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Description edit
A revelatory account that finally unveils the shadowy journey from obscurity to power of the Georgian cobbler’s son who became the Red Tsar—the man who, along with Hitler, remains the modern personification of evil. What makes a Stalin? What formed this merciless psychopath who was, as well,... read more
Ridiculously Simplified Synopsis edit
Characters/People edit
- Stalin: Add a description of this character.
- Lenin
- Kamenev
- Soso
- Trotsky
- Kerensky
- Davrichewy
- Gori
- Iremashvili
- Zinoviev
- Beso
- Egnatashvili
- Keke
- Cori
- Geri
- Dzerzhinsky
- Sagirashvili
- Anna
- John Reed
- Father Charkviani
- Kamo
- Devdariani
- Peter
- Hugo
- Bachua Kupriashvili
- Kato
Quotes edit
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“As in many other bloody campaigns, the human cost was irrelevant, subordinate to its politcal value.”
- Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
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Stalin’s Marxism meant that “the revolutionary proletariat alone is destined by History to liberate mankind and bring the world happiness,” but humanity would undergo great “trial and suffering and change” before it achieved “scientifically proven socialism.” The heart of this providential progress was “the class struggle: Marxism is the masses whose liberation is the catalyst for the freedom of the individual.”
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Stalin owed his political success to his unusual combination of street brutality and classical education.
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Stalin would not have been possible if Lenin had not, in the first days of the regime, defeated Kamenev’s milder way to create the machinery for so boundless and absolute a power. That was the forum for which Stalin was superbly equipped. Now Stalin could become Stalin.
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The seminary was to pull off the singular achievement of supplying the Russian Revolution with some of its most ruthless radicals. “No secular school,” wrote another seminarist, Stalin’s comrade Philip Makharadze, “produced as many atheists as the Tiflis Seminary.” The Stone Sack literally became a boarding-school for revolutionaries.
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Stalin did not qualify as a priest, but the boarding-school educated him classically—and influenced him enormously. Black Spot had, perversely, turned Stalin into an atheist Marxist and taught him exactly the repressive tactics—“surveillance, spying, invasion of inner life, violation of feelings,” in Stalin’s own words—that he would re-create in his Soviet police state.
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The amoral rules—or rather the lack of them—were described by both sides as konspiratsia, the “world apart” that is vividly drawn in Dostoevsky’s novel The Devils. Without understanding konspiratsia, it is impossible to understand the Soviet Union itself: Stalin never left this world. Konspiratsia became the ruling spirit of his Soviet state—and of his state of mind.
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There was one big difference between Stalin and Trotsky then: Stalin was a Georgian. He never lost his pride in Georgia as a nation and a culture. The little nations of the Caucasus all found it hard to embrace real internationalist Marxism because their own repression made them also dream of independence. Young Stalin believed in a blend of Marxism and Georgian nationalism, almost opposed to internationalist Marxism.
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“Improve yourself. Don’t be lazy or you’ll lose in life.”
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Throughout his life, Stalin’s detached magnetism would attract, and win the devotion of, amoral, unbounded psychopaths.
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Yet Stalin was never inevitable. The brains, confidence, intellectual intensity, political talents, faith in and experience of violence, touchiness, vindictiveness, charm, sensitivity, ruthlessness, lack of empathy, the sheer weird singularity of the man, were in place—but lacking a forum. In 1917, he found the forum.
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Authors & Contributors edit
- Simon Sebag Montefiore (Author)
First Edition edit
Original Language: English
Publisher: Knopf
Country: Add the country of publication.
Publication Date: 2007
ISBN: 1400044650
Page Count: 496
Publisher: Knopf
Country: Add the country of publication.
Publication Date: 2007
ISBN: 1400044650
Page Count: 496
Awards edit
- Costa Book Award (2007: Biography)
- Los Angeles Times Book Prize (2007: Biography)
Classification edit
- Library of Congress: Add the Library of Congress Classification.
- Dewey: 947.0842092
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