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natep 's review for:
Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar
by Simon Sebag Montefiore
The title describes this book pretty accurately. It gives a history of the interpersonal politics of the upper echelon of the USSR, describing from Stalin's rise after Lenin's death to Stalin's own death. There was of course a little bit on Stalin's early life, but that was presented to set up existing relationships within his court. I honestly had a very hard time getting into this because I couldn't differentie many of the officials. Each at a random point would get a page or two on their early life up to the point where they were really relevant, but I couldn't remember much about their personalities unless they continued with Stalin. Budyonny, Voroshilov, and a couple others I'm forgetting would constantly get confused in my head. The ones who lived past the '30s, as well as the intelligence chiefs, were usually memorable enough though. For the intimate nature of the book, looking largely at personal relationships, I was genuinely surprised and awed that the author managed to speak to so many people who were still alive from this time. It seems that virtually all the magnates' living children spoke to him, as did many side characters still alive. I did not like how within chapters, Montefiore would often drop the year(s) in question, which made it difficult for me to follow who was dead or not when events in the '30s were described. Another complaint I had though was his frequent descriptions of the raging private parties given by magnates throughout the book as "orgies." Though I'm sure there were some of those, I think a better word could have been chosen for most of the cases. Overall, the book describes the nutty world of Soviet politics under Stalin very well, avoiding the trap of social history of the USSR that's best left for another book.
Randomish thoughts
I did not realize the significant presence of the families of Stalin's wives before World War II. Also didn't know that Stalin had an adopted son, Artyom Sergeyev. In addition, the tenuous nature of Stalin's rule until after the war was kind of a surprise to me, as was his rapid personal decline afterwards. His affinity for Georgia and Georgians also was unexpected.
Reading about how the officials handled World War II, particularly the beginning, where they treated armies like toys they had an infinite amount of made me quite angry because there was so much loss not even for any supposed "treasonous" actions but because Stalin and his men thought they were better able to manage a war than the generals. Some of the men even favored cavalry, thinking tanks were obsolete. My god, so many people's lives lost just for these men to play around and blunder through war, not to mention the lives lost for their paranoia and powergrabbing the decade before.
Randomish thoughts
I did not realize the significant presence of the families of Stalin's wives before World War II. Also didn't know that Stalin had an adopted son, Artyom Sergeyev. In addition, the tenuous nature of Stalin's rule until after the war was kind of a surprise to me, as was his rapid personal decline afterwards. His affinity for Georgia and Georgians also was unexpected.
Reading about how the officials handled World War II, particularly the beginning, where they treated armies like toys they had an infinite amount of made me quite angry because there was so much loss not even for any supposed "treasonous" actions but because Stalin and his men thought they were better able to manage a war than the generals. Some of the men even favored cavalry, thinking tanks were obsolete. My god, so many people's lives lost just for these men to play around and blunder through war, not to mention the lives lost for their paranoia and powergrabbing the decade before.