Stalin
A Biography
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4.2 • 5 Ratings
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- £9.99
Publisher Description
The acclaimed biography of Joseph Stalin from Robert Service, world-leading expert in modern and Soviet era Russia.
'Outstanding . . . will be read for decades' – Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
Spanning from childhood to death, Service chronicles every element of Stalin’s life: his formative interactions in Georgia, his youthful revolutionary activism, his relationship with Lenin, with his family, and with his party members. Seen through Stalin’s career, Service recounts some of the greatest events in modern history: the Russian Revolution, World War Two and the early years of the Cold War.
Thoroughly researched and balanced, this vivid biography moves beyond the often simplistic portrayals of Stalin as a dedicated bureaucrat or serial political killer, encompassing the multitude of political and personal factors that formed his character.
Drawing on a wealth of unexplored material from previously unopened archives, Stalin: A Biography is a masterful, authoritative portrait of the Soviet Union’s longest serving leader.
Discover more acclaimed biographies from Robert Service: Lenin and Trotsky.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Here is a life-and-times biography in the grand style: deeply researched, well written, brimming with interpretations. Oxford historian Service, author of an acclaimed biography of Lenin, provides the most complete portrait available of the Soviet ruler, from his early, troubled years in a small town in Georgia to the pinnacle of power in the Kremlin. Most previous biographers have depicted Stalin as a plodding figure whose only distinguishing characteristic was brutality. But Service describes a man who was intelligent and hardworking, who learned from experience and who played an important role in the Russian revolutionary movement. On so many of the complex issues of Soviet history including Stalin's rise to power within the Communist Party, the policy shift to forced collectivization, the Great Terror and the prosecution of the war against Nazi Germany Service provides lucid accounts based on his own research and the most recent scholarship. Stalin was the key figure behind every major development from the mid-1920s onward. He based his policy decisions on his understanding of Marxism-Leninism and on a hardheaded, realistic assessment of his own often uneasy position and of the Soviet Union's relatively weak standing in the world. By providing such a rich and complex portrait of the dictator and the Soviet system, Service humanizes Stalin without ever diminishing the extent of the atrocities he unleashed upon the Soviet population. 47 b&w photos, 4 maps.
