Knopf, 2003, ?$, ISBN 1-4000-4230-5, 785 pgs., hardback

If you’re into bloodletting, this is your kind of biography. Forget the “uncle Joe” Stalin of WWII propaganda. This fellow’s a cold-blooded mass murderer of not just millions, but tens of millions. Atrocities in the Sudan? Playing patty cake compared to Stalin’s “reforms.” Rwandan tribal butchery? Mere child’s play. Hitler’s Holocaust? Amateur.

A cast of characters rotates in and out of Stalin’s life. Mostly Stalin has them executed -- or imprisoned first, then executed. Only a handful survived more than five years around Stalin--Molotov and Beria are the best known of this very selective club. In many ways, the book repeats itself endlessly: introduce new political person, watch him gain more power, and then he’s imprisoned, tortured, and executed.

Stalin’s favorite charge was Trotskyism--named after the fellow who battled Stalin for control of the Communist Party after Lenin died. Evidently, lots of Trotskyites hung around. Worse, Stalin or one of his inner circle would demand that “x” number of people in a given province should be exiled and “x” amount executed. So, local party officials at province level would see to it that not only did “x” occur, but “2x” just to make sure Moscow didn’t accuse them of being soft on Trotskyites. That in turn made local party officials do “4x” and so on down the line. All the time, these numbers are being dutifully reported to Moscow for Stalin’s reading. One official criticized this policy on account that it was decimating the population and thus reducing production. Predictably, this complainer was shot too. End of complaints and make that “8x” of exiled/executed people--all Trotskyites of course. And this is all before WWII.

Montefiore writes a good book, although after awhile you keep reading the same general idea with different names. The WWII years sees fewer mass executions and more leader executions for incompetence (unsurprising considering the Army officer corps was virtually all executed prior to the war). The rise of Zhukov gains attention during the war and he’s almost executed after the war because Stalin sees him as a rival. His life hangs by a thread for quite some time.

It is amazing that these who clawed their way up the hierarchy, seeing just about all their predecessors executed before them, would continue to think they would survive. Some, of course, did, including a couple officials who were arrested, tortured, and then released back into their old jobs. Not one of them ever took a shot at Stalin. Not one of the relatives ever tried to assassinate Stalin. Of course, an ever-growing array of bodyguards protected him.

All in all, Stalin details the evil processes of a bloodthirsty dictator. This fascinating biography warms your intellect even as it puts a chill in your heart.