In the modern history of Russia there is no better known man than Joseph Stalin. Debates about him do not stop and the evaluations of his activities are diametrically opposed. There is no politician who is credited with so many words and phrases that in reality were never spoken. There is no statesman, who is accused of so many crimes that he never committed. How is it even possible to understand his personality that continues to cause so many controversies? The best way – is to look at the documents and the recollections of those who knew him personally.
The book is based on the memoirs of Stalin's contemporaries and associates, documents and historical facts that can help you find answers to the most pressing questions:
- Was Stalin a despot in his relations with his colleagues and subordinates?
- Did Stalin interfere into our army's management and lessened its ability to fight?
- What caused the repressions in the period preceding World War 2?
- Why Stalin’s speeches on geopolitics, are still relevant and important today?
- Why Stalin's contemporaries used to think that he was a very witty man?
- Why is it that in our modern time those that falsify history have taken on the memoirs of Stalin’s associates?
- Why did Stalin love Mikhail Bulgakov, and not the poet Demyan Bedniy?
- Why Nikita Khrushchev hated Stalin so much?
- Why in the first months of the great patriotic war the “allies” of the Soviet Union sent their words of sympathy, instead of tanks and airplanes?
This book will help you understand that complex historical era, and equally complex personality of Joseph Stalin. His biography in the context of real historical events brings understanding into the motives of his actions. Facts of the memories of the real people – is the history itself.
Why Stalin's figure, long and well forgotten, has reappeared today in even bigger and more profound shape and form than ever before?
What is the cause of nostalgia for some of our contemporaries in regards to Stalin's figure, and why do the others oppose it with such strong emotions?
Regardless of the controversies, one thing is clear: Stalin was able to maintain and strengthen a giant country, and with tremendous effort made it into one of the superpowers of the twentieth century.
