Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

If Cheney would be Stalin, who would be Beria? Ok, so Cheney would be Stalin and Beria. Or let Wolfowitz be Stalin. Bolton as Molotov? Close enough. Obama? Let's say Bulganin. This regime unleashed a terror the likes of which have only been seen in previous regimes with different Stalin/Berias. Only they did it outside their own country. What is remarkable in the case of Stalin is that he did it to his own people (and to a lesser extent those in his sphere of control to the west). Is it justifiable to compare this 'Monster' to our monsters? I think so. Our comparisons are effective and sometimes necessary, particularly when we begin to make the mistake of looking at politics in terms of good versus evil. Stalin and gang's crude and show more massively murderous rapid industrialization is certainly ugly to read about, but what was it if not a compression of the Industrialization that took place in England, which certainly exceeded Stalin's efforts in terms of vicitms, coming as it did along with colonial rapine and the complete gutting of India, where the British orchestrated famines as bad as that in the Ukraine in the early 30s.
Simon Sebag Montefiore's The Court of the Red Tsar has little new to say in broad terms about Stalin and his crew, because Stalin has been written about repeatedly, from the early and percipient biography by the all but forgotten Isaac Deutscher to the perhaps definitive biographer Robert Service. But Montefiore has more information at his disposal than any writer has yet had and he made the decision to write a rather gossipy book that reads like a South American novel of a despot. Even his language is that of a novelist at times, freely using the word dwarf, mostly to describe the sadistic (the book is filled with sadists, but it has to be said here anyway) shorty Yezhov, who headed the inquisitions after Yagoda and before Beria. So the book is highly entertaining, more so than any other biography of Stalin, giving specific inside story after inside story, quote after quote, so that a bland statement like 'Stalin was merciless even in his closest circles, ordering the executions of...' is given horrific life by closely acquainting the reader with these people, what they said, and how they subsequently suffered: there are many accounts of specific tortures (One thing I learned was that I have been wrong all these years to believe that a paranoid Stalin was quite practical about offing his enemies, simply sending them to the Lubyanka to be shot; given the extraordinary numbers of political murders [millions] this had to be to some extent true, but he often requested various tortures be applied and in many personal cases took an interest in the reactions of the victims.)
Since so little of the general story was new to me, I didn't begin marking the book until late, around page 500 or so. Here are some of these bits:
Stalin: 'Leave them in peace. We can always shoot them later.'
'The film star Zoya Fyodorovna was picked up by these Chekists at a time when she was still breastfeeding her baby. Taken to a party where there were no other guests, she was joined by Beria whom she begged to let her go as her breasts were painful. »Beria was furious.« The officer who was taking her home mistakenly handed her a bouquet at the door. When Beria saw, he shouted: »It's a wreath not a bouquet. May they rot on your grave!« She was arrested afterwards.
'The film actress Tatiana Okunevskaya was even less lucky: at the end of the war, Beria invited her to perform for the Politburo. Instead they went to a dacha. Beria plied her with drink, »virtually pouring the wine into my lap. He ate greedily, tearing at the food with his hands, chattering away.« Then »he undresses, rolls around, eyes ogling, an ugly, shapeless toad. »'Scream or not, doesn't matter',« he said. »'Think and behave accordingly.'« Beria softened her up by promising to releaase her beloved father and grandfather from prison and then raped her. He knew very well that both had already been executed. She too was arrested soon afterwards and sentenced to solitary confinement. Felling trees in the Siberian taiga, she was saved, like so many others, by the kindness of ordinary people.'
Like I say, the book fleshes out novelistically what we for the most part already knew. One of the most astonishing things we knew was how Stalin refused to accept the fact that Germany was going to attack his country and refused to make any efforts to prepare, in fact did the opposite so as not to offend Hitler, who might take troop movements and such as a provocation. This book does not bore on the topic, for instance Montefiore finds a quote from Stalin who is told less than a week before Operation Barbarossa that a spy in the Luftwaffe confirms the impending attack, and Stalin replies 'Tell the »source« in the Staff of the German Air Force to fuck his mother!«
Other matters of particular interest to me are Churchill's calling his agreement to divide post-war Europe into states controlled by East and West, using percentages (Greece 90% west, 10% East...) a 'naughty document'; And, moreso, I was pleased that an anecdote I have been telling for years regarding attempted assassinations of Tito was factual. Some letters were found on Stalin's Kremlin desk, apparently the contents unknown to any but Stalin. In my old version there were three, two from Lenin, one from Tito. In this version there were five, but only three could be recalled by witnesses. One was indeed from Lenin, scolding Stalin for speaking ill of Krupskaya, one from Bukharin asking why he needed to die, and the third was from Tito that read 'Stop sending assassins to muder me...If this doesn't stop, I will send a man to Moscow and there'll be no need to send any more.'
Finally, grading this book. The effort, the travels, the inexhaustible reading and travelling the author undertook...this alone suggests five of five stars. The writing itself, weaving the personal and the enormous historic without jarring the reader, managing to tell readers what they quite likely already know without boring them, that too suggests five of five stars. And, more difficult than anything probably, telling much the same personal tales of victims, endless victims close to Stalin, their stories not significantly different from all the others for the most part, without either appealing to the basest instincts of the reader (I, for one, could have used more specifics) or boring us—that deserves a five as well. show less

Montefiore’s history of Stalin’s inner circle is a well-researched and thoroughly detailed look at the lives of a group of mass murderers. It’s not a biography of Stalin or a history of the USSR – Stalin’s early life is glossed over and world events are a backdrop to the squabbles of the group or just something that they react to. In fact, it can be a bit hard to keep track of the “jobs” of all of Stalin’s magnates as their appointments were constantly shifting, all seemed to maintain political positions that became increasingly useless except as a mark of Stalin’s favor, and the day-to-day details of their work weren’t given much coverage. Exceptions include some out-of-the ordinary jobs (Molotov’s diplomatic show more position), the actual military officers (as opposed to all the amateurs Stalin sent out) and whoever happened to be the head of the secret police.

The story picks up around the 20’s, when Stalin wasn’t yet the undisputed head of the party, and ends with his death in 1953. The writing is clear and very readable, Montefiore presents an interesting if understandably repulsive at time narrative and he nicely balances the overwhelming list of people arrested and executed with intimate stories of both Stalin and his inner circle and ordinary citizens affected by them. Usually, the author is very clear about things that are unknown and includes speculations on whether various individuals were murdered as well as multiple motivations for people’s behavior. He also presents good evidence against some commonly-held beliefs – that the arrests and executions were put on hold during WWII, that Stalin acted alone in many of the murders or alternatively that the executions were the sole responsibility of his NKVD heads, Yezhov and Beria. Sometimes, though, he presents ideas that are not well-supported. He suggests that Stalin’s wife Nadya’s suicide contributed to his paranoia and was a reason for some arrests. However, Montefiore doesn’t cite much evidence for this idea. It is certainly possible but there is not much written or remembered to suggest that Stalin felt anything other than an expected grief and anger. I was also unsure of how much evidence there was for Stalin’s relationship with his sister-in-law, Zhenya Alliluyeva, or his daughter Svetlana’s unrequited love for Sergo Beria - this one sounded like there were conflicting personal accounts.

The first section covers Stalin and Nadya’s relationship, family life and friendships with other important Bolshevik politicians. Stalin and Nadya had a stormy marriage. Montefiore seems to be addressing a popular view of Nadya as another of Stalin’s victims who was driven to suicide but he shows that she was very unstable and likely had a psychosomatic disorder. She was thin-skinned and argumentative like her husband and would often reject their children. Stalin loved his daughter Svetlana but was less enthusiastic about his son Vasily and Yakov, his son from his first marriage. They lived close to a number of others who would come to form Stalin’s inner circle – Vyacheslav Molotov, an uptight true believer married to the intelligent and ambitious Polina, Lazar Kaganovich, who was an early fervent Stalinist, and Klim Voroshilov, from a humble background and often portrayed as unintelligent but an old friend of Stalin’s who would oppose him at various instances. The group was constantly together, in and out of each others’ apartments, taking vacations together. Even as Stalin quarreled with members of the Politburo, consolidated power, and forced collectivization of the peasants, leading to the Ukrainian peasant revolts and famine, the letters of his inner circle were filled with details of holidays and their constant worries over illnesses.

After Nadya’s death, Stalin leaned on his friendship with Sergei Kirov, the Leningrad boss. With Kirov, Stalin showed the love-hate or maybe dependence-repulsion, admiration-jealousy that he displayed in his relationships with many others. After Kirov’s death, Stalin and his minions engineered a conspiracy leading to the famous show trials. All the details of how Zinoviev and Kamenev were railroaded by their old ally Stalin are pretty horrible to read – Stalin writing up what they would say, his instances of genuine-sounding indignation (wondering with no sense of irony how they could live with themselves), his morbid interest in their last moments. Yagoda, the head of the NKVD at the time, dug out the bullets that killed Zinoviev and Kamenev and had them framed and displayed. Further conspiracies were “discovered” - old Bolsheviks of Lenin’s generation, army officers and Stalin’s close friends, comrades and family members were purged.

Nikolai Yezhov, chief of the NKVD after Yagoda, was often blamed for the Great Terror but Montefiore shows how Stalin and his associates signed off on names or suggested more and fully agreed with the lists of arrests and executions that were sent out to different regions. Stalin could save people if he wanted – though he would cynically claim he couldn’t help out those who asked, as his own family members were in prison – and occasionally his magnates could try, though it was always a dicey thing to attempt. Montefiore includes all sorts of salacious details and Yezhov’s life is closely covered – as a vicious, torturing, drunken, sickly bisexual dwarf married to a flamboyant woman who had affairs with various literary lights, he provides many such details. Yezhov once came to a meeting splattered in blood of those he had been interrogating, which he proudly described as a mark of his dedication. He commented that one thousand extra executed was no big deal and was always pushing for more. His wife Yevgenia committed suicide when it became clear their end was near and Yezhov comforted himself with drunken orgies. Ironically, Yezhov’s ashes were dumped in the same pit as Isaac Babel’s, the great writer who had also been Yevgenia’s lover. Lavrenti Beria, his successor was just as bad – a loving husband, father and father-in-law, he was also a sadistic torturer and rapist who, while efficient, energetic and politically savvy, distinguished himself by his nasty behavior towards Stalin’s friends and relatives. He groped the wives and female relatives, enjoyed unpleasant teasing and cruel pranks (constantly calling Georgi Malenkov, his political ally, fat and shoving tomatoes in Anastas Mikoyan’s pockets then smashing him into the wall) and frequently threatened those who crossed him and made good on his threats.

The sections leading up to and during the war and are quite interesting. Montefiore describes well-known meetings and actions but adds the discussion and gossip in Stalin’s inner circle, descriptions of preparations and security surrounding the events and possible motivations of Stalin and others. Stalin’s war against his own people never stopped – in fact, they were still arresting military personnel while everyone talked of the coming war. Stalin admired Hitler though he had to hate him as a Fascist. He hoped the West would keep Hitler occupied but was later glad to divide eastern Europe between the two of them. Even after the non-aggression pact, Stalin often talked about how untrustworthy Hitler was and still discussed war as inevitable. I thought some of the interpretations of Stalin’s actions that were said to appease Hitler weren’t entirely supported. But despite his talk, Stalin dithered endlessly when he had evidence of German treachery. After the German attack, Stalin still thought it could be a rogue German officer. He seemed to hope that no war would happen despite the frequent discussions and advice from his magnates and generals.

Once it became clear that the war had started, Stalin had a mini-breakdown. Montefiore speculates that it was partly true, partly an act to gauge the reaction of his magnates or an idea based on the actions of past rulers. While the fear and toadying around Stalin never stopped, the war occasionally caused a loosening of the past terror. To supervise the war effort, he sent his cronies out. However, most provided no help or bungled badly. Zhdanov drank and panicked at Leningrad; Voroshilov tried but couldn’t turn the tide and when Molotov and Malenkov were sent, they mostly tried to find scapegoats and gossiped about Zhdanov. Mekhlis suffered a defeat due to his ineptitude and was demoted but Stalin forgave him. Khrushchev also lost his battle and had a possible breakdown; Stalin forgave him as well. In the Caucasus, Beria screamed and threatened but didn’t seem to do much good. When Stalin collaborated with General Georgi Zhukov, things started to turn around. Montefiore is perhaps a bit thin and general when it comes to military strategy but excellently covers all the meetings, the atmosphere of nonstop working that soon became the norm and the usual falls from favor and incestuous in-group plotting. Whoever was with Stalin all the time was in favor and could look on at his constant meetings with Zhukov and others. After victory at Stalingrad, Stalin regained his confidence; it was the beginning of endless military swaggering. Personally, the war resulted in some casualties in his family – Yakov, his first son, was captured and committed suicide. Svetlana’s close relationship with her father was abruptly shattered when he found out about her relationship with an older married man. Vasily had never been on good terms with Stalin and one can see why – he behaved like a stereotype of a spoiled, vicious dictator’s son. Montefiore partly defends Stalin’s behavior towards his children – any father would be angry about an affair like Svetlana’s and as the leader of the country he couldn’t trade only his son.

After the war, Stalin became increasingly paranoid although probably not insane as was believed. While Montefiore covers world events - Yalta (Stalin had an odd affection for Roosevelt but disliked Churchill), the Cold War, the development of the bomb, dissent and repression in the Eastern European satellites – they are mostly background to the infighting among the group, which became more pronounced. Stalin was old and questions about his successor inevitably arose. However, whoever seen as his successor was bound to end up dead or a pariah as Stalin was jealous of recognition or praise to others. He allowed Zhukov to share honors for WWII then decided he was overreaching and demoted him. He appointed Molotov, his longtime comrade, to run the country while he was recovering then quickly turned on him. Stalin made moves to dilute the respect and power that his older magnates – Molotov, Voroshilov, Kaganovich – had accrued. He had become suspicious of Beria before the war ended and after the war sacked him as NKVD head. Zhdanov then became the favorite and he and Stalin would have long intellectual conversations and bonded over the Jewish purges and repression of Yugoslavia. Zhdanov fell out with Stalin and died soon after – a suspicious death but likely a natural one. Stalin handpicked Zhdanov’s allies Kuznetsov and Voznesensky as his successors; Beria and Malenkov quickly engineered their downfall. Stalin’s arrest of Jews is described in detail and a number of explanations are provided by Montefiore. Molotov’s Jewish wife Polina was arrested and attempts were made to implicate her in a conspiracy. Purges of Leningraders and doctors are also analyzed – they were related to the death of Zhdanov and Kuznetsov’s end. Stalin also persecuted Georgians in an attempt to implicate Beria, who, like Stalin, was Georgian.

Montefiore describes the drawn-out death of Stalin and the reactions of his inner circle. He also deals with the rumors surrounding the death – that Stalin was killed (unlikely, he thinks) or that the delay in medical attention killed him (hard to tell, but unlikely). His afterward relates the fate of the group and their families. This is an extremely informative and detailed book despite occasional lapses (some interpretations, weird contemporary comparisons). Highly recommended. show less

At first I had some qualms with this book, but after the first 100 pages or so, I became engrossed that I dismissed my earlier criticisms as nitpicking and embraced this wonderful book. Sebag Montefiore has a way with words so that even if the narrative gets bogged down in a dizzying sea of convoluted intrigue and overlarge cast, it still keeps me avidly turning the page. His wicked sense of humor and often bombastic diction had me laughing out loud many times -- an amazing accomplishment considering how much I loathed basically every adult character in Stalin's "court."

If you are even remotely interested in Stalin, dictators or paranoid narcissist mass murderers in general, this is the book for you.

Stalin and his olicharchs

With this book Simon Sebag Montefiore tries to correct our view of Stalin as the man who was single-handedly responsible for the crimes of his reign. He finds it grieving that Stalin is often seen in a "macabre competition" with Hitler for the title of greatest villain:

Many of his views and features, such as death as a political tool, and his paranoia, were shared by his comrades.

Stalin was "a mirror of the virtues and faults" of Bolshevism (p.4). With new access to archives in Moscow Mr. Sebag Montefiore paints a detailed picture of the Man of Steel and his entourage. This book is mainly about the interaction between members of this group and how they came to their decisions. Soviet and world history are just show more there in the background.

So we learn that Stalin was "the best-read ruler Russia had ever had, including Lenin". Stalin claimed to read 500 pages of literature per day (p.86) and worshipped Zola. Both in literature and music, the autodidact always preferred 19th century authors and composers to Modernists like Akhmatova and Shostakovich. He would tinker with the texts of Soviet writers, "suggesting" improvements. Lenin had considered film the most important art form and Stalin supervised these too, even helping with writing songs. He saw every film before its release, thus becoming his own censor.

Stalin had learned the art of tough leadership during the defence of Tsaritsy (the later Stalin- and Volgograd) against the Whites in 1918. Governing from an armoured train with 400 Red Guards he had executed a "ruthless purge of the rear, administered by an iron hand". It was here that Stalin grasped the convenience of death as the simplest and most effective political tool. "Death solves all problems".

At Lenin's death Stalin was already the party's General Secretary. He had used his power to promote comrades like Molotov against Trotsky. They would soon start their war on the kulaks. Molotov categorised the kulaks into the categories "to be eliminated", "to be imprisoned" and "to be deported" and acted accordingly. The Five Year Plans were meant to storm the Soviet Union forwards. Doubt was treason, hardness the Bolshevik virtue.

Life at the Kremlin was a cosy coterie of comrades in arms, with collective evening dinners, drinking bouts and film watching. At first corruption and extravagance were not widespread. The Molotovs were notoriously unproletarian, but Stalin's wife took the train to her office. The foundation of Stalin's power was charm rather than fear (p.41). His magnates, all capable of independent action, found his policies "congenial". Stalin was "a people person", not empathetic, but a master of friendship. The brutality and fits of irrational temper were the Party's faults. Summer holidays in dachas on the Crimea or on the Black Sea were soon expanded to two months and were excellent opportunities for networking.

They were all aware of the many deaths among the peasants of 1931 but thought it necessary for the Soviet Union's "glorious future" (p.75). The "sword-bearers" of Leninism believed with Messianic faith and acted ruthlessly. Most had a religious background (p.76). Still, Stalin thought news about the famine to be absurd. Stalin later told Churchill it was absolutely necessary that he had to destroy 10 million over 4 years time.

The author considers the death of Stalin's wife Nadya in 1932 as a defining moment in Stalin's life. Her death by suicide, on a drunken night with comrades when Stalin had not paid much attention to her, shocked Stalin. The period before her death she had had hysterical moments, to the point that Stalin sometimes locked himself in the bathroom, while she beat the door, shouting. Her death redoubled his brutality, jealousy, coldness and self-pity.

The next summer vacation in Sochi was used to write the Soviet version of history (p.123). Stalin's influence was growing towards dictatorship. The murder of Kirov in November was used for a law that same night that was the basis for the Great Terror:

As easily as slipping the safety catch on their Mausers, the Politburo clicked into the military emergency mentality of the Civil War.(p.131)

Stalin led the investigation in the murder himself. He used the case to get rid of the old Bolshevik cliques the way Hitler used the Reichstag Fire for his purge, an act Stalin very much admired. Stalin personally ordered the judge to condemn the "terrorists" to death (p.139). The informality of Stalin's court was gone forever. Still, women flocked around him. Likely Stalin had an affair with his sister-in-law. The Bolsheviks were no strangers to adulterous romances, as they were not to song and dance (p.152). Stalin believed the Russians needed a Tsar. He compared himself to Tsars and Shahs, but regarded Ivan the Terrible his true alter ego: both had lost their wives and both murdered their aristocracies (p.158). For the show trials of Zinoviev and Kamenev Stalin personally dictated the words in the script for the prosecutor (p.167). They were shot through the back of the head. Others were poisoned; an art refined by Beria, or killed themselves. Krushchev was accused of being a Pole, whom Stalin was particularly suspect of (Kruschev got away with it, later ordering the shooting of over 50,000 people, p.222). Stalin formulated opposition in religious terms, claiming the old Bolsheviks had lost faith. The show trials were accompanied by mass rallies in Red Square to proof that the "court's verdict is the people's verdict" and against the "Judas-Trotsky" (dixit Kruschev). All problems were blamed on sabotage by Trotskyists, not on poor management or the speed of the Five Year Plan (in 1934 there were 62,000 railway accidents, p.188). Stalin discussed the slaughter of Bolsheviks openly with his inner circle. They agreed the army was infested with German agents and Tukhachevsky, the most talented general, was among the first to be shot. Murders were soon organised through quotas, soon totalling 700,000 (p.204):

Like Hitler's Holocaust this was a colossal feat of management.

People like Molotov and Mikoyan used to go over to Lubianka to interrogate their comrades. Torture was cruel and prisoners were frequently beaten to death. An abattoir for executions was created off Lubianka in Varsonofyevsky Lane (p.219). After a shot to the back of the head the bodies were sent to one of the crematoria in Moscow. The original quotas often led to the death of opponents of regional leaders. Yet it were the "princes" Stalin intended to destroy, necessating a second round of purges.

At the time Stalin, ever smelling of tobacco, was surrounded by pretty young Jewesses, "more interested in clothes, jokes and affairs than dialectical materialism" (p.237). Jazz was Moscow’s music of the age. The Caucasian sadistic torturer, loving husband and priapic womaniser Beria was brought into NKVD. His tight system of terror administration became the Stalinist method of ruling Russia (p.247). It also meant the death of much of Stalin's in-laws. The Great Terror exhausted his lieutenants and in 1939 Beria proposed an end to the terror.

Molotov became Foreign Commissar. He became a duo with Stalin: Stalin "radical and reckless, Molotov the stolid analyst of the possible". In 1939 Stalin saw Europe as a poker game between Germany, Britain and the Bolshevists (p.268). While the Soviet Union was in a frenzy of Prussophobic war preparations, he found the democracies at least as dangerous as Germany. The many Jews in the foreign department were purged to appease Hitler. Around this time the Vozhd (= "Leader") "was probing the submission of his comrades by investigating and sometimes killing their wives. While his troops managed to win territory against the Finns, his military leaders maintained their belief that tanks could never replace horses (p.294). The delivery of the T-34 tank was delayed, because Stalin trusted his old comrades-in-arms from the Civil War. This despite two Blitzkriegs with tanks.

It took 11 days for Stalin to learn about Hitler's directive to prepare for Operation Barbarossa. Stalin knew the Soviet Union would not be ready before 1943 and desperately tried to produce the best weapons and strategy. "Oblivious of his technical ignorance", Stalin "supervised every details of every weapon" (p.302). Silence was often a virtue for his managers. Stalin was reading about Talleyrand and Bismarck to sharpen his understanding of geo-politics. Bismarck had stated Germany should never face war on two fronts, so British warnings could be heeded (p.309). Still preparations for war were stepped up. Stalin was confused, slept little and drank a lot. The German army invaded on the same day as Napoleon's Grande Armée.

Stalin was asleep at the moment of attack and his inner circle tried to talk down the hostilities (p.322). Although Stalin quickly sent out the first orders, Soviet defence was in disarray. The four commanding officers for the Western front were shot. Around the fall of Minsk Stalin shut himself off. The government was paralysed until his trusted lieutenants rearranged the command structure. Terror was threatened against the families of men captured: when Stalin's son was captured his daughter-in-law was arrested. During 1941-42 157,000 servicemen were shot (p.349). Still, in Moscow the law broke down and shops were looted. Although an evacuation of Moscow was decided the leadership stayed. Lacking bunkers Stalin first worked from the Christye Prudi metro station where he also slept. The Kremlin was peppered with bomb craters by the time Stalin moved into his bunker. Convinced that Japan would not attack, fresh troops and tanks were brought in from Siberia. The parade on the 7th of November was still held, the troops directly moving to the front. A last German push failed. It was not the end of the Soviet Union's amateurish leadership. Stalingrad focussed Stalin's mind. A German victory meant access to the main waterway and the oil fields. Stalin started a partnership with the generals Vasilevsky and Zhukov. The generals had more opinions than politicians:

Having created an environment of boot-licking idolatry, Stalin was irritated by it. (p.387)

The politicians had to scare the others into obedience. After the victory at Stalingrad Tsarist shoulderboards returned and Stalin became a uniformed marshal. He still worked 16 hours a day before retiring with his history books.

With victory becoming more obvious Stalin became capricious (p.418): the long boozy dinners started again. 26 million were dead, 26 million were homeless, there was famine and treason in the Caucasus and Ukraine. The deportations of Chechen and Ingush started in February 1944 and was soon expanded to Tatars, Kalmyks and others, killing a quarter of the deported. During toasts he told de Gaulle

"People call me a monster, but as you see, I make a joke of it. Maybe I'm not horrible after all". (P.423)

He spoke understandably about the Soviet troops raping women, even if these were Soviet and just liberated from POW-camps (p.425) and believed that (Soviet) force would decide the faith of Eastern Europe.

The Stalin who emerged from the war was both more sentimental and more deadly (p.429)

He accepted the title of "generalissimo" (equivalent to Franco and Chiang Kai-shek) and the uniform of "a Park Avenue doorman". At Potsdam Truman informed Stalin about the atomic bomb. Stalin felt that the bomb on Hiroshima was aimed at himself (p.445). Beria took over from Kruschev to develop the Soviet bomb (Task Number One), promising spoils and threats to all involved. Beria managed to deliver within four years. Sick with arteriosclerosis, Stalin became a somewhat unpredictable paramount leader, like the elderly Mao. Stalin ruled "from the dinner table and the cinema" (p.456). Stalin loved Chaplin and possessed Joseph Goebels' film collection. It became increasingly difficult to discuss real politics while people now bowed to the generalissimo’s daughter Svetlana. Army leaders, politicians and Chekists had plundered Europe and lived in corrupt luxury with apartments, caviar and tickets for Red Square parades and football games for their "concubines" (p.488) while their wives were dressed in copies of Dior. Stalin retained control over privileges, personally distributing cars etc. among the faithful. War heroes like Zhukov were demoted or even shot. With Zhadov, the man from the Siege of Leningrad, Stalin tried to merge Russianness with Bolshevism, devising a savage attack on modernism and foreign culture. This soon included attacks on Jews (p.485). Not even the Jews in his own family of those of his inner circle were spared. Molotov's wife became one of them after speaking Yiddish to the Israeli envoy Golda Meir. Stalin decided action against after viewing an opera (p.520) and the Molotovs divorced to save each other. She was sent into exile and was kept alive by kulaks. There were now more prisoners than ever in the gulags, some 2.6 million. Stalin's circle was convinced that he was becoming senile but actually he was never more dangerous, determined and in control. The Doctor's Plot, an alleged conspiracy of Jewish doctors to murder Soviet leaders, brought together Stalin's fears of ageing, doctors and Jews. You did not have to be Jewish to be called a Zionist.

Did Stalin really believe it all? Yes, passionately, because it was politically necessary, which was better than mere truth.(p.553)

He called every Jew a nationalist and an agent of American intelligence. The doctors were arrested. But Stalin also blamed the intelligence services a lack of vigilance, a signal that Beria was a target.

Stalin had a stroke, but nobody organised treatment first. The doctors called later were understandably fearful (p.570). While Stalin was ailing, Beria opened his vault and destroyed incriminating documents. It would not save him. Shortly after Stalin's death he was sentenced to death and shot through his forehead.

Although not without minor errors, this is a splendid, if somewhat gossipy, biography that must have taken an almost endless number of interviews, books and documents to write. If you have to choose between this book and Coppola's film the Godfather, take this book. Soviet history is bigger than bigger than life. show less

Montefiore (The Prince of Princes: The Life of Potemkin) is more interested in life at the top than at the bottom, so he includes hundreds of pages on Stalin's purges of top Communists, while devoting much less space to the forced collectivization of Soviet peasants that led to millions of deaths. In lively prose, he intersperses his mammoth account of Stalin's often-deadly political decisions with the personal lives of the Soviet dictator and those around him. As a result, the reader learns about sexual peccadilloes of the top Communists: Stalin's secret police chief Lavrenti Beria, for one, "craved athletic women, haunting the locker rooms of Soviet swimmers and basketball players." Stalin's own escapades after the death of his wife show more are also noted. There's also much detail about the food at parties and other meetings of Stalin's henchmen. The effect is paradoxical: Stalin and his cronies are humanized at the same time as their cruel misdeeds are recounted. Montefiore offers little help in answering some of the unsettled questions surrounding Stalin: how involved was he in the 1934 murder of rising official Sergei Kirov, for example. He also seems to leave open the question of Stalin's paranoia: he argues that the Georgian-born ruler was a charming man who used his people skills to get whatever he wanted. Montefiore mainly skirts the paranoia issue, noting that only after WWII, when Stalin launched his anti-Semitic campaigns, did he "become a vicious and obsessional anti-Semite." There are many Stalin biographies out there, but this fascinating work distinguishes itself by its extensive use of fresh archival material and its focus on Stalin's ever-changing coterie. Maps and 24 pages of photos not seen by PW. show less

What makes this book stand out for me is the detail of day to day life in the centre of power of the Stalinist regime at that time. Yes, at times there are an almost overwhelming amount of names that flow towards the reader, but even if you let many of those flow past you like I did on my first read through, what remains is the sense of intimacy with the characters involved.

Interviews with survivors, children of officials and archival evidence provide a shocking picture of how even the most petty of prejudices and spiteful exchanges could lead to terrible consequences for millions of people. As someone who as a youth read with great interest on the 'great scientific experiment' of the soviet union, I can only hang my head even further show more in adult shame as a picture of policy unfolds, on many occasions driven by nothing much more than the irrational fears and prejudices of a small incestuous clique, that causes untold carnage.

This can be read as an overview of the era with all the usual events of the time covered and Stalin and his cronies attempts at responses, and this it does admirably and thoroughly, but what really chills me is the sheer pettiness in the decisions made. The way that saving face around a meeting table is more important than saving the lives of whole populations or even preparing for a war with the Third Reich. These people really were the same pig headed fools that exist in any organisation today, but given absolute power and a licence to do whatever is required in the name of the greater good. The sad thing is that you can recognize the characteristics of these people, the self denial, the desire to please in order to gain favour. show less

What makes this book stand out for me is the detail of day to day life in the centre of power of the Stalinist regime at that time. Yes, at times there are an almost overwhelming amount of names that flow towards the reader, but even if you let many of those flow past you like I did on my first read through, what remains is the sense of intimacy with the characters involved.

Interviews with survivors, children of officials and archival evidence provide a shocking picture of how even the most petty of prejudices and spiteful exchanges could lead to terrible consequences for millions of people. As someone who as a youth read with great interest on the 'great scientific experiment' of the soviet union, I can only hang my head even further show more in adult shame as a picture of policy unfolds, on many occasions driven by nothing much more than the irrational fears and prejudices of a small incestuous clique, that causes untold carnage.

This can be read as an overview of the era with all the usual events of the time covered and Stalin and his cronies attempts at responses, and this it does admirably and thoroughly, but what really chills me is the sheer pettiness in the decisions made. The way that saving face around a meeting table is more important than saving the lives of whole populations or even preparing for a war with the Third Reich. These people really were the same pig headed fools that exist in any organisation today, but given absolute power and a licence to do whatever is required in the name of the greater good. The sad thing is that you can recognize the characteristics of these people, the self denial, the desire to please in order to gain favour. show less