ON STALIN'S TEAM by Sheila Fitzpatrick ( 9780691145334 ) - Books & Audio Books at Pickabook.co.uk

Item Details

Title:

ON STALIN'S TEAM
THE YEARS OF LIVING DANGEROUSLY IN SOVIET POLITICS

By:

Format:

Hardback

List price:	£27.95
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ISBN 10:

0691145334

ISBN 13:

9780691145334

Publisher:

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS

Pub. date:

15 September, 2015

Pages:

384

Description:

"Stalin was the unchallenged dictator of the Soviet Union for so long that most historians have dismissed the officials surrounding him as mere yes-men and political window dressing. On Stalin's Team overturns this view, revealing that behind Stalin were a group of loyal men who formed a remarkably effective team with him from the late 1920s until his death in 1953. Drawing on extensive original research, Sheila Fitzpatrick provides the first in-depth account of this inner circle and their families, vividly describing how these dedicated comrades-in-arms not only worked closely with Stalin, whom they both feared and admired, but also constituted his social circle. Readers meet the wily security chief Beria, whom the rest of the team quickly had executed following Stalin's death; Stalin's number-two man, Molotov, who continued on the team even after his wife was arrested and exiled; the charismatic Ordzhonikidze, who ran the country's industry with entrepreneurial flair; Andreev, who traveled to provincial purges while listening to Beethoven on a portable gramophone; and Khrushchev, who finally disbanded the team four years after Stalin's death. Among the book's surprising findings is that Stalin almost always worked with the team on important issues, and after his death the team managed a brilliant transition to a reforming collective leadership. Taking readers from the cataclysms of the Great Purges and World War II to the paranoia of Stalin's final years, On Stalin's Team paints an entirely new picture of Stalin within his milieu--one that transforms our understanding of how the Soviet Union was ruled during much of its existence"--

Synopsis:

Stalin was the unchallenged dictator of the Soviet Union for so long that most historians have dismissed the officials surrounding him as mere yes-men and political window dressing. On Stalin's Team overturns this view, revealing that behind Stalin was a group of loyal men who formed a remarkably effective team with him from the late 1920s until his death in 1953. Drawing on extensive original research, Sheila Fitzpatrick provides the first in-depth account of this inner circle and their families. She vividly describes how these dedicated comrades-in-arms not only worked closely with Stalin, but also constituted his social circle. Stalin's team included the wily security chief Beria; Andreev, who traveled to provincial purges while listening to Beethoven on a portable gramophone; and Khrushchev, who finally disbanded the team four years after Stalin's death. Taking readers from the cataclysms of the Great Purges and World War II to the paranoia of Stalin's final years, On Stalin's Team paints an entirely new picture of Stalin within his milieu-one that transforms our understanding of how the Soviet Union was ruled during much of its existence.

Illustrations:

30 halftones.

Publication:

Imprint:

Princeton University Press

Prizes:

Winner of History, ForeWord Reviews' INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards 2015 Joint winner of 2016 Prime Minister's Literary Award for Non-Fiction, Commended for "Choice"'s Outstanding Academic Titles for 2016 2016 Commended for PROSE Award in Government & Politics, Association of American

Returns:

Returnable

Some other items by this author:

"WHITE RUSSIANS, RED PERIL"

"WHITE RUSSIANS, RED PERIL" (HB)

A RESEARCHER'S GUIDE TO SOURCES ON SOVIET SOCIAL HISTORY IN THE 1930'S (HB)

A RESEARCHER'S GUIDE TO SOURCES ON SOVIET SOCIAL HISTORY IN THE 1930S