Stalin's Gambit

by Lasha Tughushi

A taut political thriller woven from betrayal, fierce loyalty, and fragile love, Stalin's Gambit may be the only work of fiction in which Joseph Stalin appears not as the brooding architect of history, but as its dissected subject - once the terrifying "Ruler of the Peoples' now reduced to a cold anatomical specimen.
And yet his preserved organs - and his ghostly will - continue to propel the Kremlin1s imperial designs long after the embalmer's work is done.
Across its pages. traitors and loyalists, secret-police operatives and high priests, politicians, fascists, liberals, and ardent, love-struck feminists whirl in a kaleidoscopic frenzy. Each advances a pawn or sacrifices a queen on an immense chessboard where the fate of Georgia hangs in precarious balance.
The ending remains open, the horizon obscured - mirroring our own unsettled era, as a mortal contest of ideologies stretches across Eurasia and reaches the far shores of North America. The old Iron Curtain has slipped into the ether, slicing not now between empires but through corporations, networks of cronies, digital feeds, parliaments, and even the intimate silence between
lovers.

This is no tale of bygone days or speculative tomorrows. The novel pulses with the present - the reverberation of headlines read each morning, the convulsions chronicled in breaking news and endless feeds. It is little wonder: for two decades, its author stood at the helm of a daily newspaper, bearing witness as Eastern Europe, and with it, the wider world - shattered and re-formed in ways both irreversible and unfinished

Paperback

Published January 1, 2026

Reviews

[Mariam Khazalia · Rating 4 out of 5]

ნამდვილად კარგი დებიუტია.

ვიმედოვნებ, რომანის სიუჟეტი მალე რეალობად არ იქცევა :))

[Natia Morbedadze · Rating 4 out of 5]

შემზარავი წიგნია, თუმცა ეს განცდაც აუცილებელია. ბრძოლა, რომელშიც ახლა ვართ, ადრე თუ გვიან ჩვენი გამარჯვებით დასრულდება, მაგრამ შემდეგაც ვერ მოვიპოვებთ სრულ სიმშვიდეს. უნდა გვესმოდეს, რომ რუსეთი, სანამ ბოლომდე არ ჩამოიშლება, არასდროს შეეგუება ჩვენს წინსვლას და ნებისმიერი გზით ეცდება დაგვაბრუნოს ჭაობში - იქნება ეს ხელისუფლების ხელში ჩაგდება (როგორც ახლა), თუ დესტაბილიზაციის გამოწვევა ისეთი აბსურდული მიზეზითაც კი, როგორიც ათეულობით წლის წინ ჯოჯოხეთში გამგზავრებული სტალინია. რა გადაგვარჩენს? მხოლოდ მუდმივი სიფხიზლე და მზადყოფნა.

[David Wilby · Rating 3 out of 5]

Stalin's Gambit is a political thriller set in contemporary Georgia, probably around 2027 or so. It represents a hybrid form of fiction which overlays alternate realities and possible futures onto the actual existing geopolitical dynamics of the South Caucasus region. As the story opens, the war in Ukraine has just finished: Russia has been out-manouvered and finds itself in an awkward corner, NATO has forced the peace largely on its terms. The immediate dilemma for a feeble and domestically unpopular Putin government is all too clear as they frantically seek to cut losses and freeze the battlelines. But, on a second front, the Duma views a looming Georgia-EU deal that will set the former-Soviet country upon an irreversible tradjectory to joining the block as acceptable. The plan, therefore, is to avoid the rout of a Georgian lurch towards the West and attempt to avert that scenario by stirring up tensions in Georgia. The Russians set upon the idea of repatriating the remains of Stalin back to his homeland.

This far-fetched plot is transformed into something halfway believable through the lens of Lasha Tughushvili's novel. He exploits the tension well, feeding in facts gradually and keeping us awake to the nuances. One criticism may be that it could have been better to have made the main character a newspaper man rather than the very staid, albeit redoubtable figure of Levan Baratashvili, Head of State Security. But he is a well rounded and enigmatic character. Also this is not a novel of few characters, indeed there are a vast number to keep track of, many with accompanying details of their family back-history which I found unnecessarily tedious. But I liked the sense of skullduggery, clandestine deals and shadowy noire which makes Stalin's Gambit read rather like a script for a film. To be fair, it may be the sort of thing that would work better as a six-part TV series, not that it would stand much chance of getting past the rigorous submissions editors in Georgia, but I could definitely imagine Film 4 doing this.

Overall, this is a good-value pageturner, though I wouldn't recommend it if you don't already have an interest in, or knowledge of Georgian political history. That said, it's not a long novel. so much easier going than, say, a volume of political liiterature. All in all, Lasha Tughushvili has produced a stunningly well-balanced political thriller.