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Stalin. New Biography of a Dictator

Stalin. New Biography of a Dictator 164 Book Reviews Stalin. New Biography of a Dictator. By Oleg V. Khlevniuk. Translated by Nora Seligman Favorov (New Haven and London: Yale university Press, 2015), pp.xvi + 392. Notes. Photographs. Index. AU$64.00 (cloth), distributed by Footprint Books in Australia. In death as in life, Joseph Stalin was both revered and feared. The day after his death, 5 March 1953, 109 people died in the crush to pay their last respects, Nikita Khrushchev declared in 1962, at the height of his campaign against the “cult of the personality” after Stalin’s body had been removed from Lenin’s mausoleum. At the time, dissenting Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko feared Stalin was only “pretending to be dead”. Yevtushenko was not alone. Stalin’s death, and the reluctance of any one individual — among his bodyguards, the Kremlin doctors, even his “ruling Five” (p.142) comrades — to confirm his demise, intriguingly ties together Oleg Khlevniuk’s fascinating biography of the “man of steel”; a life story that starts, as it ends, with Stalin’s death. Khlevniuk has unparalleled knowledge of the Stalin archives, some of which are still off limits, even to this eminent Russian historian. Detailed documentation enriches this “new biography”, filling in many of the blank spots in Stalin’s personal and political trajectory. This is not a polemical study. It is a carefully documented account that enables us to see Stalin up close politically, and sometimes personally: the Stalin given to “mad fit[s] of rage” (p.152) could calmly order planting “eggplant, corn, and tomatoes along the edge of the garden” on his dacha estate (p.4). Khlevniuk steps us through all the key phases of Stalin’s public life: “Koba” the Georgian seminarian; the “Man of steel” underground anti-Tsarist revolutionary; Stalin the “moderate”, “rightest” Bolshevik “in Lenin’s shadow” (pp.44, 46), shifting to support the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917; Stalin’s Civil War clashes with Trotsky which sowed “the seeds of future clashes and power struggles” (p.63); Lenin’s 1923 declaration of “war on Stalin” (p.73) and failed proposal to remove him as party “general secretary because he was ‘too rude’” (p.71); Stalin’s own 1927 victorious declaration of war against the oppositionist “all-union illegal organization” led by Kamenev, Trotsky and Zinoviev (pp.84-5); Stalin’s 1929 “call to destroy the kulaks [rich peasants] as a class” (p.111) resulting in the mass “Stalin Famine” (p.117); the 1934 murder of Stalin’s rival Kirov; the subsequent unleashing of the 1937-1938 “Great Terror” against the Soviet “power structures” (p.140), which engulfed the populace; the “Great Patriotic War” which saw Stalin preside over Red Army rout but ultimately hailed as “savior” of the world from Nazism (p.322); and the post-war period of reconstruction, famine, and more repression, amid Cold War isolation. Khlevniuk sees the pursuit of power as Stalin’s raison d’être, but his Stalin did not rule in a vacuum. The vozhd (Leader) headed a dictatorial, “neopatrimonial state” in which he made every “decision of major consequence”. The “backbone” of his “party- state” was “the nomenklatura”: a hierarchy of bureaucratic privilege presided over by the vozhd through a ruthless, praetorian state. Stalin’s life-and-death decision-making over even his most immediate comrades “kept society and the apparat in a state of mobilized tension” (pp.36-37). But Khlevniuk also recognises that Stalin did not rule by “fear and compulsion” alone; “‘positive’ mechanisms of social manipulation” kept “Soviet society moving in the desired direction” (p.320). It would have been good if Khlevniuk had elaborated on what the “desired direction” of Soviet society was and thereby the historical significance of Stalin’s ultra- coercive state. Nevertheless, Khlevniuk has produced an eloquent, finely researched, comprehensive overview of Stalin’s life that will be invaluable for scholars and serious students alike of one of the titans of twentieth century history. ROGER D. MARKWICK School of Humanities and Social Science, The University of Newcastle http://www.deepdyve.com/assets/images/DeepDyve-Logo-lg.png Australian Journal of Politics and History Wiley

Stalin. New Biography of a Dictator

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Publisher
Wiley
Copyright
© 2016 School of History, Philosophy, Religion and Classics, School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland and John Wiley & Sons Australia, Ltd
ISSN
0004-9522
eISSN
1467-8497
DOI
10.1111/ajph.12237
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Abstract

164 Book Reviews Stalin. New Biography of a Dictator. By Oleg V. Khlevniuk. Translated by Nora Seligman Favorov (New Haven and London: Yale university Press, 2015), pp.xvi + 392. Notes. Photographs. Index. AU$64.00 (cloth), distributed by Footprint Books in Australia. In death as in life, Joseph Stalin was both revered and feared. The day after his death, 5 March 1953, 109 people died in the crush to pay their last respects, Nikita Khrushchev declared in 1962, at the height of his campaign against the “cult of the personality” after Stalin’s body had been removed from Lenin’s mausoleum. At the time, dissenting Soviet poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko feared Stalin was only “pretending to be dead”. Yevtushenko was not alone. Stalin’s death, and the reluctance of any one individual — among his bodyguards, the Kremlin doctors, even his “ruling Five” (p.142) comrades — to confirm his demise, intriguingly ties together Oleg Khlevniuk’s fascinating biography of the “man of steel”; a life story that starts, as it ends, with Stalin’s death. Khlevniuk has unparalleled knowledge of the Stalin archives, some of which are still off limits, even to this eminent Russian historian. Detailed documentation enriches this “new biography”, filling in many of the blank spots in Stalin’s personal and political trajectory. This is not a polemical study. It is a carefully documented account that enables us to see Stalin up close politically, and sometimes personally: the Stalin given to “mad fit[s] of rage” (p.152) could calmly order planting “eggplant, corn, and tomatoes along the edge of the garden” on his dacha estate (p.4). Khlevniuk steps us through all the key phases of Stalin’s public life: “Koba” the Georgian seminarian; the “Man of steel” underground anti-Tsarist revolutionary; Stalin the “moderate”, “rightest” Bolshevik “in Lenin’s shadow” (pp.44, 46), shifting to support the Bolshevik seizure of power in 1917; Stalin’s Civil War clashes with Trotsky which sowed “the seeds of future clashes and power struggles” (p.63); Lenin’s 1923 declaration of “war on Stalin” (p.73) and failed proposal to remove him as party “general secretary because he was ‘too rude’” (p.71); Stalin’s own 1927 victorious declaration of war against the oppositionist “all-union illegal organization” led by Kamenev, Trotsky and Zinoviev (pp.84-5); Stalin’s 1929 “call to destroy the kulaks [rich peasants] as a class” (p.111) resulting in the mass “Stalin Famine” (p.117); the 1934 murder of Stalin’s rival Kirov; the subsequent unleashing of the 1937-1938 “Great Terror” against the Soviet “power structures” (p.140), which engulfed the populace; the “Great Patriotic War” which saw Stalin preside over Red Army rout but ultimately hailed as “savior” of the world from Nazism (p.322); and the post-war period of reconstruction, famine, and more repression, amid Cold War isolation. Khlevniuk sees the pursuit of power as Stalin’s raison d’être, but his Stalin did not rule in a vacuum. The vozhd (Leader) headed a dictatorial, “neopatrimonial state” in which he made every “decision of major consequence”. The “backbone” of his “party- state” was “the nomenklatura”: a hierarchy of bureaucratic privilege presided over by the vozhd through a ruthless, praetorian state. Stalin’s life-and-death decision-making over even his most immediate comrades “kept society and the apparat in a state of mobilized tension” (pp.36-37). But Khlevniuk also recognises that Stalin did not rule by “fear and compulsion” alone; “‘positive’ mechanisms of social manipulation” kept “Soviet society moving in the desired direction” (p.320). It would have been good if Khlevniuk had elaborated on what the “desired direction” of Soviet society was and thereby the historical significance of Stalin’s ultra- coercive state. Nevertheless, Khlevniuk has produced an eloquent, finely researched, comprehensive overview of Stalin’s life that will be invaluable for scholars and serious students alike of one of the titans of twentieth century history. ROGER D. MARKWICK School of Humanities and Social Science, The University of Newcastle

Journal

Australian Journal of Politics and History – Wiley

Published: Mar 1, 2016

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