Stalin: Man of History
Grey, Ian
BOOK REVIEWS ment of the dictator is indeed "positive." Grey stresses that Stalin was a humble and moderate man who could nevertheless be extraordinarily decisive and bold in times of crisis. He...
...After intense pressure from the West, the Russians in March 1946 finally decided to do so...
...It is only because Mr...
...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...
...Grey's comparison...
...According to Grey, Western historians who have attempted to "understand and portray' ' Stalin have gone astray for two reasons...
...They have been greatly influenced by Leon Trotsky, who despised Stalin and therefore distorted Stalin's personal traits and policies...
...A child would like to sit on his lap and a dog would sidle up to him...
...Grey has produced a shallow, misleading book...
...He appeared qualified to produce a judicious synthesis of the numerous scholarly studies of Stalin and the Stalinist era...
...Quickly Iran was brought under American domination as complete as the Soviet domination of Romania and Bulgaria...
...Actually, it is much more likely that Stalin had Ezhov shot in order to deflect blame from himself for the terror...
...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...
...But the misdeeds of these people, grave as they were, pale in comparison to Stalin's...
...showed that he was the last man to provoke conflict...
...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...
...Grey also disputes the widely-held view that Stalin was physically unprepossessing...
...Stalin have been mired in "a morass of distortion, prejudice, and obfuscation," he decided to write a book with an original interpretation...
...He had been enormously successful in seizing power and in preventing power "from slipping from his hands, for power was his obsession...
...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...
...Following these self-imposed guidelines, Mr...
...Grey was not content to do that...
...His attempts to revise the interpretations of other scholars amount to little more than embarrassing efforts at originality...
...Around 1904 he had married Ekaterina Svanidze and had had a child...
...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...
...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...
...In addition to calling him fanatical, ruthless, and authoritarian, he refers to Trotsky as malicious, "devious and ignoble...
...The sum and substance of Mr...
...Here is Mr...
...The last shred of doubt about Mr...
...Taken together, his policies had the effect of whipping the nation into a great frenzy of constructive action, which was his purpose...
...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...
...With people of similar background he was friendly, but towards intellectuals and others who patronized him he was aggressive...
...On the contrary, he finds "Marxist dogma totally unacceptable and the outlook of most Marxists abhorrent...
...Grey has thoroughly misconstrued the nature of Communism...
...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...
...There appears to be widespread interest in lively and synthetic accounts of great events and powerful personalities...
...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...
...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...
...Hence, on first glance, the publication of a moderately-sized biography of Stalin, based mainly on secondary sources, deserved welcome...
...Its merits as a work of history are minimal...
...he was warmly received by the Alliluyev family and other friends...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...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...
...But Mr...
...But he insists that in the writing of history it is necessary to abjure what Marc Bloch called the "mania for making judgments...
...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...
...Grey assures us that Stalin was not pleased with this "waste of human material...
...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 describes the show trials of several dozen Old Bolsheviks on a variety of trumped-up charges...
...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...
...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...
...Convinced that earlier studies on...
...In fact, in 1940 the dictator told the aircraft designer A.S...
...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...
...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...
...Anyone faintly familiar with the kind of totalitarian systems the Soviet Union established in its satellites will sense the absurdity of Mr...
...Indeed, Grey suggests that for Russia it may have been a blessing in disguise that Lenin did not live beyond the early 1920s...
...The dictator had "a distinctive, handsome face, strong in character.'' One does not have to be a professional historian to question this last judgment...
...But he was capable of close human relationships...
...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...
...We shot him for that...
...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 1938 he killed many innocent people...
...Far from looking for controversy, Stalin "always...
...But Grey's bete noire is Trotsky, the person he holds most responsible for the vilification of Stalin...
...in 1938 he reported to the Secretary of State that there was "proof...
...Grey's version of what happened then: "The Americans at once stepped in with dollar aid to Iran and sent military and other advisers...
...and their writings are "usually strangled by ethical principles and moral indignation...
...Significantly, Grey also does not point out that Davies was gullible in the extreme...
...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...
...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...
...Davies told his daughter that Stalin's "brown eye is exceedingly kind and gentle...
...But Grey's positive portrayal of Stalin goes well beyond this...
...Grey's and make much greater intellectual demands on the reader...
...Unfortunately, Mr...
...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...
...Above all, he repeatedly denigrates the character and abilities of Stalin's colleagues and rivals...
...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...
...Grey uses various devices to enhance Stalin's stature and minimize his vices and crimes...
...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...
...However, "Stalin had both the strength and the ability and he was ready to shoulder the immense task...
...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...
...He engaged in a "personal vendetta" against the loyal Stalin, a vendetta that was "mischievous rather than constructive...
...And he is quite selective in observing his strictures against making judgments...
...Grey assures us that in his undertaking he was not moved by admiration for Marxism and Communism...
...Yakovlev that "Ezhov [the head of the secret police] was a rat...
...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...
...Poor Stalin, busy preparing for war, simply couldn't control his subordinates...
...Grey is undoubtedly correct in virtually all of his moral and political judgments about Lenin and Trotsky and probably also about Lenin's wife...
...Grey discounts the numerous reports of Stalin's "abrasive behavior" as the recollections of "embittered exiles...
...Never before had a government inflicted so much loss of life on its own people...
...when he discovered their excesses, he dealt severely with them...
...He portrays Lenin as an unscrupulous politician who initiated the terror and established an undemocratic regime in Russia...
...Grey provides other strange evidence to demonstrate that Stalin was not a monster...
...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...
...Indeed, he was recognizably a more normal human being than Lenin...
...Throughout the book Mr...
...He particularly admires the dictator for taking charge of the entire war effort against Nazi Germany and personally leading Russia to victory...
...Although Mr...
...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...
...But the new task, "to build the Soviet state, was beyond his strength and probably his ability...
...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...
Vol. 12 • November 1979 • No. 11
