Young Stalin tells the story of a charismatic, darkly turbulent boy born into poverty, of doubtful parentage, scarred by his upbringing but ...
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Feb 08, 2010
Adam
rated it: 
Even the preface starts off strong with a brilliantly vivid description of Stalin's first bank heist. That particular narrative reads more like an action novel than a biography.
Similarly, the author portrays Soso's (Stalin's) childhood home of Gori, Georgia as a hotbed of mischief, both major and minor. From all out town brawls to school field trips to witness an execution, the town reminds me of an almost cartoonish depiction of a criminal haven. Furthermore, Stalin's NUMEROUS es More...
Similarly, the author portrays Soso's (Stalin's) childhood home of Gori, Georgia as a hotbed of mischief, both major and minor. From all out town brawls to school field trips to witness an execution, the town reminds me of an almost cartoonish depiction of a criminal haven. Furthermore, Stalin's NUMEROUS es More...
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Sep 19, 2008
Jane
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I love biographies. When I was a kid there were a series of uplifitng books for children that I loved with titles like "Young Florence Nightingale." This however is not one of them. In fact is was hard for an old lefty like me to realize just what a vicious bunch of scumbags the Bolsheviks were and how in a lot of ways they were very like Al Quieda are now. They even planned to crash a bi-plane full of explosives into the Winter Palace at one stage.
They were proud to be terroris More...
They were proud to be terroris More...
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Jan 29, 2012
Fahad
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ستالين الشاب زعيماً وشاعراً ولصاً وكاهناً وزير نساء
في عام 2005 م نشر المؤرخ البريطاني سيمون سيباغ مونتيفيوري المتخصص في تاريخ الشرق الأوسط والتاريخ الروسي كتاباً يتناول حياة الطاغية الشهير ستالين بعنوان (ستالين: بلاط القيصر الأحمر)، معتبراً في كتابه هذا ستالين أحد أكثر الشخصيات التي صاغت شكل العالم في القرن العشرين، ولأن الكتاب تناول حياة ستالين منذ الثورة الروسية 1917 م وحتى وفاته 1953 م، وهي السنوات التي عرف من خلالها ستالين، ورسخ فيها صورته الدموية، قام المؤلف بتأليف كتابه الثا More...
في عام 2005 م نشر المؤرخ البريطاني سيمون سيباغ مونتيفيوري المتخصص في تاريخ الشرق الأوسط والتاريخ الروسي كتاباً يتناول حياة الطاغية الشهير ستالين بعنوان (ستالين: بلاط القيصر الأحمر)، معتبراً في كتابه هذا ستالين أحد أكثر الشخصيات التي صاغت شكل العالم في القرن العشرين، ولأن الكتاب تناول حياة ستالين منذ الثورة الروسية 1917 م وحتى وفاته 1953 م، وهي السنوات التي عرف من خلالها ستالين، ورسخ فيها صورته الدموية، قام المؤلف بتأليف كتابه الثا More...
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Oct 02, 2008
Terence
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Oh, the "what ifs" of history - if only Stalin had obeyed his mother's wishes and become a priest (or his father's and become a cobbler). But Simon Montefiore's Young Stalin explores why he didn't.
Young Stalin fills in the period from Stalin's birth in 1878 to the success of the Bolsheviks in 1917, only touched on in Montefiore's earlier biography, The Court of the Red Tsar. The book attempts to explain from whence the brutal megalomaniacal dictator of both Soviet and Weste More...
Young Stalin fills in the period from Stalin's birth in 1878 to the success of the Bolsheviks in 1917, only touched on in Montefiore's earlier biography, The Court of the Red Tsar. The book attempts to explain from whence the brutal megalomaniacal dictator of both Soviet and Weste More...
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Nov 24, 2008
Matt
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I really enjoyed this book. This is Sebag-Montefiore's second bio of Stalin. I've been tempted to read his first Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar but haven't had the time or energy as it's pretty massive. This one is about Stalin's rise to power from Georgian thug to Soviet thug. Stalin was raised in Gori, a violent place even by Georgian standards. This is crazy: "town brawls, wrestling tournaments and schoolboy gang-warfare were the three goreli fighting traditions...at festivals, C
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Jan 02, 2012
Lynette
rated it: 
From the spellbinding prologue to the reflective epilogue, all 322 pages, two things leap from the pages of this biography. The first is the amount of charisma that powered out of this slightly built, intelligent Georgian, and the second is the quality of the research conducted by the author. This is what happens when good quality University academics are allowed the time and the resources to get on with what they do best. For the last decade even the high achievers of the academies have been b
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Aug 09, 2011
Daniel
rated it:
To read Young Stalin is to know the life of Soso, son of crazy Beso, "breaker of nations", the architect of terror in Eastern Europe, our strained ally against Hitler, the self anointed god of the USSR. Young Josef's life was more interesting than I could have imagined, and this is only backed by Simon Sebag Montefiore's suberb narrative. Koba Stalin brought gangster violence to Georgia, Azerbaijan, Russia, and anywhere else he set foot. His reputation caught the attention of Lenin
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May 22, 2009
Meaghan
rated it:
This is the best biography I've read in a long time. I didn't know much about Stalin and had only basic knowledge of Russian history before I started, but Montefiore's book leaves me hungry for more.
The book begins with an excellent "hook," describing a sensational bank robbery Stalin perpetrated in Tiflis, Georgia. It's also very well researched, with lots of endnotes and footnotes (but no so many footnotes as to distract from the text). Even better, it's written in such a More...
The book begins with an excellent "hook," describing a sensational bank robbery Stalin perpetrated in Tiflis, Georgia. It's also very well researched, with lots of endnotes and footnotes (but no so many footnotes as to distract from the text). Even better, it's written in such a More...
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Dec 15, 2010
Alex
rated it:
a fun biography. stalin's young career as a gangster, conspirer, and killer of suspected traitors, along with his training as a priest and a Marxist, as well as his upbringing by abusive drunk father and controlling mother - all helped explain the brutal terror that came later. more than the psychological insights provided here, this is just a great read. Tsarist Russia was such a wild and bizarre place, full of revolutionaries of every stripe, and boundless room for adventures. the young "
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May 11, 2011
Andrew
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Summary:
Young Stalin is a biography about Joseph Stalin, before becoming the widely feared and hated Soviet Dictator. Young Stalin starts with the robbery of the State Bank in Tiflis, Georgia and ends with Stalin's rise to power in Soviet Russia shortly after the Bolshevik revolution. The book goes into great detail of Stalin's childhood and the development of his personality into a brutal, tyrannical dictator. Beso his alcoholic father and Keke his loving but obsessive mother combin More...
Young Stalin is a biography about Joseph Stalin, before becoming the widely feared and hated Soviet Dictator. Young Stalin starts with the robbery of the State Bank in Tiflis, Georgia and ends with Stalin's rise to power in Soviet Russia shortly after the Bolshevik revolution. The book goes into great detail of Stalin's childhood and the development of his personality into a brutal, tyrannical dictator. Beso his alcoholic father and Keke his loving but obsessive mother combin More...
Jan 12, 2012
Adriana
rated it:
This is one of the few biographies I've ever read, and it left me wanting more. Who knew Russian history could be so interesting? (many people, I know, but that particular truth was kept from me until I saw this book in the bargain bin at a book shop) What I liked the most about “Young Stalin” was the attempt to portray the man as a human being, with all the complexity that such a title entails. He had childhood friends, two wives he loved and neglected, a couple of flawed parents and a history
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Nov 21, 2010
Peter
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Well I thought I had read enough Russian history to understand Stalin but clearly I hadn’t. This book cuts through the Stalin clichés and stereotypes we all have in our heads to reveal a much more interesting figure. It’s by no means revisionist, or an apologia for the man, – he remains a ruthless, paranoid mass murder - but you see new sides to the man such as: Stalin the bibliophile, Stalin the lover, Stalin the dashing rebel and bandit. You get a much clearer understanding of a great deal inc
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Mar 05, 2011
Bruce
rated it: 
Great information about Stalin that informs us he was one of history's greatest thugs. Very efficient as an administrator, politcal operative, dictator...and truly evil. I appreciate that while giving Stalin a chance at human understanding, Montefiore let's the facts describe that he was such a "bad buy" that there isn't a possible sympathetic conclusion about Stalin's life. It reads to me like The Gulag Archipelago which assumes the reader has lots of Russian/Soviet Union historic
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Aug 20, 2009
Andrew
rated it:
It is never easy to read about the rise of a tyrant, but such books can enlighten us to the risks every society can run. While Stalin is on of the 20th century's most vicious, we see his type in people like Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong-il.
If one wonders how such people can evolve and find their way to power, this book will be very interesting. It takes us from Stalin's birth to the Russian Revolution.
There may be more details here than the average person might want, but t More...
If one wonders how such people can evolve and find their way to power, this book will be very interesting. It takes us from Stalin's birth to the Russian Revolution.
There may be more details here than the average person might want, but t More...
Sep 26, 2011
Godowd
rated it:
Excellent book and so well researched - just wanted to jump into another one of his books about the older Stalin. An eye opener on how disorganised the revolution really was and how Stalin seemed to be able to fly under the radar and how he bided his time in Siberia. Also interesting to see that some of the sources were books from family members who would not publish whilst he/they were alive - a dictator with no real saving graces yet with such an interesting childhood. A must for any person wi
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Jan 10, 2011
Ken
rated it:
Stalin has been seen as a one dimensional person - mostly a tyrant/dictator. The book offers information never before published from the disintegrating Georgian archives and memoirs or interviews from (the few) survivors. Stalin's personal history was mutated into a huge cult myth during his lifetime and then equally distorted by the west and also by those who denounced him after his death. He was a monster that rose up from questionable and murky origins (we don't even know who his father was.
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Mar 17, 2009
Thomas
rated it:
An excellent biography, really captures turn of the century eastern Europe in a way that makes Stalin's rise to power seem kind of inevitable and completely improbable at the same time. I also liked how about 3/4ths of the footnotes about people are, 'After rising to such and such a level in the USSR Stalin had them and their family shot in the Terror.' So considering how many of the primary sources were murdered I was pretty impressed by how Montefiore managed to find out so much about the ma
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Jan 12, 2010
John
rated it:
Montefiore has given us another fascinating and utterly engaging biography of Stalin, or rather a biographical narrative of his life through the October Revolution (1917).
Montefiore has mined the archives of Russia and former Soviet republics and he has also interviewed surviving acquaintances of Stalin's (One former friend still lives at 109 years!)to present a great deal of material for the first time. His integration of this material as well as his interpretation of it in larger p More...
Montefiore has mined the archives of Russia and former Soviet republics and he has also interviewed surviving acquaintances of Stalin's (One former friend still lives at 109 years!)to present a great deal of material for the first time. His integration of this material as well as his interpretation of it in larger p More...
Aug 09, 2011
Will
rated it:
A brilliantly written account of Stalin's (very eventful) early life. Some of the details of Stalin's passion, nihilistic and gangster-like violence and quasi-religious zeal are terrifying and awe-inspiring both at the same time. Montefiore's wonderful prose really conveys the brutality of this dictator's life, not just from the creation of the Soviet Union in 1917 but from his earliest years in Gori. A fantastic biography of Stalin, as well as a history of Tsarist and Revolutionary Russia.
Jun 14, 2011
Santa
rated it:
It is really good biography from historical point of view.
Only problem with reading was to keep in mind most of names, because they would be repeated in further pages. But for that I could blame only Stalin himself, because it's his reality (though his reality is 6 feet under now).
Apart from confusing names, it was interesting how much his personality saved him from even more troubles. But his leadership comes out already in pages where it's said that he mostly didn't took part in act More...
Only problem with reading was to keep in mind most of names, because they would be repeated in further pages. But for that I could blame only Stalin himself, because it's his reality (though his reality is 6 feet under now).
Apart from confusing names, it was interesting how much his personality saved him from even more troubles. But his leadership comes out already in pages where it's said that he mostly didn't took part in act More...
Jun 02, 2011
Dan
rated it:
I don't know what I find so fascinating about Stalin. I've always viewed with suspicion people who are Hitler enthusiasts, like they are cruel to animals or have hostages tied in their basements; but maybe that's because it feels like the Hitler story has been so drummed in. The Stalin story seems very murky and less well known. Every time I learn something new I want to tell everyone about it. I had no idea Stalin was so involved in the early revolution. I thought he came along later and took c
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Feb 18, 2009
Carol
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this was a wonderfully interesting book. in no way does it use stalin's home life, alcoholic and abusive father, etc. as an excuse for his madness and evil. but it does discuss the various elements that came together, including the powerful influence of lenin, to create the monster. the monster was certainly intelligent and sometimes even had feelings for others, but these experiences were the exceptions that proved the rule.
Jan 26, 2010
Eva
rated it:
This book was very well written. It's a tough historic subject, but Montefiore managed to keep me glued to every page.
It's also disturbing and at times, quite shocking. HOW could a bank robber, killer and man without any empathy become a leader of one of the worlds biggest nations?
This is definitely a book one should read to keep the memory of the horrors in the former Sovjet Union alive, to keep them from happening again.
It's also disturbing and at times, quite shocking. HOW could a bank robber, killer and man without any empathy become a leader of one of the worlds biggest nations?
This is definitely a book one should read to keep the memory of the horrors in the former Sovjet Union alive, to keep them from happening again.
Mar 18, 2009
Steven
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I loved this biography, I haven't read the authors other book on Stalin, "Court of the Red Czar" Which is the account of his life after the revolution. This book is about Josef Djugashvili from his birth up until the 1917 Russian revolution. It's extemely well researched and reads almost like a novel. Just in the way he brings to life Stalin as a young revolutionary. I look forward to reading his other book. Good read.
Sep 14, 2010
Derek
rated it:
This is the author's third book, and second devoted to Stalin. I read this after "Court of the Red Tsar," his earlier book on Stalin. "Young Stalin" details Stalin's early life until the October Revolution. It is a much quicker read than "Red Tsar" and a little more lighthearted and adventurous, but with ominous foot notes referencing many of the people's fate as detailed in "Red Tsar."
Jan 08, 2009
Roger
rated it:
I found this book to be well written and the research the author did was unbelievable. Gives you insights on how one of the 20th Century's worst monsters was "created". Stalin was a terrorist, bank robber and an intellectual in his early years. Tremendous detail on the first half of Stalin's life. A must read for anyone studying the history of the 20th Century.
Sep 21, 2008
Dan
rated it:
Don't ask me why (I hope I'm not searching for role models!) but one of my summer reading projects focused on new histories of psychopathic leaders.
The opening up of the former Soviet archives has provided researchers with an astonishing array of materials - and Simon Montefiore (who also wrote Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar)is among the most adept of them.
This is a remarkable "up close an personal" view of Stalin's youth and rise to power. In a lot of ways i More...
The opening up of the former Soviet archives has provided researchers with an astonishing array of materials - and Simon Montefiore (who also wrote Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar)is among the most adept of them.
This is a remarkable "up close an personal" view of Stalin's youth and rise to power. In a lot of ways i More...
Sep 28, 2009
Tom
rated it:
To paraphrase Dennis Green, this book "is what i thought it was!"
Montefiore has done exactly what he sets as a goal at the outset of the book: He explains how a boy from Georgia became Joseph Stalin, Master of the Soviet Realm and mass-murderer extraordinaire.
The narrative draws on a wealth of interviews and an incomprehensibly thorough combing of archives in a number of countries. The resulting history wanders through the weeds of excessive detail a bit too of More...
Montefiore has done exactly what he sets as a goal at the outset of the book: He explains how a boy from Georgia became Joseph Stalin, Master of the Soviet Realm and mass-murderer extraordinaire.
The narrative draws on a wealth of interviews and an incomprehensibly thorough combing of archives in a number of countries. The resulting history wanders through the weeds of excessive detail a bit too of More...
Jun 02, 2009
Vilray
rated it: 
Overall a good story: gangsters, poets, womanizers, revolutionaries. But in end the main event just sort of mystified me: what was Stalin's appeal? He comes off as a huge prick 100% of the time. Why would anyone follow such an un-charismatic fellow? This book never gave me a feel for his charms...
maybe he didn't have any. I don't get russians.
maybe he didn't have any. I don't get russians.
Jun 19, 2011
Pete
rated it:
I'm impressed by Montefiore's human approach to history. In "Young Stalin," he tells the early history of a nearly reviled character. I was surprised to find Stalin interesting in a romantic sense: I felt like I was reading about Che Guevara. OK, Stalin is more of a thug, but his story is much more compelling and much harder to believe.
