This is volume two of a three volume set on Stalin. At the time I have read volume two volume three is not yet in print. The author clearly took great care in researching this book. Many of his statements are backed up by factual documentation including many handwritten notes in blue or red pencil by the man himself, which must only be available in the archives in Russia. The period of time from 1922 until moments before Germany invades Russia in 1941 are a defining period for the Soviet Union, as well as for its de facto ruler the subject of this book. Earlier last year, I read the Gulag Archipelago which obviously tells a parallel story, but from the viewpoint of those on the receiving end of the terror. The contrast with the subject here is stark.

The author does go to great effort as well to not really take sides and merely presents events as they happened. This to me is all the more impressive due to the brutality discussed.

I’ve read biographies of many of the major figures from this period of time, and this is great in comparison because much of what Stalin was doing and even his rationale was hidden from public view. He did not govern by rhetoric, but by the gun, unlike many of this contemporaries.

All that said, he was no super man and knew that he had made errors, but leaned into his ideology as his only true guide.