Stalin's Library: A Dictator and His BooksA compelling intellectual biography of Stalin told through his personal library "[A] fascinating new study."--Michael O'Donnell, Wall Street Journal In this engaging life of the twentieth century's most self-consciously learned dictator, Geoffrey Roberts explores the books Stalin read, how he read them, and what they taught him. Stalin firmly believed in the transformative potential of words, and his voracious appetite for reading guided him throughout his years. A biography as well as an intellectual portrait, this book explores all aspects of Stalin's tumultuous life and politics. Stalin, an avid reader from an early age, amassed a surprisingly diverse personal collection of thousands of books, many of which he marked and annotated, revealing his intimate thoughts, feelings, and beliefs. Based on his wide-ranging research in Russian archives, Roberts tells the story of the creation, fragmentation, and resurrection of Stalin's personal library. As a true believer in communist ideology, Stalin was a fanatical idealist who hated his enemies--the bourgeoisie, kulaks, capitalists, imperialists, reactionaries, counter-revolutionaries, traitors--but detested their ideas even more. |
Contents
INTRODUCTION The Kremlin Scholar | 1 |
CHAPTER 1 BLOODY TYRANT AND BOOKWORM | 6 |
CHAPTER 2 THE SEARCH FOR THE STALIN BIOGRAPHERS STONE | 18 |
CHAPTER 3 READING WRITING AND REVOLUTION | 36 |
CHAPTER 4 THE LIFE AND FATE OF A DICTATORS LIBRARY | 66 |
CHAPTER 5 BAH HUMBUG STALINS POMETKI | 97 |
CHAPTER 6 REVERSE ENGINEERING Stalin and Soviet Literature | 171 |
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20th party congress Accessed 4 August archive Barbusse Beria biography Bolshevik Brandenberger Bukharin Cambridge capitalist central committee Cited civil collection commissar communist party comrades copy dacha death documents economic edition enemy fiction film Foreign Languages Publishing Georgian German Groznyi historian Hitler Ibid Ilizarov IMEL intellectual Istorii Ivan the Terrible Kamenev Kotkin Kremlin Languages Publishing House leaders Lenin literary literature London Marr Marxist Medvedev memoirs Mensheviks military Molotov Moscow Nikolai Oprichnina organisation pact party congress party’s patriotic personal library Politburo political pometki Pravda proletarian publication Red Army Revolution revolutionary RGASPI role Russian Civil War Second World Short Course socialism socialist socialist realism Soviet Culture Soviet Union speech Stalin read Stalin wrote Stalin's library Stalin's markings struggle Suvorov Svetlana Tbilisi Terror textbook theory tion translation Trotsky Trotsky's Trotskyists Tsar Tsarist USSR Vipper Vlast volume writings Yale University Yale University Press Zhdanov Zinoviev