by Robert Conquest
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Product Description
A leading scholar-historian of the U.S.S.R. offers a penetrating look at one of the most enigmatic and terrifying figures of modern times. Distilling a lifetime's study, Conquest provides a powerful, living portrait of Josef Stalin as child and student, revolutionary and Communist theoretician, political animal and paranoid leader. "A brisk, informative synthesis."--The Wall Street Journal.
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0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
Solid History on Stalin and his Rule, 2008-05-23
Having read this as an assignment coming into high school, it has been over six years since I've finished Robert Conquest's book on Stalin and the changes he wrought. You may wonder why I review the book now and not 6 years ago. The answer is that I didn't do reviews on amazon then, and have only recently re-encountered Conquest and been reminded of how good I thought his book was. Therefore, while my memory of this book's specifics are hazy, at best, I shall strive to give as good a review as I can.
I remember the prose itself being refreshingly good; the diction and syntax were certainly for no simpleton, yet nor were they turgid.
Given that this book encompasses Stalin's entire life and his nearly three decades of absolute rule in the Soviet Union in under 400 pages, it is obvious that Conquest cannot mention everything that ever transpired in Stalin's life or under his reign. Therefore, his method of giving a relatively brief, but incisive, account of Stalin's early life is quite useful and appropriate for this sort of book of this sort of length.
Furthermore, Conquest gives various personal vignettes of Stalin, and these are judiciously chosen and not randomly inserted, because they all serve to explain a larger, base character trait of Stalin than can be applied more broadly.
Although I said that I don't remember many of the specific elements of the book, the one thing that I remember most is the very end of the book, in which Stalin is lying on his deathbed in 1953. The way Conquest described the scene -- from Stalin's deteriorating condition to the chilling look his daughter remembers him giving to his closest Politburo subordinates (that sharp, piercing gaze that seemed to impugn all those around him as complicit in his sudden and suspicious death) -- was pretty masterful, and didn't come off as too sensationalist.
In retrospect, of course, I would have liked to have learned a great deal more about the terrible, overwhelmingly artificial famine, induced by Stalin's policies, that killed so many millions of Ukrainians and others, or of the very interesting international relations Stalin engaged in with Churchill and Roosevelt. But an extensive account of either of those would have burdened the book and have taken the focus off of Stalin and his policies; after all, the book is titled "Stalin: Breaker of Nations". I also have recourse to read his other books dedicated to detailed accounts of certain of Stalin's policies, such as that of the Great Purges or of the one about the famine.
(Note: I would have liked to have given this book somewhere in between 4 and 5 stars, but amazon does not have a more nuanced grading system.)
8 of 49 people found the following review helpful:
 Cold War Lies, 2006-01-19
This is one of the most historically inaccurate books published on the Cold War, and in specific Stalin. Robert Conquest is the head of the "cold warriors" who simply re-wrote history to fit their propaganda purposes. Conquest actually worked for a division of British Intelligence in the 50's and 60's which created anti-communist propaganda, based on sheer fabrication and lies. This work is no different. It stinks of right wing anti-communist propaganda and fabrication. The original anti-Stalin propaganda first came into the US in the 30's via Hearst, who relied on sources from his good friend Adolf Hitler. For a more objective and less politically motivated look at Stalin I would reccomend "The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered" by J. Arch Getty, "Life & Terror In Stalin's Russia" Thurston, "Stalin: Man Of History" by Ian Grey, among many others. Please do not take this book seriously!
15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
 A comprehensive introduction to Stalin and Stalinism, 2005-01-24
There have been many biographies written about Josef Stalin. Many recent biographies of Stalin such as "Stalin: The Court of the Red Czar" by Montefiore and "Stalin and his Hangmen: The Tyrant and those who killed for him" by Rayfield focus only on the sexual depravity and crimes of Stalin's followers respectively. A person should only read those biographies only after they have read an introductory biography of Stalin and have therefore come away with an understanding of Stalin as whole. Robert Conquest's "Stalin: Breaker of Nations" provides such a biography with the vital information for one to build a basic stable foundation of the life of this twentieth century tyrant. In the introduction Conquest modestly says, "This book is not a dissection of Stalin's character, but a sketch". It is important to keep this quote in mind as one reads Conquest's book. Many reviewers unfortunately are hasty in criticizing "Stalin: Breaker of Nations" for its lack of length (a mere 330 pages or so). Nonetheless, Conquest's "sketch" proves to be more thorough than many of the "dissections" of Stalin available. Indeed Robert Conquest's work on Stalin has been so extensive that he was chosen to be the main history consultant for the 1992 movie "Stalin", starring Robert Duvall.
Robert Conquest writes his book for the common reader who only has a minimal knowledge of Stalin and Stalinism. The book is nonetheless engaging enough for the serious Russian history buff. Anyone who reads "Stalin: Breaker of Nations" will at least come away with the conclusion that Stalin was the most prolific mass murderer in history (yes even more than Hitler). The purpose of the book is ultimately to stimulate enough interest for the reader to do some further research and reading. If one wants further information on Stalin's crimes, one can pick up Robert Conquest's book entitled "The Great Terror: A Reassessment".
I strongly recommend "Stalin: Breaker of Nations" to anyone who wishes to have a firm grasp on the essentials of the early Soviet era. I especially wish to highlight Chapter 12 (entitled " War") of the book, which points how the Allies (Roosevelt in particular) were incompetent when it came to standing up to Stalin.
If you want some further readings on Russian History, just remember that the best Russian historians start with the letter "R" (Robert Conquest, Richard Pipes, Robert Service, Richard Overy, Robert Leckie, and Robert Payne).
12 of 20 people found the following review helpful:
 The monster deserves better, 2003-12-20
Stalin was a perfect dictator: he was above it all. He was above dogma, as seen in his rebellious activity in the theological seminary and his "creative socialism". Ever since his bank robbing escapades he did not mind being above the law. In the Tsaritsyn affair, he showed the penchant for being above authority. He was above any respect for science and arts, having arrested most of the members of the Writers' Union and interfered in a spectrum of scientific fields. He was above any Party allegiance: a half of the party members were arrested and a million of them died in his camps. He did not have any use for familial ties, having imprisoned and shot his own and others' relatives. Of course, he was above any morality.As much as I.V. Dzhugashvili was a notable character, Stalin also was made by the people around him. Lenin, a militant opportunist himself, found in Stalin a kindred spirit of his own extremism. Kamenev and Zinoviev saved Stalin from the fall (after the disclosure of Lenin's Testament) because they needed him in their struggle against Trotsky. Roosevelt and Churchill needed him to fight Hitler and turned a blind eye on what they did not want to see, such as Katyn massacre. Stalin was the most evil ruler in the history of mankind, he killed over 40 million of his own people (to put it in perspective, Hitler killed 20 million and Saddam less than half a million), and yet Stalin's specter is very much alive today. During the Ribbentrop-Molotov negotiations, Stalin raised a toast to Hitler. In 2000, Putin was drinking to Stalin. After meeting Stalin in Teheran, Roosevelt commented on the "sympathetic quality in his nature". And G.W.Bush, having looked Putin in the eye, liked what he saw. It is interesting how history repeats itself: Russian leaders keep toasting the humankind's worst tyrants and the leaders of the free world keep seeing good souls. As Conquest himself states, this book is not a "dissection" of Stalin's character, but a sketch. Written just after many Soviet materials on Stalin became newly available, the book feels like a period piece. Not having any source references and the frequent mention of "recent Soviet publications" only strengthen the impression. Unfortunately, Conquest's Stalin still remains fairly impenetrable. What was driving him: megalomania, paranoia, inferiority complex, dogma, self-righteousness, all of the above? Until the late 1920's (and the ripe age of 50) Stalin's persona in the book remains fairly obscure. The narrative does not really elucidate what led him, a good and pious student of theological seminary, become a professional revolutionary. Or how exactly he ingratiated himself with Lenin to the point of becoming one of the top Party functionaries. Or how in the crucial years after Lenin's death he was able to come unscathed from the many factional fights. The linguistic constructions are a bit heavy-handed which, along with the macabre subject of the book, makes for a somewhat strained reading. Rather than painting a portrait, the book reads like the author's struggle to piece it all together and understand its subject. On the other hand, it takes one to know one. So if we do not understand Stalin all that well - maybe, so much for the better.
7 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
Quick, probably better for commoners, popular history, 2003-05-16
Conquest has written eminent studies(the only in thier class) on the Great Famine(harvest of Sorrow) and the Great Terror. THese scholarly works have now been followed by a much lesser work. Clearly Conquest was responding from calls by his supporters to publish a book on the life of the monster, Stalin. But unfortunatly, instead of publishing a scholarly, in-depth 700 page study he has publish a rather paltry tale. Full of information it nevertheless lacks in several areas. It lacks mostly in the details of the post Great Terror. It lacks when describing the war. It lacks in describing the 'doctors plot'. it also lacks in the fact that it does not do justice to its title. Stalin: 'Breaker of Nations'. Conquest does not detail these nations. He tells nothing of the Jews, Tatars, Udmirts, Greeks, Germans, Armenians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Poles, Fins, and Estonians who were victimized by Stalin. Stalin was a breaker of nations but we dont hear about these nations.
Read this book, but then go and read Volkogonovs 'Stalin: Triumph and Tradgedy'.
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