Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations - Hardcover

In this comprehensive book, Soviet scholar Laqueur ( Soviet Realities , LJ 12/1/89) discusses the range of Soviet opinion about Stalin and the subtleties of Soviet historiography on the Stalin era, particularly the new "mythology" created by Soviet writers who blame Trotsky for Stalinism and the unauthorized and indefatigable efforts of Dmitri Yurasov to amass data on the consequences of the dictator's reign. An appendix includes translations of the 1989 report of the Soviet party's Politburo Commission on the Moscow trials. The author's comparison of Stalin to Hitler and Mussolini adds little to what is already known, and it is often unclear if Laqueur intends a historical work or a work on Soviet historiography. Nevertheless, the book is on a par with Roy Medvedev's massive Let History Judge ( LJ 6/1/89) and is a superb effort of value to all academic and public libraries.
- Zachary T. Irwin, Pennsylvania State Univ., Erie
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

An invaluable synthesis of the new body of evidence, released under glasnost , of Stalin's atrocities, this masterful biographical study is one of the few essential books on the Soviet ruler. The latest revelations show that the purges and the terror raged in all the Soviet republics, not just in Moscow and Leningrad. New light is shed on Stalin's role in liquidating the Red Army high command and officer corps, and in engineering the murder of loyal party boss Sergei Kirov. As eminent historian Laquer demonstrates, many Russians now view Stalin as a failure on his own terms, a mass murderer who sidetracked communism. Yet illusions persist in the U.S.S.R.: Trotsky is assigned much of the blame for the show trials and bloodbath, and Gorbachev has spoken reticently of the "many thousands" murdered by Stalin, the exterminator of some 20 million innocent victims.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.