Stalin (Abridged): The First In-depth Biography Based on Explosive New Documents from Russia's Secret Archives Audiobook

From the author of The Last Tsar, 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 paints a picture of the Soviet strongman as more calculating, ruthless, and blood-crazed than has ever been described or imagined. Stalin was a man for whom power was all, terror a useful weapon, and deceit a constant companion.

As Radzinsky narrates the high drama of Stalin’s epic quest for domination—first within the Communist Party, then over the Soviet Union and the world—he uncovers the startling truth about this most enigmatic of historical figures. Only now in the post-Soviet era, can what was suppressed be told: Stalin’s long-denied involvement with terrorism as a young revolutionary; the crucial importance of his misunderstood, behind-the-scenes role during the October Revolution; his often hostile relationship with Lenin; the details of his organization of terror, culminating in the infamous show trials of the 1930s; his secret dealings with Hitler, and how they backfired; and the horrifying plans he was making before his death to send the Soviet Union’s Jews to concentration camps—tantamount to a potential second Holocaust. Radzinsky also takes an intimate look at Stalin’s private life, marked by his turbulent relationship with his wife Nadezhda, and recreates the circumstances that led to her suicide.

As he did in The Last Tsar, Radzinsky thrillingly brings the past to life. The Kremlin intrigues, the ceaseless round of double-dealing and back-stabbing, the private worlds of the Soviet Empire’s ruling class—all become, in Radzinsky’s hands, as gripping and powerful as the great Russian sagas. And the riddle of that most cold-blooded of leaders, a man for whom nothing was sacred in his pursuit of absolute might—and perhaps the greatest mass murderer in Western history—is solved.

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"Edvard Radzinsky writes compelling and historically detailed biographies. I first read his "The Last Tsar" and found it fascinating. I received this book at about the same time, prior to my retirement, but was continually distracted from diving into it. Finally, on August 6, 2011, I began reading this tome and kept reading it, a bit at a time, through October 25, 2011. Why did it take me so long? I found myself mesmerized by the depiction of evil present in these pages. Stalin died a couple of years after I was born, but I knew far more about Hitler, who died more than five years before I was born. I knew Stalin was a tough man, who reached adulthood in tough times, but I never realized how truly diabolical he was. Radzinsky is far from neutral in his depiction of this man he had idolized as a child and came to question as he grew older. Yet, the author is very clear to distinguish supposition or deduction from documented fact. The documented facts are hideous enough, anyway. Caesar Augustus is said to have declared, "Better to be Herod's pig than his son." Similarly, it was extremely dangerous to be considered Stalin's friend or protege. If there are people, and I believe there are, who inspire those around them to be better than they otherwise might be, Stalin seemed uniquely able to do the opposite. He corrupted those around them and turned them into his assassins, all the while preparing to assassinate them, once he had rung every ounce of evil from them.So was Stalin a monster or a man? Clearly a man, but one capable of truly monstrous acts. Was he ignorant or ingenious? Clearly ingenious, but always hiding his genius to profess ignorance to his adoring public for the terrible things he made happen. Was he a Communist or an Imperialist? On the surface a devoted Communist, but underneath the most effective and ruthless Tsar Russia has ever known."

— Rick (4 out of 5 stars)