The Great Purges

by Isaac Deutscher, David King

Photographs, excerpts from official records & eyewitness accounts document the terrible tole of Stalin's purges against his real & imagined enemies.
Text originally written for the Home Service of the BBC.

Genres: History

176 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Isaac Deutscher was a Polish-born Jewish Marxist writer, journalist and political activist who moved to the United Kingdom at the outbreak of World War II. He is best known as a biographer of Leon Trotsky and Joseph Stalin and as a commentator on Soviet affairs. His three-volume biography of Trotsky, in particular, was highly influential among the British New Left.

Reviews

[Erik Graff · Rating 4 out of 5]

I received this book from its owner, Nav, for helping him move one spring day, but didn't read it until having finished a biography of Stalin.

Isaac Deutscher was an American Trotskyist and the author of the best English language biography of Leon Trotsky, a three volume work which greatly impressed me in high school. His opinions of Stalin are therefore strongly oppositional--and generally correct, in my opinion.

This is, believe it or not, a communist coffee table book, a big one filled with beautifully reproduced, often quite large, photographs and art reproductions from the King collection. The text, written for the BBC, is secondary--just enough to follow the scenes.

[RYD · Rating 3 out of 5]

A coffee table book on Stalin's purges, this is mostly interesting for its photographs, though the text by Isaac Deutscher offers a good summary of what happened.