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Young Stalin

Author: Simon Sebag Montefiore
By Phoenix
Average Customer Rating:

List Price: ~~£9.99~~
Our Price: £0.85

What other people say about this product

Stranger than fiction, 2009-11-03
You could not make this up. This book is living proof that fact is stranger than fiction. Meticulously researched and beautifully written it is un-put-down-able. A must for anyone with an interest in Russian history or wanting to know how the development of the 20c proceeded as it did.

Stalin the Wonder Boy - With One Mighty Bound He Was Free!, 2009-12-25
If you fancy a good adventure story, written at a galloping pace, then this is for you. If you fancy a serious biography, then it is not.

The chapter headings will give you an idea of what to expect e.g. "Louse Racing, Murder and Madness - Prison Games", "Two Lost Fiancées and a Pregnant Peasant" etc.

Young Stalin is presented as a daring gangster, running crime in the Caucasus, organizing and taking part in bank robberies, hijacking ships, ordering murders, a master of disguise, constantly escaping the Inspector Clouseau-like cops hounding him.

How about this: "Once when police surprised a meeting there, he hid within the wide skirts of a female comrade. At another gathering, surrounded by Cossacks, Stalin pulled on a dress and escaped in drag."

Even when he is captured and sent into exile, Stain manages to escape almost immediately but not before seducing every girl and woman in sight and leaving a trail of illegitimate children.

The author claims to have uncovered "new" material. Maybe he has but the value is questionable. What about this: "On the way to Tomsk, somewhere near Vologda, Stalin encountered Boris Nikolaevsky, the Mensheviks' Baku investigator. Soso (i.e. Stalin) gave nothing away but borrowed Nikolaevsky's treasured blue tea mug, which he then pinched." The Epilogue in which the writer rounds off the lives of many of those mentioned is also a waste of space.

Finally, can I put on record my distaste for the self-indulgent "Acknowledgements" we readers have to put up with nowadays? This writer not only makes gushy references to his family, friends and colleagues but even thanks his personal "trainer" whose website he mentions.

Best ever biography, 2009-12-13
I had taken this book out of the library, but it was returned by my wife in error (off to the gulag with her),after I had read only thirty odd pages.I was so hooked by it I bought a copy, for little more than the library's re-order fee.
The author has uncovered a lot of new sources, many hidden by Stalin himself, and paints a fascinating picture of the man, and his native Georgia, now troubling the Russian federation.At times the story is comedic, and though it is a serious history, it is easily read.It goes a long way to explain the older Stalin's paranoia, and ensuing terrors- perhaps if it was distributed in Russia it may help stop his rehabilitation in the eyes of the people, though I suspect Mr Putin wouldn't be too keen on that.
I would be keen to read any other biography by the same author, such is the way he handles the subject.

Stalin's Rise To Power, 2009-11-29
Young Stalin covers the life of Iosif Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili (Stalin/Soso) from his early years up until 1917, from his Georgian youth to the October Revolution. Simon Sebag Montefiore has brought together untold anecdotes from relatives of the major players of the time, and sifted through vast catalogues of archived information, to create a work of outstanding depth and power.

The only son of a shoe-maker and domestic servant Stalin was born in Gori, Georgia; his father a failed businessman and drunk, his mother a dominating and suffocating matriarch. His mother, a deeply religious woman, didn't think twice about using her charms to make sure young Stalin was accepted into the Tiflis Theological Seminary under scholarship. But it was here that Stalin began to read banned literature, including Marx and eventually the writings of Lenin. Stalin learned how to provoke, inspire, and instill fear in others to great effect at the seminary before he left. Eventually he would organise strikes, mastermind bank robberies, murders, and the pirating of ships as well as publish newspapers and pamphlets. At almost every turn he, and the Bolsheviks, were betrayed and double crossed by trusted members.

Throughout the book the presence of printing presses are vital, always being moved, hidden or stolen from elsewhere in order to have his voice heard. Of course, Stalin was imprisoned and exiled on numerous occasions, but most of the time the authorities didn't seem to know where exactly he was or who he was - given his habit of using multiple aliases. Escape was part of the routine, as were the various affairs with women in whose towns he was exiled. The idea of Stalin as merely a just an opportunist thug is entirely shattered - he was cunning, focussed, callous and resilient.

Young Stalin is masterfully told, an epic tale of one man's Machiavellian rise to power and an insight into how the paranoid terror he would eventually unleash came into being.

Great stuff, 2010-02-11
A marvellously readable account of Stalin's early years, the political and the personal. This is a perfect companion volume to his Court of the Red Tsar. My only complaint, as with the earlier book, is that the main footnotes and references are not included in the paperback edition, only in the hardback edition and online.