Stephen Kotkin

An extensively researched portrait of the Soviet dictator covers his rise from humble origins, the inner power structure of the Bolshevik regime, and the early formation of Stalin's fabricated trial process.

Stalin

Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941

Nikita Barsukov

What a book! Longer, denser than the first volume, with more references, footnotes.

Cindy

Antoine Pirard

In his biography of Stalin, Kotkin rejects the inherited wisdom about Stalin's psychological makeup, showing us instead how Stalin's near paranoia was fundamentally political and closely tracks the Bolshevik revolution's structural paranoia, the predicament of a Communist regime in an overwhelmingly capitalist world, surrounded and penetrated by enemies. At the same time, Kotkin posits the impossibility of understanding Stalin's momentous decisions outside of the context of the history of imperial Russia.

Stalin

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