statue of Stalin overlooking the Volga canal, in which many slave laborers died digging and building it. Birds would gather on the statues head and leave droppings, so the caretaker of the statue decided to electrify the statue, and every morning afterwards would come to clean the tiny bodies of birds littered around the statue. While the statue, cleansed of bird droppings, gazed out on the great expanse beyond the Volga, fertilized by the bodies not of birds but of human beings, by the unmarked graves of those who had built the great canal (p. 4). Oh the irony...

I read this book with great expectations and was incredibly disappointed, to the point of anger.
Stalin was undoubtedly a monster, but this book treats its subject matter, especially during the crucial revolution and war periods, as if it were a cartoon. This alone is forgivable. What is not forgivable are gross distortions of facts and in some cases out and out lies regarding history.
For example, Radzinsky claims the following:
1. Stalin had Moscow, Leningrad and Stalingrad blessed by a parade of holy icons after the German invasion (as a result of prompting by the orthodox church). Radzinsky claims that this is the ONLY book that exposes this. Why? Well, this is the only book because this didn't happen.
2. Radzinsky claims that the Americans gave into Stalinist blackmail for a part in post-war Japan policy after Stalin threatened to expose the Americans' theft of Japan's national gold. This is a simple lie.
3. America only occupied Japan as 'they already lost China.' China fell to communism in 1949, four years later, and Mao and the Soviets always had a strained relationship.
4. Zhukov received the unconditional German surrender. False, Eisenhower did and the Soviet Marshall who signed the document was executed the next week in Moscow for doing it without Stalin's approval.
5. Stalin was planning on fighting the West just prior to his death, as he had the H-bomb first. A big lie - the Americans tested the first fusion bomb in 1952 and had a working weapon soon thereafter. The Soviets didn't have a test until after Stalin's death.
6. The only minority in the Soviet Union to help the Germans was the Chechyans - only if you ignore the Lithuanians, Ukrainians, Cossacks, etc. Radzinsky ultimately contradicts himself.

The book seems to have a few points:
1. Stalin was a monster.
2. Stalin still saved the world from the Nazis because he relied on Orthodox Russian nationalism.
3. The Russians are the strongest people in the world.
4. Russia will never be able to get true help or friendship from the West.
5. Russia must rely on its orthodox nationalism to win.

I should tell you I lived in Russia for some time, and I have a good knowledge of Russian history. Further, books of this kind simply do not get published without some political sponsorship. This book was published in 1996 during the presidential campaign in Russia and should be seen in this light - it is more a statement about current Russian political thought than real history.
Bashing the achievements of the West is still good politics and business in Russia. Another book published in the last few years gave 'scientific evidence' how NASA faked the moonlandings. As a result, most Russians younger than 40 do not believe that man walked on the moon. Indeed, this has resulted in some comedy between my friends and myself.
Please, if you insist on reading this book do not read it in a vacuum. I could write a list pages long on factual mistakes in the book, but see for yourself. The last 100 pages, especially the chapters on WWII, are exceptionally bad. I do not believe these errors were accidents - as I stated, this book is more a comment about current Russian politics than Stalin, and anyway, there are too many mistakes to be random. Its a crime, actually: both the subject and the country deserve better.

This book by Edvard Radzinsky is one of the latest on the subject. Though a lot has been written on Stalin over the years, this biography is clearly one of a kind. First, in the introduction, the author clearly states that, unlike most of his fellow Soviet compatriots, he hated Stalin. This subjectivity only gives more weight to the book's objectivity. It shows Stalin in all his pragmatism. How the 28 million people he sent to death were not an act of mere paranoia but a way to consolidate his own power. It could be summed up as "If I kill them, they can't kill me". And Radzinsky explains how he managed to do that for a quarter of century. He displays all the tricks Stalin used to seize power in the late twenties and how he kept it and even gained more power in the thirties. Radzinsky goes beyond much of what has been previously said and shows evidence that goes against general ideas about Stalin (for instance, the common belief that the USSR was so easily attacked by Hitler because of the military purges). Having access to whole new ressources because of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Radzinsky delivers here nothing less than a tour de force on one of the most fascinating leaders our civilization has ever had to deal with.

The common view of Stalin is that he was a paranoid psychopath who murdered tens of millions due to his own insecurites. Radzinsky's view is different-- he believes that every move Stalin made during his long, bloody career was carefully calculated, that he always stayed a few steps ahead of his foes. He makes the quite convincing case that Stalin instilled terror as the primary characteristic of the Soviet regime because Stalin recognized early on that terror alone could keep the people and the Party obedient.

The Stalin Radzinsky presents is a far more sinister and frightening figure than a mere psychotic. It describes a man of extraordinary evil, not just a psychological case study. Even if you don't buy all the theories that the author presents, Radzinsky's writing is so energetic and dramatic that you can't help but be fascinated, horribly fascinated by this man who probably murdered more people than anyone in history.

While many people prefer to think of Stalin as insane, Radzinsky presents compelling evidence to support his view. This was, after all, a man who seized power from some very ambitious men who were enormously skilled at treachery. He took power and then over the course of 30 years ruthlessly and methodically crushed anyone who even vaguely threatened his position. He killed his enemies, his friends, his family-- no one was safe.

And he didn't just destroy these people-- he made them destroy themselves. Radzinsky's descriptions of the great show trials are the most interesting part of the book, because archives show that Stalin not only orchestrated the trials but also even wrote much of the dialogue the condemned men happily parroted from the dock. That these once-powerful men (like Zinoviev, Kamenev, and Bukharin) collapsed so completely and yet naively believed that Stalin would spare them if they confessed completely shows how rotten at its core the Soviet system was.

Only during the war was Stalin's rule threatened, first by Hitler (though the author argues that Stalin was actually planning a sneak attack on Germany) and later by Zhukov and the rest of the general staff, who enjoyed a measure of freedom as they beat back the Nazis. Stalin relaxed the terror to inspire a patriotic fury in his people as they fought the invaders, but once the danger passed he clamped down as hard as ever. Cold, ruthless acts like these lend weight to Radzinsky's idea of Stalin as the master puppeteer.

Stalin died in 1953 and the controversial part of this book focuses on what may have happened had Stalin lived. It did appear that Stalin was preparing another purge, yet another bloodletting that would send millions to the camps and the grave. This initial culprits were seven Jewish doctors, and Razinsky raises the possibility that Stalin was preparing a Holocaust of his own. By now Stalin had the hydrogen bomb, and Radzinsky theorizes that perhaps Stalin was thinking about using the Bomb, thinking about starting World War III. This theory stretches the available information to the breaking point but the author does make his case strongly enough to get the hairs on the back of you neck standing up. Would a man who murdered millions of his own people shrink before killing millions of Americans, British, Chinese, etc? Stalin himself once said, "A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths are a statistic."

Brilliantly written, painstakingly researched, Radzinsky's book is well worth reading even if you don't accept every new theory he puts forth. Stalin was doubtless a monster, and this book superbly details his crimes

This is a literate and dramatic telling of Stalin's life and times from birth to death. The knowns and unknowns of Stalin are covered, as well as his colleagues (or adverseries in Stalin's case). The author's style is literary - a playwright by vocation - as if writing a novel. So, yes, there are the usual cliffhanger chapter endings and is suspensful to a degree - - a definite page turner overall. Also, the author is a native who lived part of his childhood during the Stalin era and his father felt the full brunt of Stalinism. So I like the touch of the personal emotion here. Is more readable and personable than the Conquest and Service bios, and covers more time than Montefiore. I heartily recommend.

This is one of the most interesting biographies that I have ever read. It should be, as the author is also a successful Russian playwright, and he is not inexperienced at writing biographies. Combine this talent for researching and telling dramatic stories with the fact that the author had privileged access to formerly top-secret archives of the Soviet Union, and the ingredients are there for the compulsive read that it is.

Radzinsky makes it clear just how little is known about Stalin's early years. Nevertheless, he considers various testimonies and documents to offer several possibilities about the nature of each of his parents - an absent father and a poor, toiling mother. Considering similar kinds of evidence, and also painting a picture of how Georgia may have been like at the close of the 19th Century, the author also offers glimpses of a child who was always small, feisty, and yet natural as a leader.

His mother pressures him into going to a seminary school so that he may become an orthodox priest. However, this proves to be against a backdrop of various ideologies and revolutionaries, and so we can imagine the transition as Stalin goes from bright student, to atheist, and on to zealous terrorist who has no qualms about taking innocent lives for his ideals.

Stalin's rise to prominence is just as fascinating, in its own way, as Hitler's; but we don't only meet Stalin. We see a lot of Soviet history in the making, and we meet an array of colourful contemporaries along the way. The book is gripping as we read about revolutions, wars, civil wars, the rise and death of Lenin, and the rise of Stalin as he consolidates absolute power into his own hands. By now, we have already glimpsed just how un-human his heart can be, but that is only just the beginning in what is to become an all out attempt to eliminate all political rivals and all classes who may not conform to a system that promises a utopia built upon a foundation of human bones.

There is brief respite during WWII, where some power had to be given back to the generals. With this sense of relative freedom, and the victory over Nazi Germany, it seems as if for a while things will get better. However, as soon as the war is over, the time for independent thinkers is over, and it's back to purges, and then the purges of those who purged, once more.

Unfortunately, I could never really get a feel for how accurate some of the story was, as this is the first major biography on Stalin that I have read, and I have also read relatively little on Soviet history in general. Some reviewers praise this book, saying how they use it to teach their high-school students. Others attack it for being unfounded lies and propaganda. Having been a student of history for some while, I never got the sense that it was too much of the latter; but then I wouldn't be aware of some of the more technical points. Still, if like any other book it can't be assumed to be absolute fact, I continue to feel there has to be much to it that is fair.

Overall, I thought Radzinsky was clear about the fallibility of his explanations, and I always felt as if I were being allowed to draw my own conclusions. The only time that I really questioned the validity of some of his arguments was when it came to Radzinsky's interpretation of Stalin's death, and the seeming conclusion that one way or another Stalin was murdered. This was when at best it looked as if people had been slow to help him because he was not in his normal place to issue commands from the top; and at worst it looked like he may have suffered from a well-deserved dose of neglect. Neither of these possibilities would personally lead me to conclude 'murder'. Still, as I have said, I was able to reach this conclusion for myself, based on the fact that Radzinsky presented alternative evidence and that he was clear when his own conclusions were not absolute.

To sum up, this is a fascinating read; a real page-turner. The story seemed fairly balanced and accurate to me (but then I couldn't be certain). Nevertheless, it was very colourful and highly entertaining. I think it's a very recommendable book.

Much to the chagrin of leftist apologists, Stalin is a superior account of the true murderous nature of the Soviet Empire in its bloodiest of days. The first person accounts enhance the readability, and provide color to the well-researched accounts of the institutional abuse and murder that was the Soviet Union. For any history buff, this is a must.

Despite the problems that a previous reviewer or two had about this book, I found it fascinating and easy to read for several reasons:

1) it is written in the "I" first person, so we can follow Radzinsky as he progresses through the research of his narrative;

2) it is very revealing since it is based on Soviet archives that have just now been opened after 50 years or so;

3) it takes the reader from Stalin's childhood, through his ascendancy, and finally to his supremacy in the Soviet; and

4) it reports rather than analyzes, forcing the reader to listen to the "facts" and come up with conclusions of his/her own, creating a less "preachy" story.

The only difficulty in the reading is the Russian names, but that can't be helped.

As another reviewer has said, the story has something for everyone from the general reader to the student of Soviet history. I read the book since I didn't have a general understanding of the Soviet Union under Stalin, and now I feel I have a good grasp of what went on, both on the Leninist/Stalinist organizational level, and on the personal level of not only Stalin, but many of those who were liquidated.

If the book was originally written in Russian, this is then a very good translation: easy to read and no clumsy expressions. I had a hard time putting it down. As far as content, I feel I "learned" a lot, not just about the personality of Stalin, but also that of Lenin, Lenin's wife, Trotsky, Motolov, Stalin's wives, his children, and others, all very surprising, intimate and interesting stuff.

An excellent, smooth flowing account about people and their character. I give it a strong five star rating.

I have read many, many books about Adolf Hitler, one of the most despicable people to ever live, but I don't think I ever looked true evil in the eye, so to speak, until I read Radzinsky's account of Stalin's reign(s) of terror. Hitler's crimes, ghastly though they were, seem born from a misguided sense of being slighted and unrecognized for his "genius", whereas Stalin seems to be the textbook example of a psychotic sociopath whose paranoia knows no limits. I am reminded of a scene in Martin Scorcese's "Casino", where the mob bosses are discussing the fate of an associate. They go around the table, talking about what a stand-up guy he is, he would never crack, he's done a lot for us - then its time for the last boss to speak. "The way I figure is - why take chances?", he says, and just like that, the associate is as good as dead. Stalin took this one step further, it seems - to have even known him or any of his associates in any capacity whatsoever, or for that matter, to even be a well-known person in any field, seemed enough to warrant a death sentence. The writing and narrative are strong throughout (I particularly enjoyed the account of the end of Beria, the child-molesting deviant) and Radzinsky keeps a strong moral compass without becoming preachy. If anyone, anywhere is still under the misconception that there was something romantic and glorious about the Russian Revolution, please read this book and disabuse yourself of your delusions. Highest recommendation for this one.

I've noticed scores of Amazon reviews in which the writers bend over backwards to minimize or justify the tens of millions slaughtered in the name of Bolshevism and Stalinism. I'm only assuming that these readers are committing the Chomskyesque mistake of being so firmly chained to an ideology, that anything done in its name is excusable.

Well, it doesn't take long for the reader of this history to grasp the true scope of the suffering rendered upon the Russians, almost unimaginable, by this nauseating beast of a man, deadlier and more treacherous than 100 Hitlers. Also evident, in spite of the insanity he wrought, is the counterintuitive fact that Stalin was actually completely sane and that every bloody dystopian brick in his Soviet utopia was placed with pure Machiavellian exactitude.

Several reviewers of this work have expressed incredulity regarding Radzinsky's ascription to Stalin of such amazing powers of prescience. How could he have, with such rectitude, forecast the actions and inclinations of the other players in the communist party and on the international scene? My question to them is: how could any man have risen to such heights and gained such an intense degree of power WITHOUT this incredible ability? This is the very essence of the General Secretary. His almost paranormal understanding of human political nature, of both individuals and the masses, informed him of not only the likely behavior of his nemeses or of the national political mood, but of the exact moment to initiate his own actions. Were this not the case, this review would likely have been about what a monster Leon Trotsky was.

In addition to providing astounding insight, the author regularly addresses and exposes as false prevailing myths about the GenSec and his Bolshevik minions. Radzinsky fills in his portrait with a wealth of incredible archival information and vibrant anecdotes (without omitting counterevidence) which animate the red yellow-eyed rodent to the point of stimulating the reader's olfactory glands.

This is quite simply the best political biography I've ever read and every proponent of communism should take note of the fate of all of Stalin's devout, sincere, Bolshevik brothers: he had them shot.