Customer Reviews

The Wolf of the Kremlin: The First Biography of L.M. Kaganovich, the Soviet Union's Architect of Fear

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Although the stories in this book cannot be accepted as "gospel," because they are from an old man who was a
participant in some of the worst atrocities in modern history,
it needs to be read by anyone interested in the history of
the USSR.
The subject, Lazar Kaganovich, was, indeed, the "wolf of the
Kremlin," as he was the one man Stalin could count on to "solve"
problems being caused anywhere in the USSR. Kaganovich could
be counted on by Stalin to take any and all steps necessary
to get rid of problems, because he always knew what Stalin wanted, and he had carte blanche to effect those wishes. He was
truly one of the most bloodthirsty henchmen Stalin had, at a
time and place when many men were competing with each other to
be be just that, and who were apparently willing to do anything
to further their own careers. Kaganovich would be counted on
to arrest anyone, execute anyone, bury anyone, or ship off to
the Gulug anyone who stood in Stalin's way.

The book is based on the author's family history, and he did
visit his aged relative in Moscow, but the results of that interview are sketchy and, as said, must be read with skepticism. Even when the old Stalinist was elderly and living
on his pension in a large apartment bldg in Moscow, he was
still afraid of the truth, and he didn't even want to visit with, and talk to, his relative from the U.S.
Any study of Stalin and his crimes have to include reference
to Kaganovich, and that the man survived to even tell his story, even in a very sanitized form, is a testament to his strength and cunning.
One explanation of Kaganovich's bloodthirstiness, and willingness to do the worst, is that he was always afraid for his own life. His fear was especially strong because he was
Jewish, and Stalin was famously paranoid, and his hatred of Jews
was well-known and documented. The theory is that Kaganovich
was therefore, in his strong desire to show he was not Jewish
first and foremost, willing to to to any lengths necessary to
impress Stalin that he was truthworthy. No job was too dirty,
too low, or too vicious for Kaganovich, and he performed them
all throughout his life.
Even his relative's viewpoint can't hide that fact.
But the man was at the side of Stalin during his entire reign,
and he deserves to be studied.
Even allowing for this book to be less than 100% accurate, because of the limited and self-serving sources, it is still fascinating to students of terror specifically, and the USSR
in general.

Kaganovich was an utterly evil man without redeeming characterists. He was responsible for far more deaths than Hitler.

He was selfish, cared only about his career. He purged the Ukraine, the railroads, heavy industry - sent millions to their death.

The chief attraction of Wolf of the Kremlin is the author's writing style. You can almost imagine you're sitting in a bar, hearing this story over drinks. But is it history?
The Publishers' Weekly reviewer complained that "A meaningful biography of Kaganovich is still to be written". But the same could be said about Attila the Hun. The point is that they didn't leave behind many witnesses to what they did. And the fact that Kaganovich was really just a cog (albeit an important one) in Stalin's machine makes the fog of history even more difficult to penetrate.
So your choices are either to take Wolf of the Kremlin as exactly what it says it is, a biography based on family history and one interview, and enjoy a vastly readable journey into one of the darkest eras of human history; or to leave it, and be the poorer for it.

This book is truly amazing in that it is the first, or one of the first, biographies of one of Stalin's closest comrades. How could such a wicked mass murderer go unnoticed for so many decades? The true value of this book lies not in the author's scholarly abilities but in the largely overlooked subject matter. Hopefully many more scholarly works on Kaganovich will be forthcoming. A "must read" for any serious student of the Soviet Union and man's inhumanity to man.

I think Stuart Kahan should take a course in ethics...

or has he re-thought his views of his darling uncle?

this was a used book and it was in the exact condition as described by the seller-the price was great for a hard to locate book-i would not hesitate to recommend "woody's books
larry

From Wikipedia: In 1987, American journalist Stuart Kahan published a book entitled The Wolf of the Kremlin: The First Biography of L.M. Kaganovich, the Soviet Union's Architect of Fear (William Morrow & Co). In the book, Kahan made a series of claims about Kaganovich's working relationship with Joseph Stalin and his activities during the Ukrainian famine, and claimed to be the long-lost nephew of Kaganovich. He also claimed to have interviewed Kaganovich personally and stated that Kaganovich admitted to being partially responsible for the death of Stalin in 1953 (supposedly via poisoning). A number of other unusual claims were made as well, including that Stalin was married to Kaganovich's sister in the last year of his life and that Kaganovich (a Jew) was the architect of anti-Jewish pogroms.[4] It also ought to be noted that the book is filled with political, historical and biographical errors when compared to Kaganovich's own memoirs which were published in Russian in 1996.

After The Wolf of the Kremlin was translated into the Russian language by Progress Publishers, and a chapter from it printed in the Nedelya (Week) newspaper in 1991, remaining members of Kaganovich's family penned the Statement of the Kaganovich Family in response. The statement disputed all of Kahan's claims and provided evidence that brought into question all of Kahan's factual assertions.

I did not know what to expect with this book. It was dealing with a good amount of history 20 -40 years old, what more and new could be said. I also have found that with many books that probably needed some help in the translation you get a more dry writing style. I was please when both of my assumptions turned out not to be correct. The writer provides some interesting information and his writing style is not wooden. As in any biography you have the expected chapter on the childhood years of the character so nothing new here and for me it could have been left out. There were some interesting facts about growing up in the USSR, but nothing worth 20 some odd pages. The real value to me came from the descriptions of some of the work the author's father performed as the second in command of what came to be known as the KGB.

If you have covered some of the history of he KGB, there are some interesting points in this book that could fill in or contradicted information from other books. You have a life of what most would call dirty double-crossing others in the top of the government, KGB and military. On of the interesting view points was from one of the guys doing the work on the military purges that took place with Stalin. It was rather amazing that the authors father did not also fall to the ax, but that must be a testament to the secure position he had behind Berga (SP?). This is an interesting book, but probably only for people that have a strong interest, this in not as exciting as the dusk jacket tries to make it out and if you do not have at least a general knowledge of the organization and history involved then you will miss a lot of the value of the book.