Stalin

The Court of the Red Tsar

De: Simon Sebag Montefiore

Narrado por: Jonathan Aris

Fifty years after his death, Stalin remains a figure of powerful and dark fascination. The almost unfathomable scale of his crimes - as many as 20 million Soviets died in his purges and infamous Gulag - has given him the lasting distinction as a personification of evil in the 20th century. But though the facts of Stalin’s reign are well known, this remarkable biography reveals a Stalin we have never seen before as it illuminates the vast foundation - human, psychological and physical - that supported and encouraged him, the men and women who did his bidding, lived in fear of him and, more often than not, were betrayed by him.

In a seamless meshing of exhaustive research, brilliant synthesis and narrative élan, Simon Sebag Montefiore chronicles the life and lives of Stalin’s court from the time of his acclamation as “leader” in 1929, five years after Lenin’s death, until his own death in 1953 at the age of 73. Through the lens of personality - Stalin’s as well as those of his most notorious henchmen, Molotov, Beria and Yezhov among them - the author sheds new light on the oligarchy that attempted to create a new world by exterminating the old. He gives us the details of their quotidian and monstrous lives: Stalin’s favorites in music, movies, literature (Hemingway, The Forsyte Saga and The Last of the Mohicans were at the top of his list), food and history (he took Ivan the Terrible as his role model and swore by Lenin’s dictum “a revolution without firing squads is meaningless”). We see him among his courtiers, his informal but deadly game of power played out at dinners and parties at Black Sea villas and in the apartments of the Kremlin. We see the debauchery, paranoia, and cravenness that ruled the lives of Stalin’s inner court, and we see how the dictator played them one against the other in order to hone the awful efficiency of his killing machine.

With stunning attention to detail, Montefiore documents the crimes, small and large, of all the members of Stalin’s court. And he traces the intricate and shifting web of their relationships as the relative warmth of Stalin’s rule in the early 1930s gives way to the Great Terror of the late 1930s, the upheaval of World War II (there has never been as acute an account of Stalin’s meeting at Yalta with Churchill and Roosevelt) and the horrific postwar years when he terrorized his closest associates as unrelentingly as he did the rest of his country.

Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar gives an unprecedented understanding of Stalin’s dictatorship and, as well, a Stalin as human and complicated as he is brutal. It is a galvanizing portrait: razor-sharp, sensitive, and unforgiving.

©2007 Simon Sebag Montefiore (P)2019 Random House Audio

Reseñas de la Crítica

“Terrific... Montefiore’s portrait of Stalin and his circle is a deeply researched and wonderfully readable accomplishment - scholarship as a kind of savage gossip...its sensationalism redeemed by Montefiore’s deep grounding in the facts.” (Lance Murrow, Time)

“Montefiore’s superb book offers a closer look at this personal side of Stalin and his top collaborators. Indeed, no Western writer has got as close. He trawled through newly opened (and often subsequently closed) Soviet archives, which brought some astonishing material to the surface... [A] dark and excellent book.” (Ian Buruma, New York Review of Books)

“Mr. Montefiore draws upon new archival material, unpublished memoirs and interviews with survivors of that era (including many children of Stalin’s associates and underlings) to create a harrowing portrait of life in the dictator’s inner circle. In doing so, he gives us an intimate look at Stalin himself and the culture of sadism, ruthlessness and dread that flourished around him, fueling a murderous regime that would leave tens of millions of people dead.” (Michiko Kakutani, New York Times)

chapter 40?

loved it but I believe the last part of part 2 which is chapter 40 is unavailable. it is listed as 0000 seconds long and skips to next part. what gives?

Excellent narrator !

Narrator is excellent! This books kept my interest from start to finish. Great for history buffs and new comers alike!

Interesting book but not a interesting man.

I have read Lenin's biography and between the two Lenin is a more interesting character. Stalin was just plain evil, but I did enjoy learning the history.

Chilling, a horror story of the Last Tsar.

Loved it, a story of loss, intrigue, betrayal and utter horror. The dry wit of the writing and fantastic delivery by the narrator made this is a chilling late night listen.

An Intimate & Captivating Portrait

Montefiore has written something unique with this book. It's not a biography of Stalin or a history of the era, but a detailed look into the world of Stalin's inner circle. The fascinating interplay between family dynamics, old friendships and rivalries, and the churn of Soviet politics is laid bare through a deep dive into personal letters, recollections, and state documents. I've never read a portrait of Stalin that brought him to life in such vivid color, in all his complexity, looking unflinchingly at both his cynical brutality and his human frailty, loneliness, and vanity. My only criticism is that the narrative can be somewhat convoluted and jump back and forth in time, though this is an understandable problem with any attempt to put real history into a coherent narrative.

Another reviewer mentioned that without familiarity with Soviet history and its main figures, this might be a difficult book to follow. I'd have to agree- the names and references come quickly and without a lot of explanation - but if you are familiar with the people and institutions involved, this book will add nuance and reality to the history you know already.

The narrator Jonathan Aris absolutely nailed the performance. Not only is he reasonably competent at pronouncing Russian names (not something to be taken for granted in history audiobooks), his characterizations of all the different figures, from the sinister, almost Snape-like Beria to the stolid Molotov, and even subtle inflections of Stalin's mood, are by turns hilarious and chilling.

Well worth your time.

Must listen

Everyone who is championing Marxist ideals must experience this audiobook. It’s prof of the evils people are capable of doing. This type of person still exists among us. Don’t think history is an account of how time was, it’s also an account of what will be.

Detailed and Excellent

The book goes deep into detail on even the daily lives of Stalin and those around him, serving to both humanize, but also highlight the monstrous actions of Stalin and his inner circle. The narrator is also excellent, never seeming dry or boring, and even doing voices to differentiate each character.

Shocking historical biography

Very enjoyable. Excellent performance. Reads like a novel. Very accessible. I'd highly recommend it.

Superb biography

Montefiore's biography of Stalin is simply superb! wonderful in its scope and abundance of details on Stalin's life, behavior, ideas and colleagues.

If you want to read a single book about Stalin, this is it.

Detailed history of a closed empire!

The history is solid and fascinating. I absolutely loved the narrator’s ability to speak in different voices to mimic the multitude of characters in the book!