Stalin, Volume 1

September 15, 2014
How did the “fugitive vagrant” Ioseb Jugashvili—poet, bank robber, student of Esperanto, and Marxist revolutionary—become Joseph Stalin, the architect of Soviet collectivism and the Great Purges? In this first volume of a planned three-volume biography, Kotkin (Uncivil Society) begins unraveling Stalin’s strange, monstrous life. This is an epic, thoroughly researched account that presents a broad vision of Stalin, from his birth to his rise to absolute power. The details Kotkin reveals of Stalin and the revolution seem absurd: as a youth he went by aliases including Pockmarked Oska and Oddball Osip and wore an Islamic veil on occasion to escape the attention of czarist authorities. At the beginning of Soviet rule, Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky holed up in a former finishing school for girls where the headmistress was still living, even as they dismantled czarist Russia. Kotkin tracks the changing revolution, noting how Stalin and the Bolsheviks benefited from the disintegration of the old order. After Lenin died and his opponents were sidelined, Stalin plunged into “collectivization,” even as Soviet citizens cried out for “butter not socialism.” How did Stalin accomplish so much, and unleash so much terror? Kotkin identifies an essential quality: “Stalin did not flinch.”

Starred review from October 1, 2014
The first volume of a massive biography of Joseph Stalin (1878-1953).Authoritative and rigorous in his far-flung research and fresh assertions, Kotkin (History and International Affairs/Princeton Univ.; Uncivil Society: 1989 and the Implosion of the Communist Establishment, 2009, etc.) fashions a life of Stalin against the enormous political upheaval in czarist Russia at the turn of the century, which gave rise to the revolutionary socialist movement fomented in Germany. The author sketches Stalin's early development as a poor cobbler's son in the Caucasus town of Gori: Iosif "Soso" Jughashvili evolved into a diligent young man despite parental hostilities, attending seminary in Tiflis and becoming radicalized against the prevailing imperial rot. As the old order exploded in bombs around him, he became a Bolshevik pundit, V.I. Lenin acolyte, Trotsky nemesis and disputed successor. In January 1928, Stalin's fateful trip to Siberia to begin consolidating his land collectivization scheme would transform-disastrously, it turned out-Soviet Eurasia. Kotkin has no patience with psychological explanations for Stalin's obsessiveness, thuggery and paranoia-e.g., being beaten as a child or his later humiliation as a rustic "Asiatic" Georgian amid the Russian elite. What Stalin did have was the devotion of his mother and a drive to better himself, despite ill health and accidents that left him with a withered arm and limping gait. Steeped in Marxism thanks to his revolutionary mentor at seminary, "Lado" Ketskhoveli, Stalin quit school, went underground and became a self-styled "enlightener" to the workers, his political ideas solidified by the oppression of the collapsing czarist regime, frequent jailings or internal exile, and adherence to Lenin's inexorable class war. Stalin's elevation as Lenin's "general secretary" in 1922 both spurred Stalin's own personal dictatorship and aroused alarm-e.g., in Lenin's disputed deathbed "Testament" urging Stalin's removal. Staggeringly wide in scope (note the 100-page bibliography), this work meticulously examines the structural forces that brought down one autocratic regime and put in place another.

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Starred review from November 1, 2014
This is the first part of a projected three-volume biography by Soviet and Russian history specialist Kotkin. Here he covers the period from Stalin's birth to the onset of forced collectivization in the late 1920s. This is an ambitious, massive, highly detailed work that offers fresh perspectives on the collapse of the czarist regime, the rise of the Bolsheviks, and the seemingly unlikely rise of Stalin to total power over much of the Eurasian land mass. Kotkin does not discount the role of individual personalities in this saga. Stalin, in particular, combined great strength of will, cunning, and the ruthlessness of a sociopath. But, as Kotkin repeatedly stresses, he and his Bolshevik colleagues were also a product of the great turmoil that plagued the Russian Empire in the early twentieth century. Stalin was especially well equipped to survive in an environment characterized by great political repression, shifting alliances between revolutionary groups, and a life forced underground. Like Hitler and Mao, Stalin, long before he gained power, openly proclaimed his willingness to sacrifice great numbers of humans to transform society. He was, of course, a monster, but a monster well suited to thrive in his times. This is an outstanding beginning to what promises to be a definitive work on the Stalin era.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2014, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2017

Historian Kotkin authoritatively examines Stalin's life, from his childhood in current-day Georgia to his metamorphosis as student priest to his unlikely rise as Lenin's ultimate successor. The first in a planned epic trilogy. (LJ 5/1/14)

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from January 1, 2017

Historian Kotkin authoritatively examines Stalin's life, from his childhood in current-day Georgia to his metamorphosis as student priest to his unlikely rise as Lenin's ultimate successor. The first in a planned epic trilogy. (LJ 5/1/14)

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

May 1, 2014

John P. Birkelund Professor in History and International Affairs at Princeton, Kotkin has been researching his magisterial biography of Stalin for a decade. Here we have only the first volume, both starting and ending in the crucial year of 1928 with Stalin heading to Siberia as he plans to launch the collectivization of agriculture and industry that would utterly transform--and traumatize--Soviet society.

Copyright 2014 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.