Stalin The First In-Depth Biography Based On Explosive New Documents From Russia'S Secret Archives – Buch gebraucht kaufen

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Stalin : The First In-Depth Biography Based On Explosive New Documents From Russia'S Secret Archives
Edvard Radzinsky
Broschiert: 594 Seiten - Verlag: Hodder and Stoughton Ltd, 1996 - Sprache: Englisch - Größe und/oder Gewicht: 23.6 x 15.8 x 5.6 cm
From the author of the ground-breaking "The Last Tsar", this is the first full-scale life of Stalin to have what no previous biography has entirely gotten hold of: the facts. Granted privileged access to Russia's secret archives, Edvard Radzinsky has broken down the iron curtain of myth, secrecy & lies that has surrounded Stalin's life & career, painting a picture of the Soviet strongman as more calculating, ruthless & blood-crazed than has ever been described or imagined. Stalin was a man for whom power was all, terror a useful weapon, & deceit a constant companion. Even the very first thing we know about Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, a.k.a. Stalin ("the man of steel"), is, Radzinsky shows, false: he was not born on December 21, 1879, as officially maintained, but a full year earlier. * As Radzinsky narrates the high drama of Stalin's epic quest for domination (first within the Communist Party, then over the Soviet Union & the world) he reveals the startling truth about this most enigmatic of historical figures. Only now, in the post-Soviet era, can what was long suppressed be told: Stalin's long-denied involvement w/ terrorism as a young revolutionary; the real story of how he mangled his left arm; the crucial importance of his misunderstood behind-the-scenes role during the October Revolution; his often hostile relationship w/ Lenin, who used but never fully trusted him; the details of his organization of terror, culminating in the infamous show trials of the 1930s; his secret dealings w/ Hitler, & how they backfired; & the horrifying plans he was making before his death to send the Soviet Union's Jews to concentration camps: tantamount to a potential 2nd Holocaust. Radzinsky also takes a look at Stalin's private life, marked by his turbulent relationship w/ his wife Nadezhda, & recreates the circumstances that led to her suicide. Finally, Radzinsky discovers one of Stalin's elite bodyguards, who breaks 40 yrs of silence to give the strongest evidence yet of the conspiracy behind Stalin's death. * As he did in "The Last Tsar," Radzinsky thrillingly brings the past to life. The Kremlin intrigues, the ceaseless round of double-dealing & back-stabbing, the private world's of the Soviet Empire's ruling class, all become in Radzinsky's hands as gripping & powerful as the great Russian sagas, & the riddle of that most cold-blooded of leaders, a man for whom nothing was sacred in his pursuit of absolute might, & perhaps the greatest murderer in Western history, is solved.

1996

13.06.2018

BN0410