Volume 20, Number 21 & 22 · January 24, 1974
The Monster and his Myths
By Christopher Hill
Stalin as Revolutionary, 1879-1929
by Robert C. Tucker
Norton, 519 pp., $12.95
Stalin: The Man and His Era
by Adam B. Ulam
Viking, 760 pp., $12.95
To write a biography of Stalin must be a daunting task. It is difficult to write impartially about any revolutionary leader. Revolutions generate myths, and any historian is likely to take an attitude, favorable or hostile, to the achievements of the revolution in which his hero participated. In the case of very recent history, it is difficult not to have prejudices of one's own—about Hitler or Mussolini, Roosevelt or Churchill—quite apart from the prejudiced nature of some of the evidence. But these are problems which normally face the historian—sifting the evidence, discounting personal distortions. Most of the evidence is available: all that remains is to check and interpret it.
Review, 3425 words
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