 Book Reviews
with Robin Osborne
Stalin - The Court of the Red Tsar
By Simon Sebag Montefiore
Weidenfeld & Nicolson $65.00
 To document the private world of the secretive Joseph Stalin, the Georgian-born, seminary-educated son of a cobbler, the author went beyond the 'traditional explanations of Stalin as... 'madman' or 'Satanic genius' and that of his comrades as 'men without biographies', dreary moustachioed sycophants in black-and white photographs.'
This impressive 690-page account of the 'Court of the Red Tsar' features a cast of 'magnates', in the author's term, who found the spoils of power falling into their laps like ripe apples - as long as they remained loyal to the Party leader, the self-titled 'man of steel', Comrade Stalin.
'A man who invents his name, birthday, nationality, education, and his entire past, in order to change history and play the role of leader, is likely to end up in a mental institution,' he writes, 'unless he embraces, by will, luck and skill, the movement and the moment that can overturn the natural order of things.
'Stalin was such a man. The movement was the Bolshevik party; his moment, the decay of the Russian monarchy... It is hard to find a better synthesis between a man and a movement...'
That Stalin's nearly 30 years as the Soviet dictator resulted in the death of millions of citizens is well known. Less publicised are such details as his endless dinner parties, marked by drinking bouts with acolytes like Beria, the sadistic security chief, or the now famous Molotov (of 'cocktail' fame), along with their wives and/or mistresses.
Stalin would roll up pieces of bread and teasingly throw them at his guests to gain attention. Mostly they laughed - it was better than a bullet between the eyes. For their trouble, they received cars, caviar and country houses, but if seen to waiver, they would be eliminated, often after personal torture by Beria.
Film nights were another favourite. Having added to his library with stock taken from the Nazis' Goebbels, Stalin (who loved westerns and gangster films) would host drunken screenings with bumbling translations by an aide who spoke only pidgin English. His guests would make ideological evaluations of the characters.
Through terror, he survived a life of scandals, such as the suicide - or murder? - of his first wife, Nadya, and errors of judgement, such as trusting Hitler not to attack the Soviet Union. The legacy of his errant ruthlessness is still felt in Russia today.
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