STALIN: THE COURT OF THE RED TSAR - Weidenfeld & Nicholson

Fifty years after his death, Stalin remains one of the creator of our world. The scale of his crimes has made him, along with Hitler, the very personification of evil. Yet while we know much about Hitler, Stalin and his regime remain mysterious. Now, in this enthralling history of Stalin's imperial court, the fear and betrayal, privilege and debauchery, family life and murderous brutality are brought blazingly to life. Based on a wealth of new materials from Stalin's archives, just recently opened, interviews with witnesses and massive research from Moscow to the Black Sea, this is a sensitive but damming portrait of the Genghis Khan of our epoch. Simon Sebag Montefiore has pulled is off. His book succeeds in giving us an intimate picture of daily life in the Kremlin under Stalin. The arrests and killings are not ignores, indeed Montefiori supplies extra chapters and verses on the process by which the Soviet dictator moved against his enemies real and potential. An abundance of the sources are wholly new. The book rests on an extraordinary feat of digging up letters and memoirs from the archives of members of Stalin's entourage and their families. Montefiore has also traveled around Russia to trace many surviving witnesses to the scenes he describes. The result is a gripping account. Stalin was a vengeful conspirator and a murderous leader. But he was also normal in many ways. He was convivial, solicitous and even flirtatious. When he wanted, he could be quite a charmer. This duality has long been under-appreciated, but it helps to explain why Stalin was admired as well as feared by his associates