Stalin, Volume II

Pulitzer Prize finalist Stephen Kotkin continues his definitive biography of Stalin, from collectivization and the Great Terror through to the coming of the conflict with Hitler’s Germany that is the signal event of modern world history.

When we left Stalin at the end of Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928, it was 1928, and he had finally climbed the mountaintop and achieved dictatorial power of the Soviet empire.

This is the story of the five-year plans, the new factory towns, and the integration of an entire system of penal labor into the larger economy.

Stalin’s paranoia is increasingly one of the most horrible facts of life for his entire country. Stalin’s obsessions drive him to violently purge almost a million people, including military leadership, diplomatic corps, and intelligence apparatus, to say nothing of a generation of artistic talent.

And then came the pact that shocked the world and demoralized leftists everywhere: Stalin’s pact with Hitler in 1939, the carve-up of Poland, and Stalin’s utter inability to see Hitler’s buildup to the invasion of the USSR.

Chapterized/Subchapterized and Titled

Can’t wait for the THIRD instalment! It’s on the horizon now!