Stalin and his hangmen : an authoritative portrait of a tyrant and those who served him
Details
Type of record: Book
Title: Stalin and his hangmen : an authoritative portrait of a tyrant and those who served him
Classmark: Leeds Russian Archive 8111
Creator(s): Rayfield, Donald (1942-)
Related people: Stalin, Joseph, 1878-1953
Publisher: Penguin
Publication city: London
Date(s): 2005
Language: English
Size and medium: xxvi, 528 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates
Persistent link: https://explore.library.leeds.ac.uk/special-collections-explore/438701
Printed items catalogue: https://leeds.primo.exlibrisgroup.com/discovery/fulldisplay?vid=44LEE_INST:VU1&docid=alma991009881889705181
Collection group(s): Leeds Russian Archive
Description
Originally published: London: Viking, 2004.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
"Stalin did not act alone. The mass executions, the mock trials, the betrayals and purges, the jailings and secret torture that ravaged the Soviet Union during the three decades of Stalin's dictatorship, were the result of a tight network of trusted henchmen (and women), spies, psychopaths, and thugs. At the top of this pyramid of terror sat five indispensable hangmen who presided over the various incarnations of Stalin's secret police. Donald Rayfield probes the lives, the minds, the twisted careers, and the unpunished crimes of Stalin's loyal assassins."
"As Rayfield shows, Stalin and his henchmen worked relentlessly to coerce and suborn leading Soviet intellectuals, artists, writers, lawyers, and scientists. Maxim Gorky, Aleksandr Fadeev, Alexei Tolstoi, Isaak Babel, and Osip Mandelstam were all caught in Stalin's web - courted, toyed with, betrayed, and then ruthlessly destroyed. In bringing to light the careers, personalities, relationships, and "accomplishments" of Stalin's key henchmen and their most prominent victims, Rayfield creates a chilling drama, spanning half a century, of the intersection of political fanaticism, personal vulnerability, and blind lust for power."--Jacket.
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