Stalin

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Excellent book - Rated
This is a really good book. While Stalin may be a character who it's hard to empathise with, Service approaches the topic with complete objectiity, leaving the reader to make up their own minds on the facts. The book is divided into nearly 50 chapters of ten to twelve pages each, which makes it easier to digest each separate issue and event the author addresses. Overall, great book for anyone keen on knowing more about Stalin.

Too close for comfort - Rated
This is well worth a read, although at times you may need to take a break from it as , by the very nature of its subject, it can be depressing. You really sense that Service has got into the mind of Stalin, but rather than sensationalising his material, he presents his research with a cool, detatched approach. By the end you have some undertanding of the system, ideology and paranoia that allowed Stalin to pursue his enemies, although Service never for one moment excuses Stalin, and his huge culpability for the crimes of his regime. Apart from the appaling catalogue of evils to his name, there are also numerous jaw-dropping moments at Stalin's rank incompetence. A terrible warning for us all.

An excellent biography of a man who shaped history - Rated
Stalin by Robert Service is a very readable account of the life of the infamous dictator. It is certainly the best biography of Stalin I have read because it puts the man in conttext and does not try to put across an overtly political message. Serious students of Stalin may want something with a bit more detail but this is in my opinion the definative biography of Stalin which is accessible to all.

A superb account - Rated
Without much debate, one of the best works on Stalin. What is worthwhile mentioning here is: Unlike many American and European historians, biographers and political analysts who have had written, edited or commented on Stalin and his rise to power in the CC of the USSR quite acrimoniously and dubiously over the years, this book is quite different. Instead, Service does an EXCELLENT job of:

1. Taking into accounts as they were and not mentioning what he thinks on them. Rather criticising Stalin and his every political move, we get a clear account of his real motives, his way of thinking, pressures he handled, the question of being either in power or out of it.

2. His fights with Trotsky, later with Kamenev and Zinoviev and then finally with Bukharin are mentioned and exemplified in great finesse. What one ought to note is that contrary to what most historians (over the decades) have seen Stalin as: short-tempered and haughty, he was a man of great discipline, far-sighted and highly motivated political analyst.

His childhood, rise to power, dekulakisation, rapid industrialisation and collectivisation of farms and other facets of Soviet regime are very nicely introduced, mentioned and illustrated. Moreover what makes the reading even better is: opposite views from Lenin, Trotsky, Kamenev, Zinoviev, Bukharin and others are mentioned and contrasted. 5 stars overall!

Subhasish Ghosh
26th Dec 2005

St. Cross College,
University of Oxford

A clinical dissection of Stalin - Rated
Stalin has had more biographies than even the most dedicated russophile would care to read. So why read this one?

Well, many of Stalin's biographies are warped by the context they were written in. During the cold war the history of Stalin became a battleground in itself, with historians either portraying him either as a crazed bureacrat, a monster, or nigh on a God.

Service makes use of newly available evidence and weaves together a balanced, clear and comprehensive portrait of Stalin. More than any other biography of Stalin I've read it provides a rounded portrayal of this most controversial of figures. However, whilst being dispassionate helps Service cooly analyse his subject, this also leads to this biography being somewhat dry.

If you want to gain a thorough understanding of Stalin without worrying the autor has a hidden agenda, this biography is unsurpassed. However, if you want to get a feel for the warped version of reality that characterised life close to Stalin, and prefer something a bit more readable, Simon Sebag Montefiore's book 'Court of the Red Tsar' may be a better choice.