Robert Service.
ROBERT SERVICE: JOSEPH STALIN BIOGRAPHY
STALIN: A BIOGRAPHY (2004)
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Joseph Stalin (born 1878) was the leader of the Soviet Union from 1924 until he died in 1953. He was born into a poor ethnic Georgian fmily. He joined the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party and raised funds for Lenin’s Bolshevik movement using criminal methods including protection rackets, kidnappings and robberies. After repeated arrests he was exiled to Siberia. After the Boslheviks seized power in 1917 Stalin joined the governing Politburo.
Robert Service’s authoritative biography of Stalin covers not only his massive political impact as leader of the Soviet Union but also his personal history - his early years in Georgia, his activism, and his relationship with Lenin. It also fully exposes the dark side of his ruthless leadership during the Second World War and beyond.
Stefan Wagstyl, reviewing the book in the Financial Times, wrote: ‘in Service’s eyes, Stalin remains ruthless, cunning and murderous. But a richer and more complex individual emerges—and a more human one. Stalin is shown as lover, husband and father. A man who wrote poetry and loved singing. A serious communist political thinker and the best-read Russian leader since Catherine the Great… [Service] has written a masterly book, with great erudition, style and wit. Although there are still some Soviet-era archives that remain closed, this biography will surely stand the test of time.’
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Robert Service (born 1947) is a British historian, specialising in twentieth century Russian history. He took a degree in Russian and classical Greek at King’s College, Cambridge. After teaching at Essex and Keele Universities, and at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, he joined Oxford University as Professor of Russian History. He has published biographies of Lenin, Stalin, and Trotsky.
