STALIN: THE COURT OF THE RED TSAR.

Description

The fascination with evil; that is how I describe reading this book. Because the main character - Josyp Stalin - fascinated like a snake. His evil is unwavering; from the early 1920's until his death in 1953; Stalin plots, deceives, fools, liquidates, anyone he feels threatened by, or annoyed with; whether one person or millions of persons. This book reveals the personal Stalin - his private life, family life, likes and dislikes, paranoia, psychoticism, rage, and guilt - his private dinners while on vacation in the Crimea and Georgia; his conversations with the Politburo members who lived in fear of their lives from Stalin and totally bowed down before him, like Hitler's inner circle, and were constantly being murdered by Stalin and replaced with more sycophants. It is full of interesting history and very readable; but the fascinatingly evil character of Josyp Stalin holds your attention until his face turns black while dying on the sofa of his villa outside Moscow; before he could bring to fruition his murdering of countless more innocent people in his self-created "Doctor's Plot." In the end, Stalin fell into his own trap, and helplessly died like all his innocent victims in the tens of millions.

Description

"Fifty years after his death, Stalin remains one of the creators of our world. The scale of his crimes has made him, along with Hitler, the very personification of evil. Yet while we know much about Hitler. Stalin and his regime remain mysterious. Now, in this enthralling history of Stalin's imperial court, the fear and betrayal, privilege and debauchery, family life and murderous brutality are brought blazingly to life." "Who was the boy from Georgia who rose to rule the Empire of the Tsars? Who were his Himmler, Goring, Goebbels? How did these grandees rule? How did the 'top ten' families live? Exploring every aspect of this supreme politician, from his doomed marriage and mistresses, and his obsession with film, music and literature, to his identification with the Tsars, Simon Sebag Montefiore unveils a less enigmatic, more intimate Stalin, no less brutal but more human, and always astonishing." "Stalin organised the deadly but informal game of power amongst his courtiers at dinners, dances, and singsongs at Black Sea villas and Kremlin apartments: a secret, but strangely cosy world with a dynamic, colourful cast of killers, fanatics, degenerates and adventurers. From the murderous bisexual dwarf Yezhov to the depraved but gifted Beria, each had their role; during the Second World War, Stalin played the statesman with Churchill and Roosevelt, aided by Molotov while, with Marshal Zhukov, he became the triumphant warlord. They lived on ice, killing others to stay alive, sleeping with pistols under their pillows: their wives murdered on Stalin's whim, their children living by a code of lies. Yet they kept their quasi-religious faith in the Bolshevism that justified so much death." "Based on a wealth of new materials from Stalin's archives, just recently, opened, interviews with witnesses and massive research from Moscow to the Black Sea, this is a sensitive but damning portrait of the Genghis Khan of our epoch."--BOOK JACKET.

Subjects

Other Editions

• STALIN: THE COURT OF THE RED TSAR.WEIDENFELD & NICOLSON2003-01-01
• StalinOrion Publishing Group, Limited2003-01-01
• StalinHardcoverGeorge Weidenfeld & Nicholson2003-01-01
• StalinPhoenix2004-01-01
• StalinKnopf2004-01-01
• StalinPaperbackOrion Publishing Group, Limited2004-01-01