The scholar Khlevniuk provides us with an important biography (2015) that utilizes previously unknown letters, reports, memos, diaries, etc. in describing one of history’s most influential figures.  During the years Stalin ruled the Soviet Union, the country was the largest country in the world by land and the second largest country in the world by population.  (China was the most populous.)  

Stalin’s rule was marked by repression, political purges, terror, destruction of social structures, war, starvation, poverty, famine, economic collapse, and imprisonment.  It is estimated that 800,000 people were ordered executed under Stalin, most were simply shot in the head with no trial.  Another 800,000 died in the process of forced resettlements and deportations.  Around 6 million died of starvation because of Stalin’s agricultural policies in 1932-33.  

After World War II, Stalin was responsible for extending his dictatorship over eastern Europe, China, North Korea, North Viet Nam, and large sections of Africa.  

Khlevniuk gives us a good picture of how Stalin’s mind worked, his early life, his political survival during the Lenin years, the purges of his political partners—often by execution, his mishandling of the economy and the war, and his personal habits.

I would have given the book a 5 except for the lack of editing which left the reader going over previously covered ground on several occasions.  

In our own day of dictators and autocrats, populations who don’t know the lessons of history are prone to select leaders and support leaders who have the same lack of morality that Stalin had.  While Stalin is a picture of extremity, his spirit seems to live on.