![]() The Guardian’s 2007 review by Peter Conrad of the hardback edition is headed ‘ From Oddball Osip to an Ogre’, which fairly summarises the drift of Montefiore’s assessment. Nine pages of accolades from reviewers and critics precede the table of contents. That date is Young Stalin’s end point, with Stalin having secured the favourable recognition of Lenin among the Bolshevik big cheeses. This is a prodigious work, widely recognised as an outstanding intervention in the historical debate over Stalin’s early life, personality, developing political attitudes and role in the Marxist-Leninist party that organised the Bolshevik revolution, or ‘coup’. But Montefiore has filled in the charge sheet with voluminous detail by an epic plundering of the archives. He is a murderous monster, a devil from a horror tale, for most people who have heard of him. ![]() ![]() ![]() No one expects an approving biography of Joseph Stalin any more than they do the Spanish Inquisition. ![]()
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