Stalin : New Biography of a Dictator / Oleg V. Khlevniuk.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Khlevni︠u︡k, O. V. (Oleg Vitalʹevich), Author.

Contributor:

Favorov, Nora Seligman

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Stalin, Joseph, 1879-1953.

Stalin, Joseph.

Dictators--Soviet Union--Biography.

Dictators.

Heads of state--Soviet Union--Biography.

Heads of state.

Soviet Union--Politics and government--1936-1953.

Soviet Union.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (425 p.)

Place of Publication:

New Haven, CT : Yale University Press, [2015]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The most authoritative and engrossing biography of the notorious dictator ever written Josef Stalin exercised supreme power in the Soviet Union from 1929 until his death in 1953. During that quarter-century, by Oleg Khlevniuk's estimate, he caused the imprisonment and execution of no fewer than a million Soviet citizens per year. Millions more were victims of famine directly resulting from Stalin's policies. What drove him toward such ruthlessness? This essential biography, by the author most deeply familiar with the vast archives of the Soviet era, offers an unprecedented, fine-grained portrait of Stalin the man and dictator. Without mythologizing Stalin as either benevolent or an evil genius, Khlevniuk resolves numerous controversies about specific events in the dictator's life while assembling many hundreds of previously unknown letters, memos, reports, and diaries into a comprehensive, compelling narrative of a life that altered the course of world history. In brief, revealing prologues to each chapter, Khlevniuk takes his reader into Stalin's favorite dacha, where the innermost circle of Soviet leadership gathered as their vozhd lay dying. Chronological chapters then illuminate major themes: Stalin's childhood, his involvement in the Revolution and the early Bolshevik government under Lenin, his assumption of undivided power and mandate for industrialization and collectivization, the Terror, World War II, and the postwar period. At the book's conclusion, the author presents a cogent warning against nostalgia for the Stalinist era.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Preface

The Seats of Stalin's Power

1. Before the Revolution

2. In Lenin's Shadow

3. His Revolution

4. Terror and Impending War

5. Stalin at War

6. The Generalissimo

The Funeral: The Vozhd, the System, and the People

Notes

Acknowledgments

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 29. Feb 2020)

Other Format:

Print version: Khlevniuk, O. V. (Oleg Vital'evich) Stalin : new biography of a dictator.

ISBN:

9780300166941

030016694X

9780300163889

0300163886

OCLC:

908253803