Title: Stalin
Author: Edvard Radzinsky
Publisher: Anchor Books/Doubleday
Date: 1996
Pages: 607
Stalin (book review)
Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili was born on December 21, 1879 to a Christian believing mother. He grew up in a home with the leading to become a priest some day. While in seminary he came into contact with rebels who began to lead him down the wrong path. He dropped out of seminary and gave up all belief in God, believing He was God himself.
Edvard Radzinsky writes this autobiography of a man who went from being known as Joseph to Soselo to Koba to the Russian leader Stalin. Over his lifetime Stalin changed his name multiple times in order to break from his past and rise with his future.
As a young adult, he came under the training of Lenin and learned what Socialism and Communism is. He became one of Lenin’s closest allies and ran forward with what Lenin started when he died.
Over the years many people have looked at Adolf Hitler as one of the worst leaders in the world. With as many people as Hitler killed, Stalin made him look like he had not even begun to kill. The difference was that Stalin killed more of his own people than he did any foreigners.
As he rose up to become the leader of Russia, he would kill or have someone kill any person who stood in his way or had information about him that could incriminate him. Edvard talks about how Stalin would have some workers under him kill someone and then have the one who did the killing killed. He led with extreme terror and fear.
This book goes into a lot of detail about his life and what he did to get to where he ended up, bringing Russia under communist rule with a goal to take the entire world. He shows how Stalin changed the nation to fear him and allow the nation to trust the government for everything. It ends with his death. At points it is very gruesome in what is done and is not for the faint of heart, though it is very eye opening to one who does not know much about Stalin, like me.
It is a long book in that it is nearly 600 pages of actual reading, but very interesting. If you enjoy history and would like to know more about Stalin, I would recommend reading it. There are a few bad words in it, but not a lot or continuous throughout the book.
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