Stalin
The fascination with evil; that is how I describe reading this book. Because the main character - Josyp Stalin - fascinated like a snake. His evil is unwavering; from the early 1920's until his death in 1953; Stalin plots, deceives, fools, liquidates, anyone he feels threatened by, or annoyed with; whether one person or millions of persons. This book reveals the personal Stalin - his private life, family life, likes and dislikes, paranoia, psychoticism, rage, and guilt - his private dinners while on vacation in the Crimea and Georgia; his conversations with the Politburo members who lived in fear of their lives from Stalin and totally bowed down before him, like Hitler's inner circle, and were constantly being murdered by Stalin and replaced with more sycophants. It is full of interesting history and very readable; but the fascinatingly evil character of Josyp Stalin holds your attention until his face turns black while dying on the sofa of his villa outside Moscow; before he could bring to fruition his murdering of countless more innocent people in his self-created "Doctor's Plot." In the end, Stalin fell into his own trap, and helplessly died like all his innocent victims in the tens of millions.
Stats for nerds
5recommend
8mentions
6people
2011–2025years
88% recommend13% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- > The Gulag Archipelago
I did read it a few years ago, that's very though and it describes in a very technical way how gulags worked. In hindsight I'm not sure it was the best way to do it.
If you liked it tho, id suggest the two kravchenko books on the trials, Rudolph Hess book (very interesting), Simon Sebag Montefiore book on Stalin.
I can provide many more about this kind of subject, I found that fascinating for a few months and did read a lot of books on it.
Although I'd argue that the most fascinating is watching the usa, from outside, turn into a totalitarian state. That is truly incredible to be able to witness how much Trump achieved in a few months.
- A few of this year's highlights for me and my notes on the books, where available.
Fiction -
Notes from Underground by Fyodor Dostoevsky - https://papertrail.biblish.com/books/2ab29d16-0cb1-4ef8-8cde...
Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen - https://papertrail.biblish.com/books/65214629-29ac-45a6-b474...
Bleak House by Charles Dickens
The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy - https://papertrail.biblish.com/books/bd090cb4-bc9a-41cb-9833...
Nonfiction -
The House of Government by Yuri Slezkine (my luckiest find of the year)
Stalin: The Court of The Red Tsar by Simon Sebag Montefiore - https://papertrail.biblish.com/books/13ebec0d-0859-4858-864a...
Vienna by Richard Cockett - https://papertrail.biblish.com/books/c0e1d1fb-dea7-456b-a95e...
The House That Madigan Built by Ray Long (an interesting history of a legendary figure in Illinois state politics)
Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe
- "Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar" by Simon Sebag Montefiore. It's honestly hard to tell if the narratives outlined in the book are real; it reads like fiction or a novel. It's backed by a mountain of sources, but I suppose that feeling of doubt is fitting for a subject like Stalin.
- It’s well worth reading the books on him by Simon Sebag Montefiore. Stalin was incredibly well read, sleeping little and devouring books at the seminary where he studied, and he carried this on through this life. It’s chilling the way he behaved to relatives of those he killed. Stalin had a creepy way of referring to their deaths as though they were unfortunate events that weren’t arranged by him.
- The deep and continual paranoid suspicion of difference and of everything is well covered in a great book by Simon Sebag Montefiore called "Stalin: Court of the Red Czar". Actually, anything by Montefiore is great - His book on Jerusalem is particularly excellent.
- I can recommend (if that is the correct term) the book "Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar" for a chilling description of the leadership of the Soviet Union from the early 30s until Stalin's death:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Stalin-The-Court-Red-Tsar/dp/0753817...
