Having read this as an assignment coming into high school, it has been over six years since I've finished Robert Conquest's book on Stalin and the changes he wrought. You may wonder why I review the book now and not 6 years ago. The answer is that I didn't do reviews on amazon then, and have only recently re-encountered Conquest and been reminded of how good I thought his book was. Therefore, while my memory of this book's specifics are hazy, at best, I shall strive to give as good a review as I can.

I remember the prose itself being refreshingly good; the diction and syntax were certainly for no simpleton, yet nor were they turgid.

Given that this book encompasses Stalin's entire life and his nearly three decades of absolute rule in the Soviet Union in under 400 pages, it is obvious that Conquest cannot mention everything that ever transpired in Stalin's life or under his reign. Therefore, his method of giving a relatively brief, but incisive, account of Stalin's early life is quite useful and appropriate for this sort of book of this sort of length.

Furthermore, Conquest gives various personal vignettes of Stalin, and these are judiciously chosen and not randomly inserted, because they all serve to explain a larger, base character trait of Stalin than can be applied more broadly.

Although I said that I don't remember many of the specific elements of the book, the one thing that I remember most is the very end of the book, in which Stalin is lying on his deathbed in 1953. The way Conquest described the scene -- from Stalin's deteriorating condition to the chilling look his daughter remembers him giving to his closest Politburo subordinates (that sharp, piercing gaze that seemed to impugn all those around him as complicit in his sudden and suspicious death) -- was pretty masterful, and didn't come off as too sensationalist.

In retrospect, of course, I would have liked to have learned a great deal more about the terrible, overwhelmingly artificial famine, induced by Stalin's policies, that killed so many millions of Ukrainians and others, or of the very interesting international relations Stalin engaged in with Churchill and Roosevelt. But an extensive account of either of those would have burdened the book and have taken the focus off of Stalin and his policies; after all, the book is titled "Stalin: Breaker of Nations". I also have recourse to read his other books dedicated to detailed accounts of certain of Stalin's policies, such as that of the Great Purges or of the one about the famine.

(Note: I would have liked to have given this book somewhere in between 4 and 5 stars, but amazon does not have a more nuanced grading system.)

This is one of the most historically inaccurate books published on the Cold War, and in specific Stalin. Robert Conquest is the head of the "cold warriors" who simply re-wrote history to fit their propaganda purposes. Conquest actually worked for a division of British Intelligence in the 50's and 60's which created anti-communist propaganda, based on sheer fabrication and lies. This work is no different. It stinks of right wing anti-communist propaganda and fabrication. The original anti-Stalin propaganda first came into the US in the 30's via Hearst, who relied on sources from his good friend Adolf Hitler. For a more objective and less politically motivated look at Stalin I would reccomend "The Soviet Communist Party Reconsidered" by J. Arch Getty, "Life & Terror In Stalin's Russia" Thurston, "Stalin: Man Of History" by Ian Grey, among many others. Please do not take this book seriously!