Dimensions
164 x 241 x 50mm
An Authoritative Portrait Of A Tyrant And Those Who Served Him.
Stalin, like Hitler and other tyrants, won and held power because he had collaborators - hangmen. Drawing on newly released archival material, Donald Rayfield gives us a fuller and more colourful picture of Stalin's inner circle.
Stalin remains at the centre, and is revealed as even more terrible than was once thought. But he was not the sole author of Stalinism. What motivated his chiefs of police, Feliks Dzierzynski, Viacheslav Menzhinsky, Genrikh lagoda, Nikolai Ezhov and Lavrenti Beria? What did they want? What were their relations with the regime and its ruler? How did their upbringing and experience mould them? And how does the terror they create connect with the terror they felt?
The extent of the misery that Stalin and his hangmen caused can be compared in Europe only to that brought about by Hitler and his henchmen. Stalin's heritage is, if possible, even worse than Hitler's. His rule enslaved three generations, not one, the horror of what he did has not yet been fully understood and his countrymen have not yet found the strength to disavow him.
