Stalin: A Biography

Over the years Stalin has proven to be a popular choice with biographers. He is one of the most evil people of all time with a murderous record equaled by few other dictators in human history. Perhaps his very nastiness as human being fascinates historians and authors. However in all these books, it is rare if anyone has anything new or interesting to say. Robert Service has written a book that reveals new details about one of the 20th century's mass murderers based on archival research which would have been impossible 20 years ago (and may not be possible now). Service presents a Stalin that is probably more fully realized than previous accounts and draws upon the recent efforts of Simon Montifiore's (Court of the Red Tsar) interviews with the surviving members of Stalin's elite.Stalin's legacy is one of those things that is difficult to imagine even after the publication of the Solzhenitsyn's Gulag Archipelago (which I read as it was translated and published). While exact figures are yet to be compiled the consensus is that Stalin managed to slaughter 20 million people during his rule of the Soviet Union. This includes not only those people who were murdered because Stalin thought they lacked the customary deference to his genius, but also those victims of military blunders during WWII. Paradoxically, and this is also part of his legacy, perhaps the only positive thing, the Soviet Union probably would not have defeated Hitler had Stalin not been prepared to indulge in acts of unimaginable barbarity.Barbarism came naturally to Stalin. He grew up in a dysfunctional home in which his drunken cobbler father and sexually promiscuous mother were frequently at odds with each other. Though intended by his traditionalist mother for the priesthood (she made him swear he had nothing to do with the murder of the Tsar), he was drawn to the conflict ridden world of the Bolshevik Party and particularly Lenin. Lenin found Stalin useful (and after Lenin died, Stalin found Lenin useful as well). Stalin during this period was not quite the hayseed that Trotsky and others attempted to portray him as. He was, for someone of his background, well read. He was trusted by Lenin far more than other followers. He was also a writer of mind numbing dullness and a poor and unoriginal theoretician of Marxist thought, generally seeking to square the circle of idelogical inconsistency by incorperating aspects of Russian tradition into his pronoucements.Stalin did have the common touch, at least at first and his work ethic allowed him to amass power fairly soon after the revolution. While Service does not quite state what drove him to destroy the lives of a large section of the Soviet Union's population, he clearly did not get on with the rarified strata of the original Old Bolshevik leadership. These were the first of many victims.Service is able to provide many interesting details concerning Stalin's rule of Russia. He confirms that Stalin oversaw and approved the lists of people destined for liquidation and builds on Anne Applebaum's work demonstrating that despite efforts to make them profitable, the enterprises associated with the gulag were constant strains on the economy.This probably is the best book on Stalin likely to be written for some time. Service has improved the understanding of this period in Russian history. I look forward to reading his books on Lenin and Trotsky.

IntroductionService `investigated not only what Stalin did but also why he did it and how he was allowed to do it' and acknowledged that he ran the risk of humanizing Stalin. Therefore, Stalin is `examined simultaneously as leader, administrator, theorist, writer, comrade, husband and father' and `as a psychological type, also needs to be considered - and his habits of daily life as well as the large scale of his political maneuvers and statesmanship enter the account.' `The lesson to be learned from studying several of the twentieth century's most murderous politicians is that it is wrong to depict them as beings wholly incomparable to ourselves.` `Not only is it wrong; it is also dangerous. If the likes of Stalin, Hitler, Mao Tse-tung and Pol Pot are represented as having been `animals', `monsters' or `killing machines', we shall never be able to discern their successors.' `Most men and women of his time, however, underestimated Stalin. It is the task of the historian to examine his complexities and suggest how better to understand his life and times.'National QuestionGeorgian patriotism influenced Stalin's position on the national question. Early on, `he wished a distinct Marxist party to be formed in Georgia and demanded a Georgian territorial demarcation in the party.' `Stalin too wished to be regarded as an internationalist; he also aimed to be taken seriously in Russian socialist politics. But he continued to urge the party to promote the interests of the non-Russians under a future socialist administration.' Stalin followed the position of most Georgian Marxists who `believed that encouragement of a national consciousness would enhance political development and, ultimately, the dissemination of socialist ideas.' Stalin was the first to introduce the national question in Pravda: `he demanded linguistic equality for the non-Russian nations. He called for regional self-rule.'`Stalin adhered to the official Bolshevik position that administrative autonomy should be given to non-Russians in areas where they lived in concentration. Thus the Bolsheviks hoped to maintain a centralized state while acceding to national and ethnic aspirations.' `In order to be considered a nation, the Georgians had to share not only their `psychic' background and territory but also their economic life.' `Stalin stressed that nationhood was a contingent phenomenon. It would consequently be senseless for Marxists of any nation to identify themselves permanently with that particular nation.' Thus, the `young poet who had called on fellow Georgians to `make renowned our Motherland by study' had vanished. In his place there was an internationalist struggling for the cause of the proletariat of all nations.'`The Bolsheviks were trying to de-imperialize an empire without allowing its disintegration into separate nation-states and the Politburo bent over backwards to be seen to enhance conditions for non-Russians.' For Stalin, a multi-national state was necessary for the elevation of `backward nations and nationalities into the general channel of a higher culture.' `Since Marxism and the National Question in 1913, his axiom had been that peoples without a vigorous press and literature should not be described as nations. His premise was that such peoples should be brought to a higher cultural level by being associated with adjacent sophisticated nations.' `Stalin's analysis of contemporary Georgia anticipated the bringing together of Russians and Georgians in harmony within the same multinational state. Evidently he assumed that the Russian Empire, when revolution at last overthrew the Romanovs, should not be broken up into separate states. Even Russian Poland should in Stalin's opinion s stay with Russia.'Consequently, `Stalin wished to expand the RSFSR over the entire territory held by Soviet republics and to provide Ukraine, Belorussia and the Transcaucasus with the same status as existing `autonomous republics' of the RSFSR such as the Bashkirian Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic. He regarded Lenin's demand for a formal federal structure as having the potential to undermine the whole state order.'At the formation of RSFSR, Stalin withheld a Russian communist party while other peoples had their own. After Stalin had secured his power, `patriotism was making its way back on the list of official priorities.' `While society was being split asunder by policy initiatives from the late 1920s, Stalin recognized that some cement was needed to keep the people of the USSR together.' `It suited him to put the Russian people on an even higher pedestal of official esteem than before the war. Intuitively, it would seem, he understood that he needed to grant legitimacy to a national patriotism less qualified by Marxism-Leninism.' In one incident that demonstrates Stalin's desire to root Russianness in the territory of the RSFSR, Stalin claimed that `the Russian national language' can be traced to the provinces of Kursk and Orel'It demonstrates Stalin's desire to root Russianness in the territory of the RSFSR. 565Nevertheless Stalin did not want them turning into nationalists. He still feared the Russians. Consequently while other peoples had their own communist parties, he withheld this from the RSFSROutmaneuvering RivalsService reasoned that Stalin owed his political ascendance to connecting ideologically with the party committee members. `His idea about `socialism in one country, taken separately' was poor Leninism; but it struck a chord with many party committee members who disliked Trotski's insistence that the October Revolution would wither and die unless socialist seizures of power took place in other powerful countries on the European continent In line with official party policy, he made appointments to party posts on the basis of demonstrable allegiance to Bolshevism before 1917. The point is that this configuration of tendencies in ideology and policy had growing appeal for party leader in Moscow and the provinces. Stalin did not rise to supreme power exclusively by means of the levers of bureaucratic manipulation. Certainly he had an advantage inasmuch as he could replace local party secretaries with persons of his choosing. It is also true that the regime in the party allowed him to control debates in the Central and at Party Congresses. But such assets would have been useless to him if he had not been able to convince the Central Committee and the Party Congress that he was a suitable politician for them to follow. Not only as an administrator but also as a leader - in thought and action - he seemed to fit these requirements better than anyone else.'Hence, `the notion that he owed his survival to his antics as a trapeze artist is wrong. What saved him was the safety net provided by provisional allies Zinoviev and Kamenev and Trotski's failure to attack.' Furthermore, each of Stalin's rivals expected to run his administrative hierarchy without interference from the others and could get on with their individual campaigns to succeed Lenin.' Therefore, the issue of whether Trotski and Zinoviev should have been more enthusiastic participants in the Orgburo probably made little differences.Foreign PolicyStalin proved to be a shrewd politician but certainly not without flaws and was barely saved from his biggest blunder reconciling with Nazi Germany.- Finnish Independence`Lenin and Stalin encouraged the Finns to outright independence.' `This was a policy without parallel in history. A former imperial power was insisting that one of its dependencies, whether it liked it or not, should break away from its control.' `The motives of Lenin and Stalin were less indulgent than they seemed. Both felt that the Finnish Marxists would stand an excellent chance of achieving dominance in an independent Finland. This would enable the Bolsheviks and their comrades in Finland to resume close operational ties and, eventually, to re-include Finland in the multinational state governed from Petrograd. There was a further aspect to Sovnarkom's policy. This was the calculation that a single act of secession from the former Russian Empire would constitute wonderful propaganda in favor of socialist revolution elsewhere, especially in eastern and east-central Europe.'- Invasion of PolandStalin did not agree with Lenin's decision to invade Poland. `Stalin's objections were not confined to his chronic skepticism about European socialist revolution and his concern about Wrangel. He doubted that the Red Army was adequately coordinated and organized.' Stalin was correct in his assessment. `The secret project for the `Sovietization of Poland' had been disastrous. The Red Army, instead of being greeted by Polish workers and peasants, had been repulsed by a `patriotic upsurge.'- Nazi-Soviet Pact `If ever there was proof that Stalin was willing to take immense risks, the Nazi-Soviet agreement provided it.' `The reconciliation with Germany was his personal decision after consultation with Molotov.' Stalin `had been taking a massive gamble with his country's security. Cautious in so many ways, Stalin trusted in his ability to read the runes of Hitler's intentions without discussing the evidence with anyone else.'- Spreading CommunismStalin's demand of absolute obedience also added difficulties to communist parties abroad. `Stalin instructed the Executive Committee of the Comintern to order the German Communist Party to treat the social-democrats rather than Hitler's NSDAP as the main enemy. Hegemony over the political left was to be given precedence over struggling against Nazism.' During the Spanish Civil War, `distrust on the political left grew rapidly as members of the POUM, loyal to Trotski's ideas, where rounded up. The political tensions on the left were not concocted out of nothing by Stalin. But he made them murderously worse than they need have been.'Stalin's shrewd calculation was a factor in withholding aid to the Warsaw Uprising on 1 Aug. 1944. `His prevention of assistance to Warsaw involved a calculated decision about Poland's future. The more insurgents were wiped out by the Germans, the nearer he would come to his objective. Stalin aspired to rule Poland through is communist stooges.'Cold War`The coalition which Stalin formed with the United kingdom and the USA in the Second World War had from the start been characterised by strain and suspicion.' `The Ministry of External Affairs in Moscow explored whether funds really would be released to the USSR for its post-war recovery. The answer was that the Americans made open markets the condition for aid. As Truman and Marshall knew, there was never any chance that Stalin and his associates would accept such restrictions. The Marshall Plan was tied to the geopolitical objectives of the USA and these included the drastic reduction of the USSR's power in Europe.` `The question arises as to who or what was to blame for the descent into the Cold War. President Truman played his part. His language was hostile to the USSR and communism. The Marshall Plan in particular was framed in such a way as to make it well nigh inconceivable that Stalin would not take offence.'`Although his strategy remained the avoidance of war with the USA, he did not mind strategy remained the avoidance of war with the USA, he did not mind making things awkward for the Americans wherever he could.' `Elsewhere in eastern Europe there was the silence of the political graveyard; but the People's Democracies were far from quiet below the surface: resentment of the communist seizure of power in these countries was deep, and only the threat of unconditional repression kept order for Stalin.' `Stalin wanted to build up support for communist parties in eastern and east-central Europe. The Comintern's dissolution was a basic precondition. It was vital for them and him to pretend that they were not Moscow's stooges.' `Cominform was not the Comintern reborn; but it embraced communist parties in countries where the threat to the desires of the Western Allies was acute. The purpose of the Cominform Conference was to respond to the challenge thrown down by the Marshall Plan.'`Imperfect though democracy is everywhere, it usually involves the practical provision of legal and peaceful electoral procedures. Such provision occurred nowhere in eastern Europe.' `Stalin had acquired the regional buffer zone he craved, but only at the price of turning those countries into a region of constant repressed hostility to his purposes. His political victory in 1945-8 was bound in the end to prove a Pyrrhic one.'Personality and Rule`Stalin was psychologically complex. But he was impulsive. When his pride was offended, he lost his composure. In his early years, he offered his own resignation rather than feel humiliated. Yet, `even by offering his resignation, he was taking a huge risk. He was gambling on his exhibition of humility inducing the Central Committee, which included some of his friends, to refuse his request. He needed to put his enemies in the wrong.' But, such ploy worked in the struggle with Zinovev and Kamenev.Stalin was also very cunning and held himself to a much lower standard than he has for others. `On 10 July after being prodded by Zhukov among others, Stalin allowed himself to be anointed Supreme Commander. Stalin had wanted to avoid too close an association with the catastrophe at the front. If the defeats continued, he would make other heads roll. .. Was this yet another sign that he had learned from biographies of the first Roman emperor, Augustus, that real power mattered more than titles? He forgave himself but not others; and when he made a mistake, it was others who got the blame.'His rule can be best characterized by divide and conquer. `Stalin expected to rule through unofficial channels; he knew that disruption of institutional regularity helped to prolong his personal despotism'. `Although continuity of administrative leadership was desirable in theory, Stalin's higher demand was his inviolable personal power.` `Regarding the Council of Ministers, the increasing complexity of the economy required specialist knowledge lacking in the security agencies. One way was to give way to the ministerial lobby and put a stop to the party's interference. This orientation was advocated by Georgi Malenkov. The other solution was to extend and strengthen the powers of the part advocates by Andrei Zhdanov.` `His state could do without neither government nor party; and even when he gave preference to one of them over the other, he omitted to make the choice a definitive one. The institutional tension worked to his personal advantage. By locking the two bodies in rivalry, he strengthened his position as arbiter. But this in turn meant that he had to settle for a lower level of administrative efficiency that he would otherwise have liked.'Conclusion`All institutions were in permanent contest with each other at a level vastly lower than Stalin's imperial throne. Patronage was normalized as a political phenomenon.' `Stalin's system of command achieved immediate subjugation at the expense of a general consensus. The Soviet Union was a totalitarian state, but this did not mean that it was characterized by perfect central control.' `Far from it. The more Stalin concentrated in his own hands power over specific areas of politics, the greater the lack of compliance he encountered in others. His USSR was a mixture of exceptional orderliness and exceptional disorderliness.' `Yet he was also much more complex than is widely supposed. As a politician, he knew how to present himself selectively to diverse groups. He was a real leader. He was also motivated by the lust for power as well as by ideas. He was in his own way an intellectual, and his level of literary and editorial craft was impressive. Stalin was not a certifiable psychotic and never behaved in such a way as to be incapable of carrying out his public duties.' `Stalin's emergence from exile and obscurity on to a worldwide stage of power, fame and impact would have been impossible if his party had not made the October Revolution and bolted together the institutional, procedural and doctrinal scaffolding which he was to exploit. Such individuals, when they have appeared, have usually displayed congenial `ordinary' features even while carrying out acts of unspeakable abusiveness. History seldom gives unambiguous lessons, but this is one of them.'

Stalin was a monster. There can be no question about this. The seizure of grain including seed supplies in the Ukraine and the Great Terror in the 1930’s, policies initiated and implemented by Stalin, led to the deaths of millions.However, there is another side to the career of Stalin. He was married twice and had children with whom he had a relationship. His policies also resulted in the modernization of Russian industry and agriculture which allowed Russia to beat back the invasion of the Nazis in 1941.Robert Service’s carefully researched biography of Stalin is a masterpiece in bringing out the dual aspects of Stalin’s career.

This book explores the minutest of details about Stalin's life and also clears a lot of misconceptions about him propagated by Western media. This is an utterly balanced narrative free from any kind of political deviation. If you want to know about Stalin then this is the book for you.

Simply marvellous

Me gustó el libro. El autor está muy bien documentado. Recomiendo leer esta biografía cruda y fría para entender mejor la sociedad rusa y los personajes que la rigen hoy en día.

Stalin, like Mao, is a dictator & mass murderer who has been largely ignored by a world that has been brainwashed to think that Hitler was some uniquely evil monster. Stalin & Mao each could arguably be considered far more destructive to more people over a longer duration. I still feel puzzled & a little frightened that such people can inveigle themselves into such positions of unchallenged power. The people who carried out their biddings were/are no different from us. You just have to look at Guantanamo Bay, Abu Graib, or the apartheid zionist regime in Israel/Palestine to understand this.