Stalin: A Critical Survey Of Bolshevism
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: N/A
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Previous owner
Few figures in modern history have cast as long and dark a shadow as Joseph Stalin, and Boris Souvarine's Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism remains one of the most unflinching and rigorous examinations of the man who transformed the Soviet Union into a totalitarian superstate. Written by a founding member of the French Communist Party who became one of the earliest and most perceptive critics of Stalinism, the work chronicles Stalin's meteoric rise from Georgian obscurity through the brutal machinery of the Bolshevik revolution, detailing with forensic precision how a single ruthless will reshaped the destinies of millions. Souvarine presents a comprehensive political biography that is simultaneously a damning indictment of an ideology corrupted by power, tracing the systematic dismantling of Leninist ideals and the construction of a personality cult built upon terror, purges, and enforced conformity. First published in 1935 — years before the full horror of the Stalinist era became known to the wider world — this work stands as a remarkable act of intellectual courage and prophetic insight. Souvarine's prose is analytical yet passionate, combining the rigour of a scholar with the moral urgency of a dissident, drawing on firsthand knowledge of the Comintern and Soviet inner circles that few Western writers could claim. The result is a biography that transcends its subject, arguing with devastating clarity that totalitarianism is not an accident of history but the inevitable product of unchecked ideological fanaticism — a warning as relevant today as when it was first written.
Author: Boris Souvarine
Format: Hardback
Published: 1940, Angus and Robertson
Genre: Biography
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: N/A
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Markings: Previous owner
Few figures in modern history have cast as long and dark a shadow as Joseph Stalin, and Boris Souvarine's Stalin: A Critical Survey of Bolshevism remains one of the most unflinching and rigorous examinations of the man who transformed the Soviet Union into a totalitarian superstate. Written by a founding member of the French Communist Party who became one of the earliest and most perceptive critics of Stalinism, the work chronicles Stalin's meteoric rise from Georgian obscurity through the brutal machinery of the Bolshevik revolution, detailing with forensic precision how a single ruthless will reshaped the destinies of millions. Souvarine presents a comprehensive political biography that is simultaneously a damning indictment of an ideology corrupted by power, tracing the systematic dismantling of Leninist ideals and the construction of a personality cult built upon terror, purges, and enforced conformity. First published in 1935 — years before the full horror of the Stalinist era became known to the wider world — this work stands as a remarkable act of intellectual courage and prophetic insight. Souvarine's prose is analytical yet passionate, combining the rigour of a scholar with the moral urgency of a dissident, drawing on firsthand knowledge of the Comintern and Soviet inner circles that few Western writers could claim. The result is a biography that transcends its subject, arguing with devastating clarity that totalitarianism is not an accident of history but the inevitable product of unchecked ideological fanaticism — a warning as relevant today as when it was first written.