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Stalin: Breaker of Nations
Of all the despots of our time, Joseph Stalin lasted the longest and wielded the greatest power, and his secrets have been the most jealously guarded—even after his death.
In this book, the first to draw from recently released archives, Robert Conquest gives us Stalin as a child and student; as a revolutionary and communist theoretician; as a political animal skilled in amassing power and absolutely ruthless in maintaining it. He presents the landmarks of Stalin’s the class with Lenin; collectivization; the Great Terror; the Nazi-Soviet pact and the Nazi-Soviet war; the anti-Semitic campaign that preceded his death; and the legacy he left behind.
Distilling a lifetime’s study, weaving detail, analysis, and research, Conquest has given us an extraordinarily powerful narrative of this incredible figure.
“Thoughtful and thorough and shot through with insight.”— The Washington Post Book World
“Definitive . . . a magnificent, even poetic, act of historical retribution.”— The New Leader
“Brilliant . . . this book probably is the most cogent and readable account of Stalin’s life yet published.”— The San Diego Union
In this book, the first to draw from recently released archives, Robert Conquest gives us Stalin as a child and student; as a revolutionary and communist theoretician; as a political animal skilled in amassing power and absolutely ruthless in maintaining it. He presents the landmarks of Stalin’s the class with Lenin; collectivization; the Great Terror; the Nazi-Soviet pact and the Nazi-Soviet war; the anti-Semitic campaign that preceded his death; and the legacy he left behind.
Distilling a lifetime’s study, weaving detail, analysis, and research, Conquest has given us an extraordinarily powerful narrative of this incredible figure.
“Thoughtful and thorough and shot through with insight.”— The Washington Post Book World
“Definitive . . . a magnificent, even poetic, act of historical retribution.”— The New Leader
“Brilliant . . . this book probably is the most cogent and readable account of Stalin’s life yet published.”— The San Diego Union
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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766 people want to read
About the author
Robert Conquest
132 books158 followersGeorge Robert Ackworth Conquest was a British historian who became a well known writer and researcher on the Soviet Union with the publication, in 1968, of his account of Stalin's purges of the 1930s, The Great Terror.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
June 1, 2017
Yes, his name really is Robert Conquest, and he really is the foremost English language Stalinologist. Gotta be careful not to say "Stalinist," see, that's a whole different thing. Anyway, Stalin: Breaker of Nations is his Stalin biography. It appears to be largely based on research that Conquest did for the 1968 work that made him the foremost English language Stalinologist, The Great Terror. That work was reissued in 1990 as The Great Terror: A Reassessment, at a time when the recently-opened archives of the Soviet Union were available under the "Glasnost" policy. They proved to support assertions that Conquest had made in the late '60s, when he was complained about by the left for overstating the scale of Stalin's crimes. Soviet documents, as it turns out, supported Conquest's view.
Interestingly, I've noticed a certain number of ideological complaints against Conquest, on the grounds that he's a conservative. Well, I'm not a conservative, even remotely, and all I can say is that from this volume (I have NOT read "The Great Terror"), Conquest seems to be at best middle-of-the-road. I guess from a Marxist perspective, that makes him conservative. Here in the United States, in modern parlance "conservative" means a whole different bunch of things to a whole different bunch of people. It seems to involve a lot of hating abortion and a lot of accusing Obama of being a socialist. That's not what conservative really means, and I assume that the people slinging that label at Conquest aren't accusing him of being a neocon along the lines of Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld; judging only from this book, he would be impossible to read as one of those. Conquest comes across as pretty neutral on whether Marxism is de facto a Good Thing, but I would surmise that he is, in broad terms, anti-Communist. Whoop-de-friggin'-do. To my mind, any Marxist who wants to attack Conquest on those grounds in order to rehabilitate Stalin, or to rehabilitate Stalin AT ALL, has a pretty long walk uphill...at least as far uphill as those shitbags on the right who occasionally try to say nice things about Hitler, just to "play devil's advocate." I invite those crypto-Marxist asshats to kindly fuck the fuck off. Some crimes are beyond ideology, and Stalin's history is filled with them. Any ideological lens that excuses any of Stalin's crimes is the ideological lens of a rabid animal without a soul.
Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled review...mostly free of ideological giving-a-fuck.
Stalin: Breaker of Nations is a far slimmer work than The Great Terror, at once more focused and less focused. It follows Stalin's life somewhat predictably, but takes detours into the lives of other figures in the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet bureaucracy afterwards. It's somewhat dense in that events are explored in detail, but somewhat cursory in that the philosophical and historical arguments those events might generate are more or less glossed over. Works like Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin take it as their raison d'etre to dig into those controversies, not so much in order to come up with definitive answers but because the debates themselves illuminate the European mind in sometimes horrifying ways. Taking such an approach in a volume like Stalin: Breaker of Nations would be length-prohibitive. Even Bloodlands covers only a very short period, starting with the Ukrainian collectivization famines and ending, basically, with the ethnic German exodus from Eastern Europe at the end of World War II. To write a book about the controversies engendered in the study of Stalin would be a staggering feat, so in order to enjoy this book, one needs to put such controversies on the shelf to some degree.
The other problem with the book is that the English language reader has to be willing to put up with a great parade of Russian proper names and place names, which can get a little dense. If you can't keep "Malenkov" and "Molotov" straight, you probably won't enjoy this book much. Regardless, it's one of the most important works of scholarship on Stalin. Understanding the etiology of corruption has been a lifelong fascination with me, and understanding the Stalinist mindset is, to paraphrase Bullock's subtitle on a book about Hitler, a case study in tyranny. As such, it's highly recommended.
Troublingly, Stalin: Breaker of Nations doesn't appear to be available as an ebook. You can get it as an Audible audiobook or in paperback.
Interestingly, I've noticed a certain number of ideological complaints against Conquest, on the grounds that he's a conservative. Well, I'm not a conservative, even remotely, and all I can say is that from this volume (I have NOT read "The Great Terror"), Conquest seems to be at best middle-of-the-road. I guess from a Marxist perspective, that makes him conservative. Here in the United States, in modern parlance "conservative" means a whole different bunch of things to a whole different bunch of people. It seems to involve a lot of hating abortion and a lot of accusing Obama of being a socialist. That's not what conservative really means, and I assume that the people slinging that label at Conquest aren't accusing him of being a neocon along the lines of Bush or Cheney or Rumsfeld; judging only from this book, he would be impossible to read as one of those. Conquest comes across as pretty neutral on whether Marxism is de facto a Good Thing, but I would surmise that he is, in broad terms, anti-Communist. Whoop-de-friggin'-do. To my mind, any Marxist who wants to attack Conquest on those grounds in order to rehabilitate Stalin, or to rehabilitate Stalin AT ALL, has a pretty long walk uphill...at least as far uphill as those shitbags on the right who occasionally try to say nice things about Hitler, just to "play devil's advocate." I invite those crypto-Marxist asshats to kindly fuck the fuck off. Some crimes are beyond ideology, and Stalin's history is filled with them. Any ideological lens that excuses any of Stalin's crimes is the ideological lens of a rabid animal without a soul.
Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled review...mostly free of ideological giving-a-fuck.
Stalin: Breaker of Nations is a far slimmer work than The Great Terror, at once more focused and less focused. It follows Stalin's life somewhat predictably, but takes detours into the lives of other figures in the Bolshevik Revolution and the Soviet bureaucracy afterwards. It's somewhat dense in that events are explored in detail, but somewhat cursory in that the philosophical and historical arguments those events might generate are more or less glossed over. Works like Timothy Snyder's Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin take it as their raison d'etre to dig into those controversies, not so much in order to come up with definitive answers but because the debates themselves illuminate the European mind in sometimes horrifying ways. Taking such an approach in a volume like Stalin: Breaker of Nations would be length-prohibitive. Even Bloodlands covers only a very short period, starting with the Ukrainian collectivization famines and ending, basically, with the ethnic German exodus from Eastern Europe at the end of World War II. To write a book about the controversies engendered in the study of Stalin would be a staggering feat, so in order to enjoy this book, one needs to put such controversies on the shelf to some degree.
The other problem with the book is that the English language reader has to be willing to put up with a great parade of Russian proper names and place names, which can get a little dense. If you can't keep "Malenkov" and "Molotov" straight, you probably won't enjoy this book much. Regardless, it's one of the most important works of scholarship on Stalin. Understanding the etiology of corruption has been a lifelong fascination with me, and understanding the Stalinist mindset is, to paraphrase Bullock's subtitle on a book about Hitler, a case study in tyranny. As such, it's highly recommended.
Troublingly, Stalin: Breaker of Nations doesn't appear to be available as an ebook. You can get it as an Audible audiobook or in paperback.
June 23, 2022
A 15 hour and 40 minute unabridged audiobook.
I wonder if this book was an eye opener when it was first published 30 years ago, when the iron curtain was finally opening up. I appreciate the authors style where he was blunt and pulled no punches. It seems a well resourced book and it hit its stride when describing the mid 1930s and onward. I liked it.
I wonder if this book was an eye opener when it was first published 30 years ago, when the iron curtain was finally opening up. I appreciate the authors style where he was blunt and pulled no punches. It seems a well resourced book and it hit its stride when describing the mid 1930s and onward. I liked it.
February 2, 2011
This was a sludge of a book to read, and I don’t want to make it a sludge of a task to write a review of it. Nonetheless there are some important notes I want to get down and remember.
What was most frustrating about this book is that I don’t feel like I learned a whole lot from it. Robert Conquest is an old conservative British academic. And that's fine. But his writing is not entertaining, it's not terribly academic and worse of all it's not very informative. Stalin is a fascinatingly cruel figure and he lived during one of the most tumultuous times in history. Russia, Europe, and the world were undergoing profound changes and profound struggles, and yet the power of this is neither captured in an academic nor an emotional way. As a student of history I’m disappointed and as someone who was really excited to read about an insane man living in an upside down world I’m also disappointed.
For one of the leading Stalin historians, Conquest’s doesn’t present much in the way of theses to organize his information. From this book I ascertained that: 1) Stalin was an evil guy (no kidding) and 2) wasn’t terribly smart. And this second point seems rather weak and dismissive to me.
Conquest argues that Stalin came to power because the Bolshevik party was a small party without much other talent to choose from. Stalin was in the right place at the right time and his iron will persevered over the greater intelligence of others. This is a fascinating point to make. It really is pretty incredible that the initially weak Bolshevik party came to power. And there’s certainly some truth to it. But it also seems lazy; to hammer the reader with the thesis that Stalin was a man of "mediocre intelligence" belies the greater complexity of Stalin and leaves bigger questions unanswered.
Some of the bigger questions [feel free to skip over them]: how was Stalin able to out-maneuver everyone after the publishing of Lenin's "Testament" that advised the party to remove Stalin? How was Stalin able to defeat an entire spectrum of opponents (not only Trotsky, but both a left and a right coalition that he had formerly allied with)? How was Stalin able to garner so much support and consolidate power with a strategy where he deceived allies until an opportune moment? How were the Bolsheviks—a fringe minority in Conquest’s mind—able to initiate such startling policies like collectivization? And how did Stalin’s regime manage to stay in power after these utter failures? What motivated the Great Terror of 1935-8 & why did Stalin initiate this period of greatest cruelty when his power seemed most assured?
These are tough questions, and it’s understandable that even the best historians could not answer them. But what shines through Conquest’s writing is an utter contempt and disrespect for Stalin rather than an intellectual curiousity. It’s as though he’d rather argue that Stalin was a cruel and stupid man than try to understand the time and the person that he’s writing about. I wonder if it’s this complete lack of respect for his subject what makes this such a dull, frustrating, and seemingly uninformative book. Is respect for your subject a prerequisite for good writing? At one point in the book Conquest references Stalin’s “oriental cunning” (192) and at another point he writes in reference to Beria (one of Stalin’s on-again-off-again core friends), “he sniggeringly recommended pepper vodka as stimulating the sex glands” (283). For a book published in 1992 this seems astoundingly dated and stupid. But more importantly it seems that it’s Conquest’s contempt for his subject that overwhelms any intellectual curiosity he might have.
But again, what is most frustrating about this book is that I am left feeling like I didn’t learn that much about Stalin or the fascinating half-century in which he lived. It reads more like a lazily written, dry history book without much depth.
Towards the end of the book Conquest quotes from a conversation between Stalin and his aeronautics expert. In this conversation Stalin’s aeronautics says, “you see we live in an insane epoch” (p 280). Conquest bleeds both the life and information out of this perplexing and insane era.
What was most frustrating about this book is that I don’t feel like I learned a whole lot from it. Robert Conquest is an old conservative British academic. And that's fine. But his writing is not entertaining, it's not terribly academic and worse of all it's not very informative. Stalin is a fascinatingly cruel figure and he lived during one of the most tumultuous times in history. Russia, Europe, and the world were undergoing profound changes and profound struggles, and yet the power of this is neither captured in an academic nor an emotional way. As a student of history I’m disappointed and as someone who was really excited to read about an insane man living in an upside down world I’m also disappointed.
For one of the leading Stalin historians, Conquest’s doesn’t present much in the way of theses to organize his information. From this book I ascertained that: 1) Stalin was an evil guy (no kidding) and 2) wasn’t terribly smart. And this second point seems rather weak and dismissive to me.
Conquest argues that Stalin came to power because the Bolshevik party was a small party without much other talent to choose from. Stalin was in the right place at the right time and his iron will persevered over the greater intelligence of others. This is a fascinating point to make. It really is pretty incredible that the initially weak Bolshevik party came to power. And there’s certainly some truth to it. But it also seems lazy; to hammer the reader with the thesis that Stalin was a man of "mediocre intelligence" belies the greater complexity of Stalin and leaves bigger questions unanswered.
Some of the bigger questions [feel free to skip over them]: how was Stalin able to out-maneuver everyone after the publishing of Lenin's "Testament" that advised the party to remove Stalin? How was Stalin able to defeat an entire spectrum of opponents (not only Trotsky, but both a left and a right coalition that he had formerly allied with)? How was Stalin able to garner so much support and consolidate power with a strategy where he deceived allies until an opportune moment? How were the Bolsheviks—a fringe minority in Conquest’s mind—able to initiate such startling policies like collectivization? And how did Stalin’s regime manage to stay in power after these utter failures? What motivated the Great Terror of 1935-8 & why did Stalin initiate this period of greatest cruelty when his power seemed most assured?
These are tough questions, and it’s understandable that even the best historians could not answer them. But what shines through Conquest’s writing is an utter contempt and disrespect for Stalin rather than an intellectual curiousity. It’s as though he’d rather argue that Stalin was a cruel and stupid man than try to understand the time and the person that he’s writing about. I wonder if it’s this complete lack of respect for his subject what makes this such a dull, frustrating, and seemingly uninformative book. Is respect for your subject a prerequisite for good writing? At one point in the book Conquest references Stalin’s “oriental cunning” (192) and at another point he writes in reference to Beria (one of Stalin’s on-again-off-again core friends), “he sniggeringly recommended pepper vodka as stimulating the sex glands” (283). For a book published in 1992 this seems astoundingly dated and stupid. But more importantly it seems that it’s Conquest’s contempt for his subject that overwhelms any intellectual curiosity he might have.
But again, what is most frustrating about this book is that I am left feeling like I didn’t learn that much about Stalin or the fascinating half-century in which he lived. It reads more like a lazily written, dry history book without much depth.
Towards the end of the book Conquest quotes from a conversation between Stalin and his aeronautics expert. In this conversation Stalin’s aeronautics says, “you see we live in an insane epoch” (p 280). Conquest bleeds both the life and information out of this perplexing and insane era.
October 17, 2008
I read this first in highschool to get a grasp on one of the 20th century’s greatest monsters, and again now as I was moving and found it in an old box.
Breaker of Nations is an excellent resource for highschoolers and undergrads looking for specific information on one of Stalin’s activities. There is at least a page on almost every notable exploit of Stalin’s rise and administration, from his meetings with Mao, Hitler, Roosevelt and Churchill, to destruction of Russian architecture, the famines he induced, the rise of his anti-Semitism, his agricultural and industrial policies, his alterations on Marx, his scientific (and often pseudo-scientific) policies, and so-on. The only two areas Conquest is lacking for coverage of are the Great Terror (of which he wrote an entire other book) and Stalin’s oppression of religion. If you’re writing a paper or curious about just one of Stalin’s attitudes or actions, it’s a good resource. For those in search of deeper understanding, it includes a thorough bibliography for additional study.
Conquest’s is the most thoroughly researched biography on Stalin that I’ve ever come across, but this almost entails it’s greatest disappointment. Stalin was responsible for far more deaths than Hitler, and yet we’ll probably know even less about his mind. From his policies he seems to have been a madman, but even madness warrants study. Conquest’s few attempts at speculation on Stalin’s thoughts are unsatisfying, and the lack of documentation (and further destruction of documents) suggest we’ll never have a substantial picture of this monster. At several points Conquest is forced to speculate on motives, and often chalks it up to irrational behavior – but you can only read so many claims of irrational behavior with no evidence to support it before you realize the limitation of possible research.
While this is a good book for students who want quotes or brief synopses on topics, the whole book is clearly not written for the unitiated. You’re going to want google or wikipedia open to fill you in on who Malenkov was or what Pravda was like. Conquest has a strange habit of introducing one thing and then taking for granted that you know another. It’s so full of exposition that it can’t be read as a simple argument for the educated, so it won’t fit as a proper read for any particular group.
This is compounded by Conquest’s verbosity. He will take twenty words to express the meaning of ten and a paragraph to express what two sentences could. He abuses passive voice and writes with lifeless literary flourishes, which makes this a great ordeal. When I read it in highschool I skimmed a lot and didn’t mind; now, it took me a couple of months to will myself through some of the sections. His prose style becomes more striking when you read his many quotes from Soviet accounts – all translated from another language, many forty years old, and yet all more concise than his English.
Breaker of Nations is an excellent resource for highschoolers and undergrads looking for specific information on one of Stalin’s activities. There is at least a page on almost every notable exploit of Stalin’s rise and administration, from his meetings with Mao, Hitler, Roosevelt and Churchill, to destruction of Russian architecture, the famines he induced, the rise of his anti-Semitism, his agricultural and industrial policies, his alterations on Marx, his scientific (and often pseudo-scientific) policies, and so-on. The only two areas Conquest is lacking for coverage of are the Great Terror (of which he wrote an entire other book) and Stalin’s oppression of religion. If you’re writing a paper or curious about just one of Stalin’s attitudes or actions, it’s a good resource. For those in search of deeper understanding, it includes a thorough bibliography for additional study.
Conquest’s is the most thoroughly researched biography on Stalin that I’ve ever come across, but this almost entails it’s greatest disappointment. Stalin was responsible for far more deaths than Hitler, and yet we’ll probably know even less about his mind. From his policies he seems to have been a madman, but even madness warrants study. Conquest’s few attempts at speculation on Stalin’s thoughts are unsatisfying, and the lack of documentation (and further destruction of documents) suggest we’ll never have a substantial picture of this monster. At several points Conquest is forced to speculate on motives, and often chalks it up to irrational behavior – but you can only read so many claims of irrational behavior with no evidence to support it before you realize the limitation of possible research.
While this is a good book for students who want quotes or brief synopses on topics, the whole book is clearly not written for the unitiated. You’re going to want google or wikipedia open to fill you in on who Malenkov was or what Pravda was like. Conquest has a strange habit of introducing one thing and then taking for granted that you know another. It’s so full of exposition that it can’t be read as a simple argument for the educated, so it won’t fit as a proper read for any particular group.
This is compounded by Conquest’s verbosity. He will take twenty words to express the meaning of ten and a paragraph to express what two sentences could. He abuses passive voice and writes with lifeless literary flourishes, which makes this a great ordeal. When I read it in highschool I skimmed a lot and didn’t mind; now, it took me a couple of months to will myself through some of the sections. His prose style becomes more striking when you read his many quotes from Soviet accounts – all translated from another language, many forty years old, and yet all more concise than his English.
June 24, 2014
Safe to say that Conquest knows his subject quite well. This biography is a good complement to The Great Terror, and if Stalin and his USSR interest you, I would recommend reading both (the bio first and then the Terror). STALIN is a brisk summary of Stalin's life and career. I almost didn't pick up this book due to the negative reviews on Goodreads, and the critiques were varied from "burgeois propaganda" to lack of sophistication in analysis to overly academic and verbose. I think the first speaks for itself. As for the the complaint that the analysis is lacking, Conquest states in the conclusion that his work was intended as description, not analysis. That's true to some extent, but Conquest believes--and I can't say I disagree--that Stalin was a natural product of communism, a paranoid world view that presumes, or even hopes for, persistent struggles against enemies, rather than an unfortunate accident that sullied Communism's good intentions.
September 13, 2018
A very telling and ominous book about the rise of one of the most evil and ruthless men who ever walked this planet. A man who considered those he met his "future victims" in which the author concludes who had no allegiance to either state or family.
He truly was a breaker of nations whose talents lied not in any great strategy, but according to many sources, a mediocre mind at best, but with a massive ego that destroyed anyone that he viewed as a threat at any point of his life; including in-laws, allies, and even spouses of his own staff.
It is very telling how this man of little education instilled fear into his own people to the point of forced worship, yet attracted the Progressive Academia and media to himself and they looked up him in awe, some even to this day.
After completing this book I can say with full confidence that there were no redeeming qualities to this man. His arrogance and suspicion of "treachery around every corner" have affected the Soviet Union, and now the Russian Federation, to this day.
Anyone who would entertain any aspect of Stalinism should take warning that it is self-defeating and destructive to all.
I recommend this book for nothing else than to better understand this despot and populist movements.
He truly was a breaker of nations whose talents lied not in any great strategy, but according to many sources, a mediocre mind at best, but with a massive ego that destroyed anyone that he viewed as a threat at any point of his life; including in-laws, allies, and even spouses of his own staff.
It is very telling how this man of little education instilled fear into his own people to the point of forced worship, yet attracted the Progressive Academia and media to himself and they looked up him in awe, some even to this day.
After completing this book I can say with full confidence that there were no redeeming qualities to this man. His arrogance and suspicion of "treachery around every corner" have affected the Soviet Union, and now the Russian Federation, to this day.
Anyone who would entertain any aspect of Stalinism should take warning that it is self-defeating and destructive to all.
I recommend this book for nothing else than to better understand this despot and populist movements.
February 4, 2016
Let's call it 4.5 stars. The author, whose "The Great Terror" is a truly great work of history, has written in this book what he calls a "summing up" of Stalin's character, a "display" rather than a "dissection" -- in effect, a portrait, and one benefitting from material newly available just a few years before it was published (1991). It covers all of Stalin's life and career thoroughly yet impressionistically and with lots of attribution without detailed citation. Easy to follow, very well-written, and just plain interesting biography . . . and horrifying.
February 10, 2011
A remarkable portrait of an evil man who promoted an evil ideology. Darkly amusing in parts; the description of Stalin's nights with his cronies -- who did not know if they would survive the evening -- is not to be missed.
January 10, 2016
Fascinating character study of a brutal dictator. Very glad we took this in small doses.
January 8, 2019
really portrays the madness and the political genius of the monster we know as Stalin
August 20, 2018
Well written biography, probably best suited for those who have at least an intermediate knowledge of political and economic issues. Terms aren't necessarily explained and may leave some readers confused and disappointed. Audio version is very good. Caution: lots and lots of violence.
April 27, 2011
utter crap. bourgeois propaganda
*puts on ideological lens*
oh my, stalin the monster!!! stalin the cruel! stalin the terrible!
*puts on ideological lens*
oh my, stalin the monster!!! stalin the cruel! stalin the terrible!
May 25, 2017
In one of the earlier post-Soviet biographies of Stalin, Conquest concentrates on understanding the character of the man who did so much evil without apparent regret.
December 8, 2018
A must read for understanding
November 19, 2017
L'ho letto volentieri perché lo stile era scorrevole e accattivante, però dal lato storiografico ho trovato che fosse carente di dati e fatti oggettivi. Conquest conduce infatti la propria analisi basandosi molto spesso su cose che ha sentito dire, letto su altre biografie, o addirittura su pareri personali, esprimendo di frequente al lettore la propria opinione, non sempre gradita o condivisibile. Per me è imperdonabile che uno storiografo si inserisca così spesso di persona nelle vicende, di conseguenza anche avendo apprezzato lo stile generale gli ho dato 2* per il contenuto.
July 8, 2024
Una biografia completa, ricca di dettagli e avvenimenti, ma facilmente leggibile, che ci offre una panoramica sulla giovinezza, l’ascesa al potere, il terrore, la seconda guerra mondiale e gli ultimi anni di un despota come Stalin. Consigliata.
February 20, 2015
Leith W. Siouffi
English 7-1
Stalin: Breaker of Nations
2/6/15
Stalin: Breaker of Nations kicks off with a dialogue as a great hook between a reporter and a woman which talks about December 21st being the day that Joseph Stalin was born. The reporter asks her if that day meant anything to her and she answered no. He told her that it was the day Stalin was born and she replied "Better if he hadn't been born'"(Conquest 1). Stalin was the ruler of a mostly Russian empire in the 1920s. 4 years later he introduced "socialism in one country", or the idea that communism that would only occur in Russia and later the Soviet Union would strengthen its power. This is how the book started off.
Stalin had four children, three sons and one Daughter. One day the youngest son told the even younger daughter that their father was " a Georgian once"(Conquest 2). When he said this, he didn't mean a resident of Georgia, USA he meant Gori, Georgia. It is south of Russia and north of Turkey and Armenia. This is shown because when he speaks Russian, a language he learned at the age of nine, he has a strong Georgian accent. As a result, he speaks very slowly in public in order for people to hear him, and so he doesn't mess up. This what was said about where he came from.
Stalin was known as being someone who couldn't take a joke. His colleague said "though he was a Georgian, he couldn't take a joke"(Conquest 3). He said this because Georgians were perceived to be cheerful, loyal and hospitable people, but Joseph Stalin, surely wasn't any of these. He was more of a person who wants revenge and as a result carnage. A few years after he had started his rule, he had found Georgia to be very "Russified"(Conquest 4). These are a few things that were told about Joseph Stalin.
Friday, February 13, 2015
English 7-1
Stalin: Breaker of Nations–Review/Summary
The book goes on to tell us about Stalin’s background. It starts off by telling us about how Stalin was a Georgian and was born on December 21, 1879. He was the third child and was the “only surviving son of Vissaron and Yekaterina Dzhugashvili”(Conquest 9,10). This was because he had three others died in their infancy and he was the only one to, mysteriously, not die. His family was very scared from this and many thought that this had caused his craving for power/creation of chaos. This is what has been told about Stalin’s background.
The next topic that the book goes over is the concept of when and where Stalin was born. This is significant because his mother “once gave his birthdate as January 1880”, the day of his baptism (Conquest 12). A tsarist (working for the Russian government) police document gave it as 1881 and Stalin, himself, also gave it as a different date. Another tsarist police record stated that Stalin wasn’t born in Gori, but in fact Didi Lilo, his father’s home village. Many inhabitants had been saying so and had showed the home of Stalin to many different visitors. These are a few things gone over while talking about Stalin’s birthdate/place.
These starting chapters have been really interesting, as they have really grabbed my attention. The language used is very advanced and I like that because I don’t really enjoy easy reads; I want a challenge. I find a few words I don’t know and look them up, then find them to be really professional and useful for future writing pieces. “Stalin was to find his native Georgia a hostile and troublesome area. His daughter saw him as ‘Completely Russified’”, is a great example of such because the italicized words are very distinct and some could be useful later on (Conquest 7). These are my first thoughts on the starting chapters and I can’t wait to continue reading on.
Friday, February 20, 2015
English 7-1
Stalin: Breaker of Nations–Review/Summary
Two final things were asked about Stalin. People queried something very big about it. Who was his real dad? People thought it would be a prince or someone part of the gentry, but "this is not possible"(Conquest 13). Georgia had 47 families of the gentry and 200 which were very respected, so it couldn't be possible. These are the last things that were asked about his birth.
There were many possible "fathers" for Stalin. Many thought it was Nikolai Przhevalsky. He was a very well known traveller and scientist. People said that "there was a resemblance between the two of them"(Conquest 13-14). Their moustaches might be the purpose of that legend as they were very thick and pointed at the ends which made them stand out. These are some reasons as to why people thought that Przhevalsky was Stalin's father.
Stalin's parents had to work hard to earn a living. His mother, Yekaterina didn't make a very good living she worked at the homes of rich people as a domestic servant/maid. She was heard to have had relationships with the house owners. Karl Marx "had a child by the family maid"(Conquest 15). This meant that they had a child together. This is how Stalin's mother made money.
English 7-1
Stalin: Breaker of Nations
2/6/15
Stalin: Breaker of Nations kicks off with a dialogue as a great hook between a reporter and a woman which talks about December 21st being the day that Joseph Stalin was born. The reporter asks her if that day meant anything to her and she answered no. He told her that it was the day Stalin was born and she replied "Better if he hadn't been born'"(Conquest 1). Stalin was the ruler of a mostly Russian empire in the 1920s. 4 years later he introduced "socialism in one country", or the idea that communism that would only occur in Russia and later the Soviet Union would strengthen its power. This is how the book started off.
Stalin had four children, three sons and one Daughter. One day the youngest son told the even younger daughter that their father was " a Georgian once"(Conquest 2). When he said this, he didn't mean a resident of Georgia, USA he meant Gori, Georgia. It is south of Russia and north of Turkey and Armenia. This is shown because when he speaks Russian, a language he learned at the age of nine, he has a strong Georgian accent. As a result, he speaks very slowly in public in order for people to hear him, and so he doesn't mess up. This what was said about where he came from.
Stalin was known as being someone who couldn't take a joke. His colleague said "though he was a Georgian, he couldn't take a joke"(Conquest 3). He said this because Georgians were perceived to be cheerful, loyal and hospitable people, but Joseph Stalin, surely wasn't any of these. He was more of a person who wants revenge and as a result carnage. A few years after he had started his rule, he had found Georgia to be very "Russified"(Conquest 4). These are a few things that were told about Joseph Stalin.
Friday, February 13, 2015
English 7-1
Stalin: Breaker of Nations–Review/Summary
The book goes on to tell us about Stalin’s background. It starts off by telling us about how Stalin was a Georgian and was born on December 21, 1879. He was the third child and was the “only surviving son of Vissaron and Yekaterina Dzhugashvili”(Conquest 9,10). This was because he had three others died in their infancy and he was the only one to, mysteriously, not die. His family was very scared from this and many thought that this had caused his craving for power/creation of chaos. This is what has been told about Stalin’s background.
The next topic that the book goes over is the concept of when and where Stalin was born. This is significant because his mother “once gave his birthdate as January 1880”, the day of his baptism (Conquest 12). A tsarist (working for the Russian government) police document gave it as 1881 and Stalin, himself, also gave it as a different date. Another tsarist police record stated that Stalin wasn’t born in Gori, but in fact Didi Lilo, his father’s home village. Many inhabitants had been saying so and had showed the home of Stalin to many different visitors. These are a few things gone over while talking about Stalin’s birthdate/place.
These starting chapters have been really interesting, as they have really grabbed my attention. The language used is very advanced and I like that because I don’t really enjoy easy reads; I want a challenge. I find a few words I don’t know and look them up, then find them to be really professional and useful for future writing pieces. “Stalin was to find his native Georgia a hostile and troublesome area. His daughter saw him as ‘Completely Russified’”, is a great example of such because the italicized words are very distinct and some could be useful later on (Conquest 7). These are my first thoughts on the starting chapters and I can’t wait to continue reading on.
Friday, February 20, 2015
English 7-1
Stalin: Breaker of Nations–Review/Summary
Two final things were asked about Stalin. People queried something very big about it. Who was his real dad? People thought it would be a prince or someone part of the gentry, but "this is not possible"(Conquest 13). Georgia had 47 families of the gentry and 200 which were very respected, so it couldn't be possible. These are the last things that were asked about his birth.
There were many possible "fathers" for Stalin. Many thought it was Nikolai Przhevalsky. He was a very well known traveller and scientist. People said that "there was a resemblance between the two of them"(Conquest 13-14). Their moustaches might be the purpose of that legend as they were very thick and pointed at the ends which made them stand out. These are some reasons as to why people thought that Przhevalsky was Stalin's father.
Stalin's parents had to work hard to earn a living. His mother, Yekaterina didn't make a very good living she worked at the homes of rich people as a domestic servant/maid. She was heard to have had relationships with the house owners. Karl Marx "had a child by the family maid"(Conquest 15). This meant that they had a child together. This is how Stalin's mother made money.
May 10, 2018
Robert Conquest did a great job of making this portrait of Joseph Stalin in "Stalin: Breaker of Nations." He wrote about how terrible of a dictator Stalin was over Russia, and the fact that he was one of the largest mass murderers of all time. However, Stalin still had Russia believing he was a great ruler, even long after he died. The entire country looked towards him and thought he was just amazing. Conquest stated, "Stalin invested his whole being in producing illusion or delusion." This is meaning that everything Stalin did was to make his country blindly follow him, no matter what other bad things he did in power. One fact that I found very cool, was that during his rule, some made comparisons between Stalin and different animals like tigers and wolves. Maxim Gorky stated that if a flea became 1000 times bigger, then it would be the most dangerous creature alive because it would just be a giant parasite hungry for human blood, and he said that was what Stalin really was to the country. Overall, I thought this book was really good for being a biography. I liked the authors serious tone about Stalin and what he did, and there were a lot of very interesting facts about him in this book that I had never known at all.
September 20, 2020
What the author does in this biography is to paint a portrait of the great dictator that will give readers an idea who he was. The book is an agreeable read, but I had the feeling at the end that this approach to the life of Stalin was inadequate to its subject.
Because of the nature of the man a portrait of him could be sketched rather easily and in far fewer pages than this biography. Stalin, it turns out, was an unusually bland personality driven by often inscrutable motives. His effect on the course of history is sweeping, however, and a biography of him might have been more fruitfully directed toward this aspect of his legacy.
The book is entirely readable, but its approach leaves too much unexplored.
Because of the nature of the man a portrait of him could be sketched rather easily and in far fewer pages than this biography. Stalin, it turns out, was an unusually bland personality driven by often inscrutable motives. His effect on the course of history is sweeping, however, and a biography of him might have been more fruitfully directed toward this aspect of his legacy.
The book is entirely readable, but its approach leaves too much unexplored.
December 22, 2008
The author is a british conservative (and the audio narrator had the most annoying voice imaginable) -- and shows all the vices of this ideological breed. Still, he is informed, and if looking for a single-volumned biography (and something less daunting than Ulam), this is a reasonable book to read -- the (many) ideological asides, as if he were channeling Maggie Thatcher, were easier to take in audio form -- I had tried to actually read this book once and failed miserably. The problem with these audio books is that the selection is clearly inferior and too narrow....
October 15, 2012
When reading Paul Johnson's, Modern Times, I got interested in Stalin and picked this book to read (and ended up finishing it before Modern Times). Stalin was a very dark person and thus this book was very dark. I cannot recommend it because it was very hard to get through but the story of Stalin is incredible and it is a great lesson of how a world leader can be viewed positively but at the same time be a mass murder and one of the most evil people who has ever lived (killing off everyone around him, including his close friends just because they might become rivals).
June 22, 2014
Stalin: Breaker of Nations is an in-depth study about the Soviet Union's molding and most powerful man. It deals with his childhood in great detail. This detail is only surpassed by the amount of research done on his political maneuverings in the Communist Party. Though it can be a bit dull during the middle of the book, it is worth the read for anyone who is doing research on the USSR or Stalin.
January 31, 2015
When I decided that I wanted to read a biography of Stalin, I chose this one because at 327 pages, it's a lot more doable than the others that I found, which were all about double that in length. Not a light, happy read, certainly, but so interesting. I learned a lot.
January 30, 2018
To paraphrase the author: this book is more to sum up the life of Stalin than to truly dissect it. Thus, this biography is a vast step up from Wikipedia, but not enough to make the reader an expert.
Still, it’s a worthwhile read even as an introduction to the heart of evil during the past century.
Still, it’s a worthwhile read even as an introduction to the heart of evil during the past century.
June 27, 2019
Great book. Only gave it four stars because to give it the five stars it probably deserves would raise into the realm 0f the bona fide classics that are Conquest's "The Great Terror" and "The Harvest of Sorrow". (And, alas, I can't even assign half a star because of how goodreads formats things)
April 25, 2018
Tedious.
March 13, 2019
Such evil.
April 26, 2022
This is an excellent primer on the worst of the USSR despots, Joseph Stalin. Robert Conquest traces Stalin's sly, conniving and vicious path from Georgia to become one of Lenin's top aides and ultimate successor. The book is concise and yet vivid. It has never been clear to anyone exactly why Stalin was complacent about sending millions of people to their death, including all of his rivals for power, but the record speaks for itself. To a degree Stalin was following Lenin's lead in crushing all enemies as a way of fulfilling the almost puritanical purity of Communist ideology but Stalin went far beyond Lenin. It is no exaggeration to speak of the millions he destroyed. That's not loose talk. At the same time that Stalin was acquiring the power to do this, he also managed to wreck the USSR's economy (with uninformed grand plans) and military (by executing its higher ranks).
For those of us who are always interested in a new take on historical figures and periods, Conquest's study is worth reading, even if it is quite old (published in 1991). The reason I reached for it is that I wondered where Vladimir Putin found a historical justification or precedent in Russian history. He evokes the figure of Peter the Great, but that's fantasy. Putin's assault on Ukraine mirrors much of Stalin's brutality toward Ukraine. His indifference to human life is Stalinesque. He seems to be thinking that destroying a country will be good for it...and good for Russia, of course.
Putin no doubt would reject any comparison to Stalin, but would Stalin have done something like this were he the leader of Russia now? I have no doubt he would. And I do wonder if a disastrous scheme such as Putin has contrived could possibly have been put into action without some sense of alignment with the Russian past that goes beyond fantasy. Read this book and remind yourself that Putin's slash and burn form of political agriculture most resembles Stalin's hideous rule. There are many, many ways in which the analogy between the two tyrants is imperfect, but for callous cruelty Putin really is Stalin's 21st century twin...and he is having the same horrendous impact on Russia itself that Stalin had.
For those of us who are always interested in a new take on historical figures and periods, Conquest's study is worth reading, even if it is quite old (published in 1991). The reason I reached for it is that I wondered where Vladimir Putin found a historical justification or precedent in Russian history. He evokes the figure of Peter the Great, but that's fantasy. Putin's assault on Ukraine mirrors much of Stalin's brutality toward Ukraine. His indifference to human life is Stalinesque. He seems to be thinking that destroying a country will be good for it...and good for Russia, of course.
Putin no doubt would reject any comparison to Stalin, but would Stalin have done something like this were he the leader of Russia now? I have no doubt he would. And I do wonder if a disastrous scheme such as Putin has contrived could possibly have been put into action without some sense of alignment with the Russian past that goes beyond fantasy. Read this book and remind yourself that Putin's slash and burn form of political agriculture most resembles Stalin's hideous rule. There are many, many ways in which the analogy between the two tyrants is imperfect, but for callous cruelty Putin really is Stalin's 21st century twin...and he is having the same horrendous impact on Russia itself that Stalin had.
January 13, 2024
I suppose this is a pretty strange book by Conquest. It was published and 1992, after the fall of the Soviet Union, after the opening up of soviet archives to historians, after the transparency brought by Glasnost and Perestroika. And yet, oftentimes, while reading, it feels like this book was written at the height of the Cold War. It's quite astonishing how he refuses to take into account new information that doesn't confirm his outdated biases. Of which there are a lot.
What we get is a biography that overall lacks nuance. Stalin is bad because... he's just bad. He made it to the top by pure luck, he has no inherent qualities. All the people around him are stupid or mediocre or brutal or bland. And so forth. It's almost comical how sometimes Conquest has to bend over backward to justify savvy or decent decisions made by Stalin - that is, justify, somehow, the outcomes that he produced while maintaining that he is not that intelligent or cunning, driven or assertive, steadfast or quick on his feet. Sometimes he even goes as far as calling allied officials (generals, diplomats, cabinet members, etc) stupid for listening to or believing the general secretary. Surely, even if you are a staunch anti-communist (which Conquest clearly is), you have to agree that this is reductive or lacks nuance. And the book is full of this type of frustrating reasoning.
Which is a shame, because this biography has some nonetheless good qualities. I learned a lot of things that I didn't know previously, especially regarding his early years - but also later on. I knew nothing about topics like the 1922 Georgian affair, or his involvement in the Civil War, or his consolidation of power throughout the 20s, or his relationship with soviet writers or the foreign press, and many more. Some passages were truly informative.
And finally, an odd (and unintentional) quality of the book is the almost romanticization of Stalin as the big bad guy who starts from nowhere and ascends to the top. It makes for a surprisingly enjoyable read and gives it, at times, an almost fictionalized quality. A fortunate byproduct of the obvious bias.
What we get is a biography that overall lacks nuance. Stalin is bad because... he's just bad. He made it to the top by pure luck, he has no inherent qualities. All the people around him are stupid or mediocre or brutal or bland. And so forth. It's almost comical how sometimes Conquest has to bend over backward to justify savvy or decent decisions made by Stalin - that is, justify, somehow, the outcomes that he produced while maintaining that he is not that intelligent or cunning, driven or assertive, steadfast or quick on his feet. Sometimes he even goes as far as calling allied officials (generals, diplomats, cabinet members, etc) stupid for listening to or believing the general secretary. Surely, even if you are a staunch anti-communist (which Conquest clearly is), you have to agree that this is reductive or lacks nuance. And the book is full of this type of frustrating reasoning.
Which is a shame, because this biography has some nonetheless good qualities. I learned a lot of things that I didn't know previously, especially regarding his early years - but also later on. I knew nothing about topics like the 1922 Georgian affair, or his involvement in the Civil War, or his consolidation of power throughout the 20s, or his relationship with soviet writers or the foreign press, and many more. Some passages were truly informative.
And finally, an odd (and unintentional) quality of the book is the almost romanticization of Stalin as the big bad guy who starts from nowhere and ascends to the top. It makes for a surprisingly enjoyable read and gives it, at times, an almost fictionalized quality. A fortunate byproduct of the obvious bias.
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