Stalin: Man of History

...Grey clearly believes that these comments should be taken seriously, and by placing them near the end of the chapter on terror in the Soviet Union he again seems to be suggesting that Stalin does not deserve the blame that has been heaped on him for the horrors of the 1930s...

...Grey discounts the numerous reports of Stalin's "abrasive behavior" as the recollections of "embittered exiles...

...He had been enormously successful in seizing power and in preventing power "from slipping from his hands, for power was his obsession...

...With people of similar background he was friendly, but towards intellectuals and others who patronized him he was aggressive...

...Convinced that earlier studies on...

...Throughout the book Mr...

...Never before had a government inflicted so much loss of life on its own people...

...But Mr...

...Davies told his daughter that Stalin's "brown eye is exceedingly kind and gentle...

...Grey also disputes the widely-held view that Stalin was physically unprepossessing...

...But Grey's bete noire is Trotsky, the person he holds most responsible for the vilification of Stalin...

...Anyone faintly familiar with the kind of totalitarian systems the Soviet Union established in its satellites will sense the absurdity of Mr...

...and their writings are "usually strangled by ethical principles and moral indignation...

...Indeed, he was recognizably a more normal human being than Lenin...

...It is difficult to associate his personality and this impression of kindness and gentle simplicity with what has occurred here in connexion with these purges and shootings of the Red Generals and so forth...

...Actually, it is much more likely that Stalin had Ezhov shot in order to deflect blame from himself for the terror...

...On the contrary, he finds "Marxist dogma totally unacceptable and the outlook of most Marxists abhorrent...

...He also describes the show trials of several dozen Old Bolsheviks on a variety of trumped-up charges...

...Of course, excellent books on these subjects do exist, but the general public shies away from them because they tend to be too detailed and too specialized...

...And it is beyond dispute that Stalin himself directed the war against the Russian population and that he was fully informed of the carnage it produced...

...Significantly, Grey also does not point out that Davies was gullible in the extreme...

...He engaged in a "personal vendetta" against the loyal Stalin, a vendetta that was "mischievous rather than constructive...

...Grey has produced a shallow, misleading book...

...Grey has thoroughly misconstrued the nature of Communism...

...Grey's argument is that since Stalin transformed Russia into a great power we should not be squeamish about his methods, which, in any case, were not all that different from those of several of the more activist Tsars...

...He also expresses the hope that "there STALIN: MAN OF HISTORY Ian Grey / Doubleday / $14.95 Abraham Ascher will be more studies of the positive and dynamic aspects of [Stalin's] rule...

...A child would like to sit on his lap and a dog would sidle up to him...

...In the field of contemporary history the case for popular works is especially compelling: Reasoned judgments on many of the most critical issues confronting us today are not possible without familiarity with the history of Communism and fascism, with the careers of Stalin and Hitler, to mention only the most obvious subjects...

...He particularly admires the dictator for taking charge of the entire war effort against Nazi Germany and personally leading Russia to victory...

...Grey's and make much greater intellectual demands on the reader...

...he was warmly received by the Alliluyev family and other friends...

...Hence, on first glance, the publication of a moderately-sized biography of Stalin, based mainly on secondary sources, deserved welcome...

...Grey provides other strange evidence to demonstrate that Stalin was not a monster...

...But the new task, "to build the Soviet state, was beyond his strength and probably his ability...

...Taken together, his policies had the effect of whipping the nation into a great frenzy of constructive action, which was his purpose...

...Unfortunately, Mr...

...Stalin, Grey tells us, knew that there were innocent victims, but he felt that in "a campaign on this scale" there were bound to be such "inevitable sacrifices...

...But the recent success of the revolution in Iran demonstrates most clearly the difference between American "domination" of a foreign country and that of the Soviet Union...

...The forces arrayed against the Shah triumphed quite easily, and not only did American troops not intervene, but most American advisors left the country and military installations were quickly abandoned...

...Yakovlev that "Ezhov [the head of the secret police] was a rat...

...Grey assures us that in his undertaking he was not moved by admiration for Marxism and Communism...

...He appeared qualified to produce a judicious synthesis of the numerous scholarly studies of Stalin and the Stalinist era...

...But he was capable of close human relationships...

...Indeed, Grey suggests that for Russia it may have been a blessing in disguise that Lenin did not live beyond the early 1920s...

...Grey's book deals with so important a subject and because its simple style and relative brevity may appeal to a general audience that a detailed scrutiny of it is justified...

...Stalin have been mired in "a morass of distortion, prejudice, and obfuscation," he decided to write a book with an original interpretation...

...At the conclusion of hostilities the West withdrew its forces, but the Russians, in violation of a prior agreement, refused to pull back their army...

...beyond reasonable doubt to justify the verdict of guilty of treason" in the trials of Bolsheviks who had stood at the pinnacle of power in the Soviet Union for almost two decades...

...Grey on one occasion refers to Stalin as an "inhuman tyrant" and acknowledges that his policies led to the murder of millions of his own citizens, the overall assesswas essentially a decent person...

...During the Second World War, British and American as well as Soviet troops had been dispatched to Iran to prevent the pro-German Shah from allowing Nazi troops into the country...

...Even Soviet historians who were given to fawning over Stalin and to lauding his genius in every sphere of human activity did not accord him preeminence over Lenin...

...His source is Joseph E. Davies, the United States Ambassador to the Soviet Union, who had visited Stalin and was deeply impressed by the dictator's cordiality, simplicity, composure, and wisdom...

...Grey goes to great length to demonstrate that in 1923, when Lenin, weakened by his third stroke, severely criticized Stalin's behavior and called for his removal from some party positions, the founder of Bolshevism was "angry and frustrated by his own impotence...

...Its merits as a work of history are minimal...

...Around 1904 he had married Ekaterina Svanidze and had had a child...

...It is only because Mr...

...However, "Stalin had both the strength and the ability and he was ready to shoulder the immense task...

...For a convincing portrait of the Soviet dictator we must still turn to the biographies of Boris Souvarine, Adam Ulam, and Robert Tucker, which, to be sure, are much longer than Mr...

...But they are also much more reliable, thoughtful, and satisfying...

...Grey uses various devices to enhance Stalin's stature and minimize his vices and crimes...

...Stalin would not be deterred from his course because he was convinced that he had to root out all actual and potential opposition to his policies, which were designed to strengthen the country in preparation for a war he knew to be inevitable...

...But the misdeeds of these people, grave as they were, pale in comparison to Stalin's...

...The author, Ian Grey, is not an academic historian, but he knows Russian and has written eight other books on Russia, ranging from a general history to works on Ivan the Terrible and Catherine the Great...

...Above all, he repeatedly denigrates the character and abilities of Stalin's colleagues and rivals...

...The last shred of doubt about Mr...

...Following these self-imposed guidelines, Mr...

...Far from looking for controversy, Stalin "always...

...Grey's ideological preconceptions and biases is dissipated toward the end of the book, on page 437, where he discusses the conflict that erupted in 1945 between the West and the Soviet Union over Iran...

...His attempts to revise the interpretations of other scholars amount to little more than embarrassing efforts at originality...

...But he insists that in the writing of history it is necessary to abjure what Marc Bloch called the "mania for making judgments...

...when he discovered their excesses, he dealt severely with them...

...Interestingly, Grey is so carried away by animus against Trotsky that he lapses into the kind of judgmental statements he considers inappropriate for a historian...

...Grey points out that "between 7 and 14 million" people lived "in detention under the NKVD [the secret police] under harsh conditions" and that a large proportion of the country's political and military leadership was exterminated...

...We shot him for that...

...in 1938 he reported to the Secretary of State that there was "proof...

...After intense pressure from the West, the Russians in March 1946 finally decided to do so...

...I have touched on only a few of the more egregious weaknesses and distortions of the book, but it should be clear that Grey's Stalin simply does not ring true...

...And he is quite selective in observing his strictures against making judgments...

...According to Grey, Western historians who have attempted to "understand and portray' ' Stalin have gone astray for two reasons...

...Here is Mr...

...The sum and substance of Mr...

...Grey is undoubtedly correct in virtually all of his moral and political judgments about Lenin and Trotsky and probably also about Lenin's wife...

...In addition to calling him fanatical, ruthless, and authoritarian, he refers to Trotsky as malicious, "devious and ignoble...

...They have been greatly influenced by Leon Trotsky, who despised Stalin and therefore distorted Stalin's personal traits and policies...

...Similarly, he charges Lenin's wife with vindictive-ness for turning over to a French Communist some extracts from Lenin's "Testament," in which Stalin was criticized...

...Grey's comparison...

...Grey's version of what happened then: "The Americans at once stepped in with dollar aid to Iran and sent military and other advisers...

...Grey was not content to do that...

...showed that he was the last man to provoke conflict...

...Rejecting the standard assessment of Stalin as intellectually unimpressive, personally aloof, and mean to many of his colleagues, Grey tries to persuade us that he possessed a " clear and trenchant style," had achieved recognition as a Marxist theorist in party circles as early as 1913, and It is a pity that serious scholars rarely write popular history or popular biographies...

...in 1938 he killed many innocent people...

...In truth, he was an able and sensitive individual, deeply conscious of his humble background and other disadvantages, who had always felt a driving need to assert himself...

...Quickly Iran was brought under American domination as complete as the Soviet domination of Romania and Bulgaria...

...In fact, in 1940 the dictator told the aircraft designer A.S...

...In the late 1920s and 1930s the latter's policies of forced collectivization of the peasants and arbitrary arrest and execution of innocent citizens amounted to a veritable war of the government against the nation...

...In a footnote tucked away on page 492 Grey does concede that Stalin's policies "can be criticized and condemned," but then he argues that certain extenuating circumstances must be taken into account: "Stalin's policies must be considered, however, against the Russian background, the mood and conditions of the people, the position of the party, and, above all, Stalin's outlook and understanding of the situation...

...One need merely recall how the Soviet Union crushed those who attempted to democratize Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968 to realize that Mr...

...Poor Stalin, busy preparing for war, simply couldn't control his subordinates...

...There appears to be widespread interest in lively and synthetic accounts of great events and powerful personalities...

...But Grey's positive portrayal of Stalin goes well beyond this...

...Grey, who discusses these policies and their consequences in some detail, slants the account in such a way as to give the impression that Stalin's conduct was not savage and grotesque but, ultimately, quite rational...

...The dictator had "a distinctive, handsome face, strong in character.'' One does not have to be a professional historian to question this last judgment...

...Although Mr...

...He portrays Lenin as an unscrupulous politician who initiated the terror and established an undemocratic regime in Russia...

...Grey assures us that Stalin was not pleased with this "waste of human material...