This is a fairly interesting book on Stalin’s rise to maniacal dictator. Stalin started off as an enforcer who was willing to even rob banks to fund Lenin’s further aims of expropriation. The author, Richardson, gives the impression that the book is the sole product of her interviews with Stalin’s daughter Svetlana Alliluyeva but incorporates many opinions from other relatives, some characters being more informed than others. Svetlana goes to great pains to say that once Stalin's mother died, he lost human compassion and fell victim to paranoia. This wasn't true since the last person Stalin trusted was Hitler even as Hitler invaded the Soviet Union, Stalin refused to believe his own advisors that millions of German troops were massing on his border.
To be honest, you could probably skim the first half of the book, since the more detailed parts of the history and Richardson’s commentary come in the second half of the book. Points of view about Lenin found here, and the few concerning Trotsky were also interesting to me. There are some final remarks from the interviewees about the then current situation of the disintegration of the USSR. An incomplete index, B&W photos. ( )

This gives a fascinating insight into the world of Stalin's family throughout his adult life and the 'long shadow' cast by him on them.
Unfortunately it is, in my opinion, poorly written, as it jumps around, repeats itself a lot and doesn't flow very well.
I think the difficulty is caused by her using huge quotes from different family members. This is great for getting the story straight from the horses mouth, so to speak (although it has of course been translated!), but the way she has embedded the quotes is very much how an academic would in displaying the results of qualitative research and comes across quite disjointed and unnatural at times, and the lack of paraphrasing means that things are often repeated, which got a bit wearying for me after I was about 3/4 of the way through.
Aside from this, I would still recommend this book, even if you have no other knowledge of Stalin, communism or Russian history. ( )