Stalin's Russia

by David A. Evans

Josef Stalin's iron fist. "Teach Yourself Stalin's Russia" introduces one of the greatest tyrants of the 20th century--from his rise to power in the 1920s, to the clash with Germany in WW II, to his death in 1953--and offers a look at the devastation he wrought on his own people.

Genres: Russia

256 pages, Paperback

First published April 20, 2005

Reviews

[Brono · Rating 5 out of 5]

A book of 200 pages that would never fit the estimated 34 to 49 million lives that were lost/taken during Stalin's regime. History has been always written with blood and death only for the sake of acquiring an imaginative power and land. The question that remains is, why!?

For a long time during my childhood Siberia was to me a place of white bears and wolfs...maybe a little family here and there. Little I knew that a concentration (not to say extermination) camp had also taken existence along with millions of innocent people who served a lunatic man who'd have you killed so paranoid he became.

Of course Stalin wasn't the only insane one during his time. Together with many others in their suits and titles all those who held important (imaginative) position came to die as everybody else...

To the world we "come" with nothing and we shall "leave" with nothing! Let your mind never be that sick. Forgive but never forget.

[Joe · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great book for a quick overview of the lead up to, and seizing of power of Josef Stalin. I liked how it was neither supportive or indicative of the policies and purges, but seemed to present them as is, letting the reader decide how they wanted to feel about them. That being said, Stalin was a megalomaniacal, naive, and ultimately murderous leader, whose greatest supporters were mere sycophants. His moods and targets for purges seemed to change with the wind, and he was one of the most feared leaders in history, because of that.

[Ned Charles · Rating 3 out of 5]

A quick read, similar to a high school text book. Some good facts and figures but it is a light weight biography of a person who could be Hitler's twin.