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The Last Days of Stalin Audiobook
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A scholarly, absorbing narrative of Stalin’s last days and the turbulent wake of his dictatorship.
Joshua Rubenstein’s riveting account takes us back to the second half of 1952, when no one could foresee an end to Joseph Stalin’s murderous regime. He was poised to challenge the newly elected US president Dwight Eisenhower with armed force and was also broadening a vicious campaign against Soviet Jews. Stalin’s sudden collapse and death in March 1953 was as dramatic and mysterious as his life. It is no overstatement to say that his passing marked a major turning point in the twentieth century.
The Last Days of Stalin is an engaging, briskly told account of the dictator’s final active months, the vigil at his deathbed, and the unfolding of Soviet and international events in the months after his death. Rubenstein throws fresh light on the devious plotting of Beria, Malenkov, Khrushchev, and other “comrades-in-arms” who well understood the significance of the dictator’s impending death; the witness-documented events of his death as compared to official published versions; Stalin’s rumored plans to forcibly exile Soviet Jews; the responses of Eisenhower and Secretary of State Dulles to the Kremlin’s conciliatory gestures after Stalin’s death; and the momentous repercussions when Stalin’s regime of terror was cut short.
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“Stalin’s death in March 1953 cut short another spasm of blood purges he was planning, but triggered only limited Soviet reforms. Joshua Rubenstein’s lively, detailed, carefully crafted book chronicles a key twentieth-century turning point that didn’t entirely turn, revealing what difference Stalin’s death did and didn’t make and why.”
— William Taubman, author of Khrushchev: The Man and His Era
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“Stalin’s death in March 1953 cut short another spasm of blood purges he was planning, but triggered only limited Soviet reforms. Joshua Rubenstein’s lively, detailed, carefully crafted book chronicles a key twentieth‑century turning point that didn’t entirely turn, revealing what difference Stalin’s death did and didn’t make and why.”
— William Taubman, author of Khrushchev: The Man and His Era -
“A clear, sober, and emotionally powerful narrative that brings to life the last years of Joseph Stalin’s rule, showing vividly how the death of the tyrant changed Soviet and international politics and brought relief to millions of his existing and potential victims, and first and foremost the Soviet Jews.”
— Serhii Plokhy, author of The Gates of Europe: A History of Ukraine -
“Rubenstein has produced a persuasive and well‑written account of the convoluted time that followed Stalin’s death in March 1953. He discusses the complex succession politics in the Kremlin and provides much new information…This is an enlightening and important book.”
— Klaus Larres, author of Churchill’s Cold War: The Politics of Personal Diplomacy
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About Joshua Rubenstein
Joshua Rubenstein is an associate of the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. He was also an organizer and regional director for Amnesty International USA for thirty-seven years. His previous books include the National Jewish Book Award winner Stalin’s Secret Pogrom and Tangled Loyalties. He lives in Brookline, Massachusetts, with his family.
About Arthur Morey
Arthur Morey has won three AudioFile Magazine “Best Of” Awards, and his work has garnered numerous AudioFile Earphones Awards and placed him as a finalist for two Audie Awards. He has acted in a number of productions, both off Broadway in New York and off Loop in Chicago. He graduated from Harvard and did graduate work at the University of Chicago. He has won awards for his fiction and drama, worked as an editor with several book publishers, and taught literature and writing at Northwestern University. His plays and songs have been produced in New York, Chicago, and Milan, where he has also performed.