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5.0étoiles sur 5
Meet the World's Worst Tyrant, Fév 25 2002
Joseph Stalin was worse than Adolf Hitler. He ruled more territory (one-sixth of the globe, plus satellites), killed more people(estimates start at 20 million) and lasted longer (1925-1953). Yet unlike Hitler, he charmed politicians and intellectuals the world over, enjoyed an enthusiastic world press and inspired apologetic histories. Vladimir Putin, upon becoming the ruler of Russia, raised a toast to Stalin. Stalin's native country, Georgia, is restoring his name and monuments.The one man who labored the longest to document Stalin's crimes in the West is Robert Conquest. Decade after decade he turned out volume after volume on the purges, the labor camps, the mass deportations and other horrors of the Stalin regime, all written in a calm, understated tone in defiance of "progressive" politicians and professors. These volumes, together with the quite different works of first-hand witnesses, such as Victor Kravchenko and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, kept the public record
straight and allowed inquiring readers to evaluate the propaganda of the Soviet state and its foreign sympathizers. Curiously, Conquest did not write a biography of Stalin until now. STALIN: BREAKER OF NATIONS is quite unlike his previous works--more relaxed, less academic, not specialized. It truly distills the work of those heavier tomes and enjoys the luxury of not having to argue the case already made. Ideal for the non-specialist, it will inform the specialist as well, since Conquest likes to pick little gems from his treasure-trove of knowledge. One example. A famous propaganda picture of Stalin holding up a smiling little Central Asian girl with black bangs. She hugs his neck as he grasps a big bouquet of flowers that she had just presented him at a state-organized ceremony. Conquest writes: "Stalin as children-lover (he later shot her father)."
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