Oleg Khlevniuk

I was torn on which biography of Stalin to read. Most tempting was Stephen Kotkin's three-volume masterpiece, which is still awaiting its last volume. I was reluctant to start it without at least having a publication date for the third volume.

Also in the running was Simon Sebag Montefiore's two-volume set which focuses more on Stalin's personal life and suggests viewing him as being more like a mafia don than a standard, if autocratic, political leader. (And having read the present work, I can see where Montefiore is coming from, although my experience with mafia dons is, shall we say, limited.)

Then there this book, Khlevniuk's single-volume bio. Given that I'm unlikely to read two multi-volume Stalin biographies and that Kotkin volume three is only allegedly on the horizon, this seemed like a decent stop-gap. Plus, it has the perk of being by a Russian historian.

Stalin: New Biography of a Dictator didn't disappoint. To my eyes, it's objective, neither castigating (though still assigning blame where the evidence supports it) nor lionizing Stalin. Obviously, if Kotkin is writing three books each of which is longer than this one, then Khlevniuk had to leave a lot out, but I didn't feel like there was anything too jarring missing. He seems to have abridged the dictator's life story judiciously.

I'd definitely recommend this to anyone looking for a bio of Stalin that is recent and written by a respected historian with access to the Soviet archives, but who doesn't want to take on one of the multivolume affairs that otherwise meet those requirements.
… (meer)

A satisfying sketch of the man behind the 'vozhd' while also serving as a concise, effective introduction to Soviet history up to the end of the Stalinist system. The duel narrative format, alternating between the chronological history of Bolshevik/Stalinist USSR and the life of Stalin himself, was refreshing and imbued the book with a fast tempo.

However, I was unimpressed with Khlevniuk's weak dismissal of the claims made by newer generations of Soviet historians who assert that Stalin had developed an offensive grand-strategy centered around invading Europe after Hitler and the western powers had exhausted themselves, but that this plan was interrupted by a pre-emptive German offensive in the summer of '41.

Khlevniuk simply states that, "Convincing evidence that Stalin planned to go on the offensive has yet to surface. There is no serious basis for revising the traditional view that Stalin was fatally indecisive and even befuddled in the face of the growing threat." Khlevniuk's wholesale refusal to at least describe the other side of the debate was disappointing.

From the point that I realized Khlevniuk wouldn't discuss this alternative hypothesis, even if only to disprove it, my interest in the book declined. There IS evidence for this alternative theory of Stalin's grand-strategic intentions, and if there is a reason to disbelief this thesis, Khlevniuk should have given it to us, rather than just hand-waving away even the possibility of a discussion.

A solid, even very good biography of Stalin and introduction to early Soviet history, but for readers familiar with current historiographical debates within the field of Soviet history, the book feels unsatisfying -- even unfair.… (meer)

This book has a similar feel to his "History of the Gulag" being meticulously document based, and without the author particularly trying to interpret or hypothesize the factual evidence that he collects.

Khlevniuk is content to select from the voluminous records in an even handed way and let the documents speak for themselves. This has to be an advantage with his archival work being recognized in other books covering the same subject (eg. Robert Service's "Stalin: A Biography" and Donald Rayfield's "Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him" - both very good).

Stalin appears as a tricky scheming liar who was also thuggish ("We'll knock your teeth in.....", "Go f... your mother", "You're next"), spending weeks reading torture confessions, fabricating evidence, crying victimization, betraying colleagues and showing a complete lack of ethics or humanity.

It was Lenin who brought him into the Bolshevik leadership precisely for these qualities (he wanted an "enforcer") with the theme of the book being the way he went from a ridiculed outsider among a group of international Bolshevik Jewish revolutionaries to their administrator, to ally of one or the other, until after 20 years he became their executioner under absolute dictatorship and the disappearance of every trace of collegiate government.

An interesting aspect of the book is the way that Khlevniuk shows how hardworking Stalin was throughout his "career". If you can actually call him a "manager" he was very "hands on" keeping a meticulous record of information from the earliest days. Lenin's heirs laughed about the Donkey Bureaucrat and Trotsky holidayed in the Crimea while Stalin tapped their telephones and built loyalties to himself after the death of Lenin. The book shows that this tendency only grew over time until under his eventual dictatorship no major decision could be taken without his agreement, usually working through his chairmanship of the Bureau of the Council of People's Commissars.

The author shows that the suggested splits in the Party in the 1930's and theories about independent power groups are not at all supported by the evidence. All Russians from the Politburo downwards clearly lived in fear of Stalin as a matter of life and death, and the most that one could say was that the heads of different ministries would compete with each other for resources (ie. to produce some results).

Khleveniuk interestingly says on P.215, "The Soviet system, inherently unwieldy and inefficient, constantly demanded extraordinary efforts from the heads of its administrative apparatuses. Stalin, therefore, strove to surround himself with workaholics with organizational skills. By the same token , Stalin got rid of those who were not performing because of poor health or who simply failed to exhibit sufficient energy and competence."

Stalin's massive policy failures with regard to forced industrialization and the collectivization of agriculture of the early 1930's were blamed on the old Bolshevik leadership which was liquidated (apart from a few of the highest ranks) in his Great Terror starting in 1937. He murdered or deported every element on the population that could present the slightest opposition to his dictatorship and prepared for war with greatly increased military spending and rediscovered Russian nationalism.

The author makes the interesting point that, "Wartime centralization paradoxically went hand in hand with increased independence in operational matters at all levels. The main criterion for evaluating performance was the attainment of specific results." i.e. When it became a matter of life or death for his dictatorship, efficiency had to be augmented by diffusing central control.… (meer)

Die Reihe "Annals of Communism" publiziert regelmäßig Dokumente aus Partei- oder Staatsarchiven, die von großem Wert für die Historiographie des Kommunismus sind.Khlevniuk legt mit dieser Quellensammlung, die in Zusammenarbeit mit dem Staatsarchiv der Russländischen Föderation (GARF) entstand, eine Dokumentation exemplarischer Quellen der einzelnen Phasen des Straflagersystems zwischen 1929 und 1941 vor. Es empfiehlt sich jedoch zum Beispiel Stettner über die Gulags aus 1996 parallel zu lesen, um die nötigen Hintergrundinformtionen zu erhalten.… (meer)