Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar

Welcome to Simon Sebag Montefiore's history of Stalin and his inner circle. As a work of history it is based on the most extensive archival research yet, the most recent scholarly research as well as intensive interviews with the survivors of the elite and their families. The result is a fascinating, disturbing work that details the life of Stalin and incidentally of the country that he ran. We read such tense passages such as the Revolution Day parade in 1941 held while the Germans were only fifty miles away. The work is full of interesting facts. The secret policeman Yagoda had a 165 pornographic pipes and cigarette holders while his successor Beria had eleven satin teddy bears (presumably because twelve would be just too much). We get to see a picture of a shirtless Molotov (of all people) playing tennis (of all things). In one of the very few good things one can say about him, Molotov still laid a place at the table for his arrested and imprisoned wife. (They were eventually reunited, unlike millions of other Soviets). Stalin's daughter apparently had a serious crush on Beria's son. Babel, Sholokhov and Yezhov all slept with the same woman (Yezhov's wife). Stalin was shocked at the fall of France: "Couldn't they put up any resistance at all? Now Hitler's going to beat our brains in!" He also described Hiroshima as "super-barbaric."

More to the point Montefiore discusses Stalin's personal life. His wife almost certainly did commit suicide (and was not murdered as others suggested). Montefiore points out that she appeared to have been genuinely manic-depressive. Being married to Stalin obviously didn't help this, but it didn't cause it either. Montefiore leans against the idea that Kirov was murdered on Stalin's order. Like the burning of the Reichstag and the assassination of John F. Kennedy this probably was the act of a single individual. Maxim Gorky's death was probably the result of natural causes. As Montefiore goes on he points out that the purges was not just the result of one's man evil (his colleagues and lower level bureaucrats eagerly participated and made their own lists.) Oddly enough, the doctor's plot, the sinister anti-Semitic "conspiracy" that was apparently supposed to launch Stalin's final purge, had a basis in fact: apparently Zhdanov's doctors had hastened his death by incompetence. We learn more about Beria; on the one hand he was a sadistic torturer, a man who murdered and poisoned with his bare hands, a vile rapist. But on the other hand he was an effective bureaucrat, married to a beautiful woman who was loyal to him to the end of her days, and was surprisingly liberal. And so we read about how Stalin moved from the purges through the war to the cold war and became an absolute dictator. And so we read how no-one was safe: Molotov's wife, Kaganovich's brother, Kalinin's wife, Mikoyan's son, Khruschev's daughter in law and several of Stalin's own-in-laws all faced imprisonment or death.

As the book goes on some weaknesses become clearer. The notes are somewhat awkward and it is not always clear which fact refers to which source. There are certain slips such as when Montefiore writes that Jews did not make up 6% of the party but were a majority of the government (which was what exactly?) At one time Montefiore says that Stalin was "more paranoid and more confident" which does not exactly explain things. More and more there is emphasis on the striking detail and the horrific anecdote, as opposed to sustained analysis. And so we get two pages on how Stalin went about getting a new national anthem, five pages on his first meeting with Churchill, two and a half pages on his daughter's relationship with a much older man. But the battle of Kursk only gets a paragraph, and it is not clear how the Soviet Union survived to stop Hitler. There is little on economic planning, while nationalities policy is only discussed when deportations come up. By the postwar years the narrative is the grim, familiar horrific account of endless, bullying banquets with Stalin's colleagues in deadly fear for their lives, and Soviet history is too much reduced to Stalin's whims (this particularly weakens his discussion of the cold war). But overall this is an important book that tells us much that we didn't know about the man whose victims ran into the eight digits.


Odd Details--Lacking Interpretation--Read With Caution   April 1, 2006
Anonymous (Auburn, CA)
23 out of 29 found this review helpful

Montefiore's Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar fails to interpret events adequately, which can be forgiven in a historical novel but rarely in a biography. Montefiore misunderstands events, which in a history is fatal. The narrative reads as though he creatively padded events (cf. Morris' highly criticized Dutch: A Memoir of Ronald Reagan). Throughout his tome, Montefiore's grudging admiration for Stalin colors his depiction of events. Many, many examples could be cited but two will suffice: the "suicide" of Nadya and The Warsaw Rising in 1944.

On page 101, Montefiore tells readers, "Nadya raised the pistol to her breast and pulled the trigger once.... Her body rolled off the bed onto the floor." This simple statement cavalierly hides the controversy that swirls around Nadya's death. Was it a murder ordered by Stalin or suicide? What little rationale Montefiore offers for suicide elsewhere is tendential, at best. The alternative is never seriously considered. On the night she committed "suicide," "she was making a special effort.... For once, she had indulged in a 'stylish hairdo' instead of her usual severe bun. She playfully placed a scarlet tea rose in her black hair" (p. 3). Setting aside the plodding stylistic issues, one must ask how much "special effort," indulgence, and playfulness is literary license.

Montefiore's treatment of the 1944 Warsaw Rising illustrates his lack of historical judgment. He unquestioningly offers old Soviet propoganda: the Home Army intended to disrupt the alliance among the U.S., Britians, and Soviets and to forestall the Soviet advance (page 475). This ignores the fact the Soviet radio encouraged the uprising and sat at the edge of the city for two months while the Nazis destroyed the city and killed or deported the inhabitants. The NKVD arrested Varsovian insurgents who were sent to the Soviet army with requests for aid or who tried to enter the city. Not only did the Soviets prevent relief from arriving by land, they went so far as to try to shoot down British and American aircraft with munitions and supplies for the insurgents and refused to allow them to land in Soviet controlled territory. The Soviet army under Stalin's orders stood down while the German army flattened Warsaw under Hitler's orders. The city's destruction was more severe than Dresden under British and American bombing. After the Germans retreated with their prisoners, the Soviets triumphantly entered the city and sent the survivors to the Gulags. During the Rising, Soviet radio denied that it was occuring despite the fact that they had observers in the city.

Montefiore also fails to interact with his material. He asserts, "The underground life, always itinerant and dangerous, was the formative experience not only of Stalin but of all his comrades" (page 28). This idea is never developed. Nor is the fact that young Stalin was a bank robber: "On his return [from Stockholm], he lived the life of a Caucasian brigand, raising party funds in bank robberies or 'expropriations': he boasted in old age of these 'heists'..." (page 29). They were obviously important to Stalin, yet this is the only mention of these activities that I can find in the book. I found myself wondering if Montefiore glossed over the robberies because of his regard for Stalin.

Montefiore's failure to evaluate his sources critically coupled with his grudging admiration for Stalin require that readers not accept his depictions or interpretations of events at face value. It is disturbing that this 700 page volume contains blatant and naive factual errors. Editors should have corrected them. If Montefiore narrates the who, what, when, and where (with some errors and bias), he just about ignores why and how. Other sources should be used to supplement this book.

Montefiore's writing style is plodding and tone is ponderous. One can find examples on almost any page. His writing aspires to greatness but is hollow. He falls short of the vibrance and insights of Douglas Southall Freeman, Arnold Toynbee, Walter Isaacson, David McCullough, and others.

I give Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar three stars because Montefiore offers a portrait of Stalin without regard to what formed the man who brutally ruled the Soviet empire, murdered millions of innocent people, and enslaved millions of others. Why did he become an atheist? Why did he place such a low value on human life? Why wasn't he overthrown by his cronies or the military? Despite Montefiore's admiration, Stalin's and his cronies' monstrous acts are undeniable throughout the book. I would only recommend the book to someone who has a background in twentieth century Russian history that allows him/her to separate propoganda from fact and has a depth in Russian historiography to understand the parameters and development of interpretive debate.


Trashy book that should appeal to Hitlerites   June 22, 2004
William Podmore (London United Kingdom)
22 out of 107 found this review helpful

This book rebuts some of the many slanders against Stalin. For example, Montefiore describes Stalin as `a super-intelligent and gifted politician'. He shows who was to blame for the damage to agriculture when he points out that the kulaks "refused to sow their crops, declaring war on the regime." He shows that there is no evidence for the ludicrous assertion that Stalin ordered Kirov's assassination. He refutes the Trotskyist lie that Stalin collapsed after the Nazis invaded, and he applauds Stalin's decision to stay and fight in Moscow in 1941.

Montefiore notes that the Warsaw rising aimed "not to help the Soviet advance but to forestall it." As Marshal Rokossovsky said, "the rising would have made sense only if we were on the point of taking Warsaw. That point had not been reached ..."

Montefiore observes that Khrushchev's memoirs were `designed to blacken Stalin wherever possible', although they are still taken as gospel by the enemies of socialism.

But unfortunately most of the book is just abusive, sensationalist and slanderous gossip, mostly derived from memoirs and interviews. It has more in common with Martin Amis' vapid little book `Koba the dread' than with decent scholarship like Ian Grey's `Stalin: man of history', Ludo Martens' `Another view of Stalin', or Erik van Ree's `The political thought of Joseph Stalin'.

Montefiore writes of the huge workloads carried by Stalin and his colleagues. This belies his glib sub-title: which tsar, or courtier, ever worked 16-hour days for Russia?

Montefiore rubbishes the Soviet Union's unparalleled achievements - the defeat of the pro-fascist fifth column, the unification of the country, industrialisation, the collectivisation of agriculture, the provision of education, health and welfare for all, and the defeat of Nazism. (He writes, "Education was one of the great Bolshevik achievements", and then never says another word about it.)

As the Russians say nowadays, Stalin found the Soviet Union a wreck and left it a superpower, Gorbachev and Yeltsin found it a superpower and left it a wreck.