Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar 

By Simon Sebag Montefiore

848 pages

Paperback published Sept. 13, 2005 by Vintage

I’m just getting into this book, but I can feel that it is going to somehow change my life.

Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar is a study of Joseph Stalin and his closest associates from the late 1920s to his death in 1953.

Dozens of books have been written about Stalin as a Communist ideolog and a political leader. Montefiore’s book looks at his personal life and the lives of those closest to him. It is, as one reviewer put it, “a study of what can happen when a vicious, brutal, but charming-whenever-necessary killer climbs to power in a system that has nothing by way of checks and balances.”

Interesting 

Stalin was intelligent, persuasive, and charismatic. Even Churchill – no fool when it came to Hitler’s intentions – was wowed by Stalin.

After securing a victory over Hitler, his former ally, Stalin directed a policy of mass murder for almost 30 years. He killed anyone he thought opposed him. And he murdered their wives and children, too. The total body count under Stalin’s regime is estimated to be 20 million to 60 million.

Critical Reception 

* “A book that had to be written…. Montefiore’s biography is different from anything in this genre. A superb piece of research and frighteningly lucid.” (The Washington Times)

* “Stalin retained the admiration of some Western democrats right to the end of his life. Of course, they did not know how vile he was, but they should at least have suspected. Thanks to Simon Sebag Montefiore, there is no longer the slightest justification for thinking of Stalin as anything other than a monster.” (The Guardian)

* “Montefiore has so assiduously collected and vividly presented his case that no future biography of Stalin will be able to ignore this intimate portrait.” (The New York Times)

Click here to watch a compelling interview with the author.