Books in Brief

Stalin, by Edvard Radzinsky (Doubleday, 560 pp., $30)

NOBODY before Stalin had ever killed so many of his own people. Never apologize, never explain, was Stalin’s own guiding rule, and his career will probably always remain too sinister to be entirely grasped. He allowed no glimpse of the man beneath the monster. Legends inevitably accrued. Some of these are open to examination, and Mr. Radzinsky, a popular Russian journalist and writer, does as much as can be done through archives and interviews of surviving witnesses. Confusions about Stalin’s actual date of birth, his possible illegitimate brother, his wife’s suicide, and much else of the sort have been resolved. All his life he wrote to his mother in his native Georgian; this was as close as he could come to human sentiment. The pursuit of power for its own sake was his overriding motive. Radzinsky gives a fairly conventional account of Stalin’s calculated self-transformation from revolutionary into dictator. Terror was one among other useful implements. Far from infallible, he made shattering blunders-—especially in his handling of Germany and Hitler, which made world war a certainty. In the end, terrified would-be successors apparently left him to die in a way tantamount to killing him off. This book is highly readable but the last word remains as elusive as ever. —David Pryce-Jones

About the Author

David Pryce-Jones

David Pryce-Jones (1936–2025) was a British author and commentator and served as a senior editor of National Review.

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About the Author

Maria McFadden

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Stalin, by Edvard Radzinsky (Doubleday, 560 pp., $30)

NOBODY before Stalin had ever killed so many of his own people. Never apologize, never explain, was Stalin’s own guiding rule, and his career will probably always remain too sinister to be entirely grasped. He allowed no glimpse of the man beneath the monster. Legends inevitably accrued. Some of these are open to examination, and Mr. Radzinsky, a popular Russian journalist and writer, does as much as can be done through archives and interviews of surviving witnesses. Confusions about Stalin’s actual date of birth, his possible illegitimate brother, his wife’s suicide, and much else of the sort have been resolved. All his life he wrote to his mother in his native Georgian; this was as close as he could come to human sentiment. The pursuit of power for its own sake was his overriding motive. Radzinsky gives a fairly conventional account of Stalin’s calculated self-transformation from revolutionary into dictator. Terror was one among other useful implements. Far from infallible, he made shattering blunders-—especially in his handling of Germany and Hitler, which made world war a certainty. In the end, terrified would-be successors apparently left him to die in a way tantamount to killing him off. This book is highly readable but the last word remains as elusive as ever. —David Pryce-Jones