The Stalin Era

by Anna Louise Strong

I THINK THAT, looking back, men will call it "the Stalin Era.” Tens of millions of people built the world’s first socialist state, but he was the engineer. He first gave voice to the thought that the peasant land of Russia could do it. From that time on, his mark was on all of it, on all the gains and all the evils. It is too soon to sum up the era, and yet one must try to. For controversy has arisen over it and the beliefs of many around the world are being torn. It is the very best people who are most disturbed by Khrushchev’s revelations of thousands of brutal injustices and harsh repressions when socialism was for the first time built. They are Was this necessary? Is that always the path to socialism? Or was it the evil genius of one man?

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, Russia, Soviet Union, Soviet History, American

152 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1956

About the author

American journalist and activist, best known for her reporting on and support for communist movements in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China.

Reviews

[Christian · Rating 5 out of 5]

An even-handed but not dispassionate account of the unprecedented accomplishments and tragic missteps of the USSR by an American journalist who experienced it first-hand. Very engaging.

[Kaan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gayet iyi kitap, genellikle Stalin'in tarafında durmakta yalnız yaptığı hataları da anlatmaya çalışıyor.

[Gabriele Zuccarello · Rating 5 out of 5]

La politica dell'Unione era di lasciar sviluppare tutte le culture nazionali, mentre l'economia si sviluppava in direzione del socialismo. Ma 85 piccole nazionalità non avevano neppure un alfabeto, per non parlare dei libri. Il linguaggio di questi popoli fu elaborato da scienziati, e a Mosca si cominciò a stampare libri in cento lingue, finché la produzione libraria dell'Urss, alla fine del primo piano quinquennale, superò il numero dei libri stampati in Francia, Germania e Inghilterra prese insieme. Ma i libri non furono che una delle forze rinnovatrici: assieme ad essi ci furono le nuove leggi, la scienza, l'arte."
[... ] La cosa più bella che c'è nella vita - disse - è il lavoro. No, non il lavoro semplicemente: la creazione! Proprio in questo tempo, in cui noi viviamo, c'è una possibilità di creare, senza confini e senza limiti.

[OnurU · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sovyetler Birliği’nin en sarsıcı ve tartışmalara yol açan dönemine dair okuduğum en doyurucu kitabın bir ABD doğumlu gazeteci olması şaşırtıcı gelebilir. Ama devrim günlerini en canlı anlatan kitabın da John Reed’e ait olduğunu unutmamak lazım.

Strong’un Stalin döneminde tutuklananlardan biri olması, objektifliğini hissettiğim kitabını daha da değerli kılıyor.

Tarımda kollektifleştirme, toplu tutuklamalar, Hitler Almanyası ile saldırmazlık antlaşması, Büyük Anayurt Savaşı, savaş sonrası, barış taarruzları, ölümü ve Krusçev’in politikaları ve Stalin’e dair konuşmasını gibi tüm dünyada tartışılan konuları es geçmeyen kitabı, bütünsel, tarihsel ve kapsamlı bir bakış sunuyor.

Kitabın satışı yok, Nadir Kitap’taki son bir kaçından birini aldım. Yeniden basılmaması büyük kayıp.

[Pfairbanks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Strong wrote with a mixture of clarity of vision and historical trajectory which she combined with a deep knowledge of Soviet society. This has been the most humanizing account of the Soviet people for the first half of their existence.

[Matthew O'Brien · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very good book about stalin with interesting personal stories and facts

[Emre · Rating 4 out of 5]

bu adam benim babam.

[Dee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Book i read : ஸ்டாலின் சகாப்தம் by Puthumai pathipagam

[Hyman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely wonderful book.
Back in the 1990s I was reading everything by Noam Chomsky that I could get my hands on, and I listened to his lectures on cassette tape constantly. I still have whole passages from them memorized.

Although Chomsky is an anarchist and extremely critical of the US government, his views on the USSR were practically indistinguishable from those of the state department. Personally I didn’t quite share his hostility towards Marx and Marxism, but I did more or less accept his view on Lenin, Stalin and the Soviet Union in general.

It never even occurred to me a question this view on Stalin until I came across Gabriel Rockhill and Domenico Lasurdo. I mean, sure, let’s say Stalin was the demonic monster everybody says he was… and let’s ignore the fact that everything they said about him is pretty much a carbon copy of everything they’re saying about Vladimir Putin or the People’s Republic of China… What choice did Stalin have in 1929 but to proceed as he did?

“We are fifty or a hundred years behind the advanced countries. We must make good this distance in ten years. Either we do it, or they crush us.”
— Joseph Stalin, speech to industrial managers, February 4, 1931

In this book, the author explains exactly how it was that the USSR make good the distance, and managed to crush the Nazi threat. She doesn’t gloss over the crimes or the excesses of the era, but she does put them in context, all the while creating a fast paced, tremendously, enjoyable narrative.