Stalin; The First In-Depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents From Russia's Secret Archives

Radzinsky, Edvard, and Willetts, H. T. (Translator)

ISBN 10: 0385479549 / ISBN 13: 9780385479547

Editore: Doubleday (An Anchor Book), New York, N.Y., 1997

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xii, 607, [5] pages. Translated by H.T. Willetts. Illustrations. Includes Preface, Prologue: The Name; and Introduction: An Enigmatic Story. Includes chapters on Soso: His Life and Death; Koba: Enigmatic Koba, The New Koba; Stalin: His Life, His Death; Interlude: A Family in Wartime. Also includes Afterword, Selected Bibliography, and Index. Edvard Stanislavovich Radzinsky (born September 23, 1936) is a Russian playwright, television personality, screenwriter, and the author of more than forty history books. Radzinsky has specialized in books about figures and times of Russian history. Books translated into English include his biographies of Tsars Nicholas II and Alexander II, Rasputin, and Joseph Stalin. His book Stalin: The First In-depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives (1997) was based on research in Russian and Soviet archives made newly available after 1991. He explored numerous controversies about Joseph Stalin, including the existence of a fuller text of Lenin's Testament, the alleged involvement of Stalin as an agent of the Tsarist secret police, and the role of Stalin in the death of his wife and the murder of Sergey Kirov. According to Radzinsky, Stalin was poisoned by order of Lavrentiy Beria. His book includes an interview with a former bodyguard of Stalin, who stated that on the night of Stalin's death, the bodyguards were relieved of duty by an NKVD officer named Khrustalev. This same officer was briefly mentioned in Memories, the memoir of Stalin's daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva. This book has what no previous biography has entirely gotten hold of: the facts. Granted privileged access to Russia's secret archives, Edvard Rarzinsky paints a picture of the Soviet strongman as more calculating, ruthless, and blood-crazed than has ever been described or imagined. Stalin deliberately shrouded the details of his life in tremendous secrecy, eliminating old colleagues-in-arms, personally directing purges of archivers, and creating a mythology that has gone almost entirely unchallenged--until now. Edvard Radzinsky thrillingly brings the past to life, uncovering the startling truth about Stalin's epic quest for domination. The Kremlin intrigues, the ceaseless rounds of double-dealing and back-stabbing, the private worlds of the Soviet empire's ruling class--all become, in Radzinsky's hands, as gripping and powerful as the great Russian sagas. And the riddle of that most cold-blooded of leaders, a man for whom nothing was sacred in his pursuit of absolute might--and perhaps the greatest mass murderer in Western history--is solved. Derived from a Kirkus review: A remarkable and gripping biography that may change the way we view Stalin and will certainly change many of the interpretations of his life. Based on unprecedented access to a range of archives, including the President's Archive, the Central Party Archive, and some KGB files, as well as interviews with survivors, Radzinsky has created a stunning portrait of a man who falls outside most of the normal human categories. Radzinsky's most significant contribution is to suggest that Stalin, in shedding the lives of untold millions, was following the prescripts of his ``teachers'': of revolutionary writers like Peter Tkachev and Bakunin, who believed that to create a new society ``the majority of the population must be exterminated''; of Trotsky, whose books advocating terror and revolutionary violence, found in the Party Archive, bear enthusiastic annotations in Stalin's hand; and of Lenin, who held the view that ``at some critical stage every generation of revolutionaries becomes a hindrance to the further development of the idea which they have carried forward,'' a view that may have served to justify the destruction of hundreds of thousands of party members in the 1930s. Radzinsky also clarifies much that has been uncertain. He penetrates Stalin's efforts to obscure his origins, and he suggests that, prior to the Civil War, Stalin,

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Dati bibliografici

• Titolo: Stalin; The First In-Depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents From Russia's Secret Archives
• Editore: Doubleday (An Anchor Book), New York, N.Y.
• Data di pubblicazione: 1997
• Lingua: Inglese
• ISBN 10: 0385479549
• ISBN 13: 9780385479547
• Rilegatura: Trade paperback
• Edizione: prima edizione
• Condizione: Good
• Cataloghi dei venditori:
  • Russian Revolution
  • Communism
  • Soviet Union

Descrizione articolo

Riassunto

From the author of The Last Tsar, the first full-scale life of Stalin to have what no previous biography has fully obtained: the facts. Granted privileged access to Russia's secret archives, Edvard Radzinsky paints a picture of the Soviet strongman as more calculating, ruthless, and blood-crazed than has ever been described or imagined. Stalin was a man for whom power was all, terror a useful weapon, and deceit a constant companion.

As Radzinsky narrates the high drama of Stalin's epic quest for domination-first within the Communist Party, then over the Soviet Union and the world-he uncovers the startling truth about this most enigmatic of historical figures. Only now, in the post-Soviet era, can what was suppressed be told: Stalin's long-denied involvement with terrorism as a young revolutionary; the crucial importance of his misunderstood, behind-the-scenes role during the October Revolution; his often hostile relationship with Lenin; the details of his organization of terror, culminating in the infamous show trials of the 1930s; his secret dealings with Hitler, and how they backfired; and the horrifying plans he was making before his death to send the Soviet Union's Jews to concentration camps-tantamount to a potential second Holocaust. Radzinsky also takes an intimate look at Stalin's private life, marked by his turbulent relationship with his wife Nadezhda, and recreates the circumstances that led to her suicide.

As he did in The Last Tsar, Radzinsky thrillingly brings the past to life. The Kremlin intrigues, the ceaseless round of double-dealing and back-stabbing, the private worlds of the Soviet Empire's ruling class-all become, in Radzinsky's hands, as gripping and powerful as the great Russian sagas. And the riddle of that most cold-blooded of leaders, a man for whom nothing was sacred in his pursuit of absolute might--and perhaps the greatest mass murderer in Western history--is solved.

Informazioni sull?autore

Edvard Radzinsky is well-known in Russia as a popular historian, television personality, playwright, and screenwriter. His plays have been staged with the frequency of Chekhov's and have won international acclaim. As a trained historian, Radzinsky spent decades working on the life of Tsar Nichols II and has written dozens of books about Russian history.