Search results for "Stalin"
Items in stock - 4 working days delivery time
Stalin
Winner of the British Book Awards History Book of the YearLonglisted for the Samuel Johnson PrizeThis thrilling biography of Stalin and his entourage during the terrifying decades of his supreme power transforms our understanding of Stalin as Soviet dictator, Marxist leader and Russian tsar. Based on groundbreaking research, Simon Sebag Montefiore reveals in captivating detail the fear and betrayal, privilege and debauchery, family life and murderous cruelty of this secret world. Written with extraordinary narrative verve, this magnificent feat of scholarly research has become a classic of modern history writing. Showing how Stalin's triumphs and crimes were the product of his fanatical Marxism and his gifted but flawed character, this is an intimate portrait of a man as complicated and human as he was brutal and chilling.
R 450.00
Young Stalin
Winner of the Costa Biography AwardWhat makes a Stalin? Was he a Tsarist agent or Lenin's bandit? Was he to blame for his wife's death? When did the killing start? Based on revelatory research, here is the thrilling story of how a charismatic cobbler's son became a student priest, romantic poet, prolific lover, gangster mastermind and murderous revolutionary. Culminating in the 1917 revolution, Simon Sebag Montefiore's bestselling biography radically alters our understanding of the gifted politician and fanatical Marxist who shaped the Soviet empire in his own brutal image. This is the story of how Stalin became Stalin.
R 80.00
Items we need to order for you
Stalin
This profile looks at how Stalin, despite being regarded as intellectually inferior by his rivals, managed to rise to power and rule the largest country in the world, achievieving divine-like status as a dictator.Through recently uncovered research material and Stalin’s archives in Moscow, Kuromiya analyzes how and why Stalin was a rare, even unique, politician who literally lived by politics alone. He analyses how Stalin understood psychology campaigns well and how he used this understanding in his political reign and terror. Kuromiya provides a convincing, concise and up-to-date analysis of Stalin’s political life.
R 7,327.00
Stalin
"Monumental." -The New York Times Book Review Pulitzer Prize-finalist Stephen Kotkin has written the definitive biography of Joseph Stalin, from collectivization and the Great Terror to the conflict with Hitler's Germany that is the signal event of modern world history In 1929, Joseph Stalin, having already achieved dictatorial power over the vast Soviet Empire, formally ordered the systematic conversion of the world's largest peasant economy into "socialist modernity," otherwise known as collectivization, regardless of the cost. What it cost, and what Stalin ruthlessly enacted, transformed the country and its ruler in profound and enduring ways. Building and running a dictatorship, with life and death power over hundreds of millions, made Stalin into the uncanny figure he became. Stephen Kotkin's Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 is the story of how a political system forged an unparalleled personality and vice versa. The wholesale collectivization of some 120 million peasants necessitated levels of coercion that were extreme even for Russia, and the resulting mass starvation elicited criticism inside the party even from those Communists committed to the eradication of capitalism. But Stalin did not flinch. By 1934, when the Soviet Union had stabilized and socialism had been implanted in the countryside, praise for his stunning anti-capitalist success came from all quarters. Stalin, however, never forgave and never forgot, with shocking consequences as he strove to consolidate the state with a brand new elite of young strivers like himself. Stalin's obsessions drove him to execute nearly a million people, including the military leadership, diplomatic and intelligence officials, and innumerable leading lights in culture. While Stalin revived a great power, building a formidable industrialized military, the Soviet Union was effectively alone and surrounded by perceived enemies. The quest for security would bring Soviet Communism to a shocking and improbable pact with Nazi Germany. But that bargain would not unfold as envisioned. The lives of Stalin and Hitler, and the fates of their respective dictatorships, drew ever closer to collision, as the world hung in the balance. Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 is a history of the world during the build-up to its most fateful hour, from the vantage point of Stalin's seat of power. It is a landmark achievement in the annals of historical scholarship, and in the art of biography.
R 684.00
R 892.97
Stalin
Drawing on a wealth of unexplored material - available for the first time since the collapse of the former Soviet Union - Robert Service's biography of Stalin is the most authoritative yet published. It concentrates not simply on Stalin as dedicated bureaucrat or serial political killer, but on a fuller assessment of his formative interactions in Georgia, his youthful revolutionary activism, his relationship with Lenin, with his family, and with his party members. 'This is effectively the first full biography since perestroika to encompass the economic, political, diplomatic, military, administrative and, above all, ideological dimensions, as well as the personal aspects of Stalin's colossal life . . . Gritty and unshowy, but enlightened by Service's compelling characterisation, magisterial analysis and dry wit, this outstanding biography of lightly worn authority, wide research and superb intuition will be read for decades' Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of STALIN: The Court of the Red Tsar Sunday Times
R 619.00
Stalin
A magnificent new biography that revolutionizes our understanding of Stalin and his world The product of a decade of intrepid research, Stalin is a landmark achievement. Stephen Kotkin offers a biography that, at long last, is equal to this shrewd, sociopathic, charismatic dictator in all his dimensions. We see a man inclined to despotism who could be utterly charming; a pragmatic ideologue; a leader who obsessed over slights yet was a precocious geostrategic thinker-unique among Bolsheviks-and yet who made egregious strategic blunders. Through it all, we see Stalin's unflinching persistence, his sheer force of will-perhaps the ultimate key to understanding his indelible mark on history. Drawing on Kotkin's exhaustive study of Soviet archival materials as well as vast scholarly literature, Stalin recasts the way we think about the Soviet Union, revolution, dictatorship, the twentieth century, and indeed the art of history itself.
R 616.00
R 1,032.01
R 1,003.00
Stalin, Vol. I
In January 1928 Stalin, the ruler of the largest country in the world, boarded a train bound for Siberia where he would embark upon the greatest gamble of his political life. He was about to begin uprooting and collectivization of agriculture and industry across the entire Soviet Union. Millions would die, and many more would suffer. Where did such great, monstrous power come from? The first of three volumes, the product of a decade of intrepid research, this landmark book offers the most convincing explanation yet of Stalin's power.
R 587.00
R 965.00
R 470.57
R 525.00
Stalin
The figure of Joseph Stalin has always provoked heated and often polarized debate. The recent declassification of a substantial portion of Stalin's archive has made possible this fundamental new assessment of the Soviet leader. In this groundbreaking 2005 study, leading international experts challenge many assumptions about Stalin from his early life in Georgia to the Cold War years with contributions ranging across the political, economic, social, cultural, ideological and international history of the Stalin era. The volume provides a deeper understanding of the nature of Stalin's power and of the role of ideas in his politics, presenting a more complex and nuanced image of one of the most important leaders of the twentieth century. This study is without precedent in the field of Russian history and will prove invaluable reading for students of Stalin and Stalinism.
R 2,016.27
Stalin
Overthrowing the conventional image of Stalin as an uneducated political administrator inexplicably transformed into a pathological killer, Robert Service reveals a more complex and fascinating story behind this notorious twentieth-century figure. Drawing on unexplored archives and personal testimonies gathered from across Russia and Georgia, this is the first full-scale biography of the Soviet dictator in twenty years.Service describes in unprecedented detail the first half of Stalin's life--his childhood in Georgia as the son of a violent, drunkard father and a devoted mother; his education and religious training; and his political activity as a young revolutionary. No mere messenger for Lenin, Stalin was a prominent activist long before the Russian Revolution. Equally compelling is the depiction of Stalin as Soviet leader. Service recasts the image of Stalin as unimpeded despot; his control was not limitless. And his conviction that enemies surrounded him was not entirely unfounded.Stalin was not just a vengeful dictator but also a man fascinated by ideas and a voracious reader of Marxist doctrine and Russian and Georgian literature as well as an internationalist committed to seeing Russia assume a powerful role on the world stage. In examining the multidimensional legacy of Stalin, Service helps explain why later would-be reformers--such as Khrushchev and Gorbachev--found the Stalinist legacy surprisingly hard to dislodge. Rather than diminishing the horrors of Stalinism, this is an account all the more disturbing for presenting a believable human portrait. Service's lifetime engagement with Soviet Russia has resulted in the most comprehensive and compelling portrayal of Stalin to date.
R 1,140.00
R 548.00
R 469.08
R 593.00
Stalin
This new biography of Stalin offers an accessible and up-to-date representation of one of the twentieth-century’s defining figures, as well as new insights, analysis and illumination to deepen our understanding of his actions, intentions and the nature of the power that he wielded. Christopher Read examines Stalin’s contribution to and impact on Russian and world events in the first half of the twentieth century. The biography brings together the avalanche of sources and scholarship which followed the collapse of the system Stalin constructed, including the often neglected writings and speeches of Stalin himself. In addition to a detailed narrative and analysis of Stalin’s rule, chapters also cover his early years and humble beginnings in a small town at a remote outpost of the Russian Empire, his role in the revolution, his relationships with Lenin, Trotsky and others in the 1920s, and his rise to become one of the most powerful figures in human history. The book closes with an account of Stalin’s afterlife and legacy, both in the immediate aftermath of his death and in the decades since. This concise account of Stalin’s life is the perfect introduction for students of modern Russian history.
R 2,494.59
R 336.00
Stalinism
Stalinism surveys the efforts made in recent years by professional historians, in Russia and the West, to better understand what really went on in the USSR between 1929 and 1953, when the country's affairs were shrouded in secrecy. The opening of the Soviet archives in 1991 has led to a profusion of historical studies, whose strengths and weaknesses are assessed here impartially though not uncritically. While Joseph Stalin now emerges as a less omnipotent figure than he seemed to be at the time, most serious writers accept that the system over which he ruled was despotic and totalitarian. Some nostalgic nationalists in Russia, along with some Western post-modernists, disagree. Their arguments are carefully dissected here. Stalinism was of course much more than state sponsored terror, and so due attention is paid to a wide range of socio-economic and cultural problems. Keep and Litvin applaud the efforts of Soviet citizens to express dissenting views.
R 9,314.37
R 798.00
Stalin
The figure of Joseph Stalin has always provoked heated and often polarized debate. The recent declassification of a substantial portion of Stalin's archive has made possible this fundamental new assessment of the Soviet leader. In this groundbreaking 2005 study, leading international experts challenge many assumptions about Stalin from his early life in Georgia to the Cold War years with contributions ranging across the political, economic, social, cultural, ideological and international history of the Stalin era. The volume provides a deeper understanding of the nature of Stalin's power and of the role of ideas in his politics, presenting a more complex and nuanced image of one of the most important leaders of the twentieth century. This study is without precedent in the field of Russian history and will prove invaluable reading for students of Stalin and Stalinism.
R 3,883.21
R 501.00
Stalinism
This text presents an addition to common debates on the Stalinist period of the Soviet Union. Reassessing this contentious subject, the author begins with an introduction to the totalitarian/revisionist models of Soviet history, and brings together classic essays from revisionist scholars, as well as studies by young Russian, American and European scholars.
R 9,334.82
Stalin
On 20th August 1940 Trotsky's life was brutally ended when a Stalinist agent brought an ice pick crashing down on his head. Among the works left unfinished was the second part of his biography of Stalin.Trotsky's Stalin is unique in Marxist literature in that it attempts to explain some of the most decisive events of the 20th century, not just in terms of epoch-making economic and social transformations, but in the individual psychology of one of the protagonists in a great historical drama. It is a fascinating study of the way in which the peculiar character of an individual, his personal traits and psychology, interacts with great events.How did it come about that Stalin, who began his political life as a revolutionary and a Bolshevik, ended as a tyrant and a monster? Drawing on a mass of carefully assembled material from his personal archives and many other sources, Trotsky provides the answer to this question.In the present edition we have brought together all the material that was available from the Trotsky archives in English and supplemented it with additional material translated from Russian. It is the most complete version of the book that has ever been published.
R 1,238.00
Stalin
A work eighty years in the making, Leon Trotsky's unfinished masterpiece: Stalin.
R 2,901.00
Joseph Stalin (a Wicked History)
Explore the life of Joseph Stalin.The wicked ways of some of the most ruthless rulers to walk the earth are revealed in these thrilling biographies (A Wicked History) about men and women so monstrous, they make Frankenstein look like a sweetheart.
R 136.00
Stalin and War, 1918-1953
Stalin and War, 1918-1953 is the first book to examine the patterns of radicalized internal violence that characterized the Stalinist regime across the whole of the dictator’s rule, and it is one of the only works to connect patterns of internal violence to the dictator’s perceptions of war and foreign threat. Discussion focuses on the crisis years 1927-1932, 1936-1939, the Great Fatherland War, and the last war crisis period, 1947-1953. Violent repressions under Stalin were cyclical. They peaked and ebbed but, in each case, they were linked to Stalin’s expectation of war and invasion, to his perceived need for urgent internal mobilization, and to intense foreign policy activity. Stalin’s behavior in each of these perceived war crises followed a pattern established during the dictator's experience as a military commander in the Russian revolutionary wars, and especially during the Polish war in 1919 and 1920. Together, these chapters trace a consistent and interconnected logic of war and repression throughout Stalin’s political life.This book will be of interest to professional scholars of Soviet history, twentieth-century history, and World War II history, and it is approachable enough to be appreciated by general readers.
R 9,287.78
Stalin's Letters to Molotov
"It is thus important to a) fundamentally purge the Finance and Gosbank bureaucracy, despite the wails of dubious Communists like Briukhanov-Piatakov; b) definitely shoot two or three dozen wreckers from these apparaty, including several dozen common cashiers."— J. Stalin, no earlier than 6 August 1930"Today I read the section on international affairs. It came out well. The confident, contemptuous tone with respect to the great powers, the belief in our own strength, the delicate but plain spitting in the pot of the swaggering great powers—very good. Let them eat it."—J. Stalin, January 1933 Between 1925 and 1936, a dramatic period of transformation within the Soviet Union, Josef Stalin wrote frequently to his trusted friend and political colleague Viacheslav Molotov, Politburo member, chairman of the USSR Council of Commissars, and minister of foreign affairs. In these letters, Stalin mused on political events, argued with fellow Politburo members, and issued orders. The more than 85 letters collected in this volume constitute a unique historical record of Stalin's thinking—both personal and political—and throw valuable light on the way he controlled the government, plotted the overthrow of his enemies, and imagined the future. This formerly top secret correspondence, once housed in Soviet archives, is now published for the first time.The letters reveal Stalin in many different and dramatic situations: fighting against party rivals like Trotsky and Bukharin, trying to maneuver in the rapids of the Chinese revolution, negotiating with the West, insisting on the completion of all-out collectivization, and ordering the execution of scapegoats for economic failures. And they provide important and fascinating information about the Soviet Union's party-state leadership, about party politics, and about Stalin himself—as an administrator, as a Bolshevik, and as an individual.The book includes much supplementary material that places the letters in context. Russian editor Oleg V. Naumov and his associates have annotated the letters, introduced each chronological section, and added other archival documents that help explain the correspondence. American editor Lars T. Lih has provided a lengthy introduction identifying what is new in the letters and using them to draw a portrait of Stalin as leader. Lih points out how the letters help us grasp Stalin's unique blend of cynicism and belief, manipulation and sincerity—a combination of qualities with catastrophic consequences for Soviet Russia and the world.
R 1,236.00
R 628.00
Stalin's Wars
A provocative reassessment of Stalin’s military and political leadership during the most important years of his career This breakthrough book provides a detailed reconstruction of Stalin’s leadership from the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939 to his death in 1953. Making use of a wealth of new material from Russian archives, Geoffrey Roberts challenges a long list of standard perceptions of Stalin: his qualities as a leader; his relationships with his own generals and with other great world leaders; his foreign policy; and his role in instigating the Cold War. While frankly exploring the full extent of Stalin’s brutalities and their impact on the Soviet people, Roberts also uncovers evidence leading to the stunning conclusion that Stalin was both the greatest military leader of the twentieth century and a remarkable politician who sought to avoid the Cold War and establish a long-term detente with the capitalist world. By means of an integrated military, political, and diplomatic narrative, the author draws a sustained and compelling personal portrait of the Soviet leader. The resulting picture is fascinating and contradictory, and it will inevitably change the way we understand Stalin and his place in history. Roberts depicts a despot who helped save the world for democracy, a personal charmer who disciplined mercilessly, a utopian ideologue who could be a practical realist, and a warlord who undertook the role of architect of post-war peace.
R 1,383.00
Stalin's Citizens
The first study of the everydayness of political life under Stalin, this book examines Soviet citizenship through common practices of expressing Soviet identity in the public space. The Stalinist state understood citizenship as practice, with participation in a set of political rituals and public display of certain "civic emotions" serving as the marker of a person's inclusion in the political world. The state's relations with its citizens were structured by ritualsof celebration, thanking, and hatred-rites that required both political awareness and a demonstrable emotional response. Soviet functionaries transmitted this obligation to ordinary citizens through the mechanisms of communal authority (workplace committees, volunteer agitators, and other forms ofpeer pressure) as much as through brutal state coercion. Yet, the population also often imbued these ceremonies-elections, state holidays, parades, mass rallies, subscriptions to state bonds-with different meanings: as a popular fête, an occasion to get together after work, a chance to purchase goods not available on other days, and even as an opportunity to indulge in some drinking. The people also understood these political rituals as moments of negotiation whereby citizens fulfillingtheir "patriotic duty " expected the state to reciprocate by providing essential services and basic social welfare. Nearly-universal passive resistance to required attendance casts doubt on recent theories about the mass internalization of communist ideology and the development of "Soviet subjectivities."The book is set in the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv during the last years of World War II and immediate postwar years, the period best demonstrating how formulaic rituals could create space for the people to express their concerns, fears, and prejudices, as well as their eagerness to be viewed as citizens in good standing. By the end of Stalin's rule, a more ossified routine of political participation developed, which persisted until the Soviet Union's collapse.
R 3,666.58
Stalin's Last Generation
'Stalin's last generation' was the last generation to come of age under Stalin, yet it was also the first generation to be socialized in the post-war period. Its young members grew up in a world that still carried many of the hallmarks of the Soviet Union's revolutionary period, yet their surroundings already showed the first signs of decay, stagnation, and disintegration. Stalin's last generation still knew how to speak 'Bolshevik', still believed in the power of Soviet heroes and still wished to construct socialism, yet they also liked to dance and dress in Western styles, they knew how to evade boring lectures and lessons in Marxism-Leninism, and they were keen to forge identities that were more individual than those offered by the state. In this book, Juliane Fürst creates a detailed picture of late Stalinist youth and youth culture, looking at young people from a variety of perspectives: as children of the war, as recipients and creators of propaganda, as perpetrators of crime, as representatives of fledgling subcultures, as believers, as critics, and as drop-outs. In the process, she illuminates not only the complex relationship between the Soviet state and its youth, but also provides a new interpretative framework forunderstanding late Stalinism - the impact of which on Soviet society's subsequent development has hitherto been underestimated, including its role in the ultimate demise of the USSR.
R 7,734.00
Stalin and the Soviet Union
Stalin and the Soviet Union offers new interpretations of recently uncovered archives examining the Soviet leader's domestic and foreign policy. It covers core topics such as: * Stalin's rise to power* the economy* society* culture* the Cold War* the Second World War* terror.For all students of Russia, Stalin and European history, this will prove essential reading, and a clear background and guide to exam success.
R 9,293.66
Real Stalin
In this book, originally published in English in 1953, the author, recognized as one of the best-informed experts on Eastern European politics, reconstructed during the course of a decade's work, the real history of Stalin, from his youth in Georgia to the last year of his life. Utilizing an enormous mass of largely unpublsihed documents he reconstructed a living Stalin with all his qualities and faults, crimes and achievements. He tells the secrets of Stalin's rise to power and of the extraordinary complexity and effectiveness of his tactics which can be seen in his attitude towards the problems of Marxist philosophy, in his attitude towards the German Question and his role as military commander.
R 2,151.92
Joseph Stalin
To get to the top, Joseph Stalin outmaneuvered Lenin, Trotsky, Kirov, and a legion of equally ruthless revolutionaries. This accessible and easy to read reference work reveals the more personal side of the Machiavellian mastermind, who not only orchestrated the Great Terror but also forged the USSR into a world power.Joseph Stalin: A Biographical Companion offers balanced coverage and makes use of new information from Soviet archives, while at the same time avoids mind-numbing communist jargon and terminology. Also included are scores of rare illustrations, some never before published in the West.Includes rare illustrations, some never before published in the West
R 2,490.00
Stalin's World
Drawing on recently declassified material from Stalin’s personal archive in Moscow, this is the first attempt by scholars to systematically analyze the way Stalin interpreted and envisioned his world—both the Soviet system he was trying to build and its wider international context. Since Stalin rarely left his offices and perceived the world largely through the prism of verbal and written reports, meetings, articles, letters, and books, a comprehensive analysis of these materials provides a unique and valuable opportunity to study his way of thinking and his interaction with the outside world. Comparing the materials that Stalin read from week to week with the decisions that he subsequently shaped, Sarah Davies and James Harris show not only how Stalin perceived the world but also how he misperceived it. After considering the often far-reaching consequences of those misperceptions, they investigate Stalin’s contribution to the production and regulation of official verbal discourse in a system in which huge political importance was attached to the correct use of words and phrases..
R 2,796.00
Stalin and War, 1918-1953
Stalin and War, 1918-1953 is the first book to examine the patterns of radicalized internal violence that characterized the Stalinist regime across the whole of the dictator’s rule, and it is one of the only works to connect patterns of internal violence to the dictator’s perceptions of war and foreign threat. Discussion focuses on the crisis years 1927-1932, 1936-1939, the Great Fatherland War, and the last war crisis period, 1947-1953. Violent repressions under Stalin were cyclical. They peaked and ebbed but, in each case, they were linked to Stalin’s expectation of war and invasion, to his perceived need for urgent internal mobilization, and to intense foreign policy activity. Stalin’s behavior in each of these perceived war crises followed a pattern established during the dictator's experience as a military commander in the Russian revolutionary wars, and especially during the Polish war in 1919 and 1920. Together, these chapters trace a consistent and interconnected logic of war and repression throughout Stalin’s political life.This book will be of interest to professional scholars of Soviet history, twentieth-century history, and World War II history, and it is approachable enough to be appreciated by general readers.
R 2,450.91
R 502.74
Stalin's Genocides
Between the early 1930s and his death in 1953, Joseph Stalin had more than a million of his own citizens executed. Millions more fell victim to forced labor, deportation, famine, bloody massacres, and detention and interrogation by Stalin's henchmen. Stalin's Genocides is the chilling story of these crimes. The book puts forward the important argument that brutal mass killings under Stalin in the 1930s were indeed acts of genocide and that the Soviet dictator himself was behind them. Norman Naimark, one of our most respected authorities on the Soviet era, challenges the widely held notion that Stalin's crimes do not constitute genocide, which the United Nations defines as the premeditated killing of a group of people because of their race, religion, or inherent national qualities. In this gripping book, Naimark explains how Stalin became a pitiless mass killer. He looks at the most consequential and harrowing episodes of Stalin's systematic destruction of his own populace--the liquidation and repression of the so-called kulaks, the Ukrainian famine, the purge of nationalities, and the Great Terror--and examines them in light of other genocides in history.In addition, Naimark compares Stalin's crimes with those of the most notorious genocidal killer of them all, Adolf Hitler.
R 1,058.81
Stalin and Stalinism
Joseph Stalin's 25-year dictatorship is without doubt one of the most controversial periods in the history of the Soviet Union. This text examines Stalin's ambiguous personal and political legacy, his achievements and his crimes - all now the subject of major reappraisal both in the West and in the former Soviet Union. The second edition of this pamphlet is fully updated to take in historical debates and historiographical controversies which have emerged since the collapse of the Soviet Union, and reflects on the ways in which Stalin's legacy still affects attitudes in and towards post-Soviet Russia.
R 2,378.10
Stalin and Stalinism
One of the most successful dictators of the twentieth century, Stalin transformed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union into one of the world’s leading political parties. Stalin and Stalinism explores how he ammassed, retained and deployed power to dominate, not only his close associates, but the population of the Soviet Union and Soviet Empire.Moving from leader to autocrat and finally despot, Stalin played a key role in shaping the first half of the twentieth century with, at one time, around one-third of the planet adopting his system. His influence lives on – despite turning their backs on Stalin’s anti-capitalism in the later twentieth century, countries such as China and Vietnam retain his political model – the unbridled power of the Communist Party. First published in 1983, Stalin and Stalinism has established itself as one of the most popular textbooks for those who want to understand the Stalin phenomenon. This updated fourth edition draws on a wealth of new publications, and includes increased discussion on culture, religion and the new society that Stalin fashioned as well as more on spying, Stalin's legacy, and his character as well as his actions. Supported by a chronology of key events, Who’s Who and Guide to Further Reading, this concise assessment of one of the major figures of the twentieth-century world history remains an essential read for students of the subject.
R 2,473.59
Redefining Stalinism
Born in 1879 in Georgia, Stalin joined the Bolsheviks under Lenin in 1903 and became General Secretary of the Communist Party in 1922. These edited papers reassess the deeds, policies and legacy of a man who was responsible for innumerable deaths and untold human misery.
R 4,284.37
Stalin’s Liquidation Game
Victims of mass repression in Stalin’s Soviet Union were subject to physical and psychological torture by their interrogators, forced to confess to crimes they did not commit. Many eventually broke, accepting that continuing to resist the interrogations was pointless as well as believing their interrogators’ assurances that confessing would save their lives. The interrogators lied: confessing rarely saved the victims—it was often the last step to their execution.The case of Ukrainian communist Oleksandr Shumskyi offers unique insight into an alternative strategy of survival in Stalin’s terror machine: Shumskyi endured his tortures. He resisted, refusing to confess for over a decade, and waged a campaign against his unlawful arrest. By refusing to confess to the false charges made against him, Shumskyi denied his interrogators one of the key pieces of evidence they required to help demonstrate the “legality,” however perverse, of their investigations against him and others. For the state, his refusal denied the legitimacy of its violence, and its machinery of repression stumbled. Stalin’s Liquidation Game examines the relationship between resistance and survival, focusing on Shumskyi’s arrest and incarceration from 1933 until his death in 1946, along with a broader analysis of the fates of his Ukrainian intelligentsia associates also arrested at this time.
R 1,983.00
Stalin
A spellbinding new biography of Stalin in his formative yearsThis is the definitive biography of Joseph Stalin from his birth to the October Revolution of 1917, a panoramic and often chilling account of how an impoverished, idealistic youth from the provinces of tsarist Russia was transformed into a cunning and fearsome outlaw who would one day become one of the twentieth century's most ruthless dictators.In this monumental book, Ronald Grigor Suny sheds light on the least understood years of Stalin's career, bringing to life the turbulent world in which he lived and the extraordinary historical events that shaped him. Suny draws on a wealth of new archival evidence from Stalin's early years in the Caucasus to chart the psychological metamorphosis of the young Stalin, taking readers from his boyhood as a Georgian nationalist and romantic poet, through his harsh years of schooling, to his commitment to violent engagement in the underground movement to topple the tsarist autocracy. Stalin emerges as an ambitious climber within the Bolshevik ranks, a resourceful leader of a small terrorist band, and a writer and thinker who was deeply engaged with some of the most incendiary debates of his time.A landmark achievement, Stalin paints an unforgettable portrait of a driven young man who abandoned his religious faith to become a skilled political operative and a single-minded and ruthless rebel.
R 1,176.00
