Milovan Djilas was president of Yugoslavia and had some exchanges with the Head of the USSR. These were edgy chats, and offered a paradigm of how to deal with and sometimes inform a major tyrant.
A survivor of the Partisan Movement in WWII, Djilas, a Montenegrin oved towards more democratic sociaism in his postwar career, and was jailed for a good part of it by the Communists under Tito. This book of essays contrasts forms of democratic socialism with the strict Communist system. A Good book for the inquiring social scientists. ( )

I felt I didn't get as much out of this as I could have done given my ignorance of many of the events the author talks about. Many of the individuals involved were likewise unknown to me, and the few details he sketches of certain prominent characters (Beria, Molotov, etc) didn't really add much to what I already knew. Regarding the man himself, Djilas probably gives as accurate a representation as he can, but they are by nature only one man's experience of a complex and multifaceted personality, and therefore a bit one-dimensional.

But this isn't a bio, so much as a study in disillusionment. Split into three largish chapters -- Raptures, Doubts and Disappointments -- the author charts his gradual realization that a system that he held to be the pinnacle of human achievement was in fact nothing of the sort. The turnaround isn't quite so dramatic as it could have been, partly due to Djilas's rather low-key style that never really convinces us of his emotional states at any particular time, and partly because he never hides the fact that he's writing the work from a position of condemnation.

I'll probably come back to this at a later time, when I'm a bit more familiar with the events and context. ( )

I felt I didn't get as much out of this as I could have done given my ignorance of many of the events the author talks about. Many of the individuals involved were likewise unknown to me, and the few details he sketches of certain prominent characters (Beria, Molotov, etc) didn't really add much to what I already knew. Regarding the man himself, Djilas probably gives as accurate a representation as he can, but they are by nature only one man's experience of a complex and multifaceted personality, and therefore a bit one-dimensional.

But this isn't a bio, so much as a study in disillusionment. Split into three largish chapters -- Raptures, Doubts and Disappointments -- the author charts his gradual realization that a system that he held to be the pinnacle of human achievement was in fact nothing of the sort. The turnaround isn't quite so dramatic as it could have been, partly due to Djilas's rather low-key style that never really convinces us of his emotional states at any particular time, and partly because he never hides the fact that he's writing the work from a position of condemnation.

I'll probably come back to this at a later time, when I'm a bit more familiar with the events and context. ( )

A fascinating little book for anyone interested in the period - Djilas was Yugoslav deputy prime minister and visited Moscow during and after WW2 (prior to the split between Tito and Stalin), meeting Stalin on several occasions. The book describes Djilas' growing disillusionment with communism through those meetings, but for those who've read that type of story a hundred times, the portraits of Stalin and his inner circle are well worth picking this one up for. Unlike anything else I have read on the period. ( )

A little monograph which chronicles the descent from dewy-eyed socialist idealism into disillusionment and fear. Describes a glimpse of how Stalin ran his empire and belittled his courtiers.

Also useful for an insight into the Yugoslav guerilla movement, one of the few successful cases of a socialist insurgency taking over a country in this era with relatively limited Soviet aid - Stalin promised support, but the Western allies were able to airlift most of their stuff in. Stalin was already preparing to carve up the future Warsaw Pact into little obedient fiefdoms.

A good primary source for a brief analysis of both these fields. ( )