An even-handed Stalin bio. While the author makes no effort to disguise the fact that he is not a fan of Communist totalitarian regimes, he also doesn't bend over backwards to insult his subject on every page (as Jung Chang did in her almost ridiculously abrasive biography of Mao). My only quibble is that Conquest tends to assail the reader with unfamiliar names, and it's not always easy to figure out who he's talking about even when you consult the index. (Do you know, for example, who Poskrebyshev was? Probably not, if you're reading a general biography of Stalin. Poskrebyshev's name pops up here and there in the text, and he even appears in a photograph, but Conquest provides virtually no background on the man and his history with Stalin or the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. It's just assumed that you'll figure it out somehow.)

The essential facts are here, and Conquest paints a vivid picture of Stalin's cruel, vengeful, suspicious character. How did he get that way? It's beyond the powers of any biographer to answer such a question. The real mystery is why his peers allowed Stalin to maneuver himself into a position where he could wreak such havoc. Time and again he was given a tremendous amount of latitude, and even Lenin (who, of course, had his own flaws) realized too late that something had been profoundly wrong with Stalin from the beginning. ( )