Whatever the ultimate fate of the country and system he created, Stalin's place as one of the towering figures in the history of the twentieth century remains unchanged. Ruler of the largest country in the world for nearly three decades, architect of its transformation from an underdeveloped society into a superpower, war leader who played a decisive role in the destruction of Nazism and the creation of the post-war world, creator of new opportunities for millions of people, inflictor of massive human losses and suffering on many more - his impact was immense. Yet in many ways Stalin remains one of the hardest figures in modern history to understand. Many aspects of his early years, his rise to power, his motives and intentions as a Soviet leader have been little more than matters for speculation. In part this was a result of his secretive personality and skill in covering his tracks, the lack of memoirs by his associates, the inaccessibility of Soviet archies to historians. But no less an obstacle to assessing Stalin was for a long time the highly charged ideological context of his era and its aftermath which made objective analysis very difficult.This situation has radically changed with the collapse of the Soviet Union and a huge amount of documentation has now become available to historians.
This will be the first post-Soviet biography of Stalin and will draw on a wealth of biographical information only recently available and will put Stalin himself at the centre of the book in contrast to many earlier works which were as much histories of modern Russia as biographies of Stalin. This will be a major biography and not without controversy - Barber argues that during his final period Stalin was inn a way a precursor to Gorbachev in his realisation that the country's economic and political system needed changing. John Barber is an outstanding historian of the Soviet Union.
- ISBN10 0297643266
- ISBN13 9780297643265
- Publish Date 1 January 2011
- Publish Status Cancelled
- Out of Print 29 March 2021
- Publish Country GB
- Publisher Orion Publishing Co
- Imprint Weidenfeld & Nicolson
- Format Hardcover
- Pages 100
- Language English