Stalin — Breaker of Nations by Robert Conquest  (1991) covers the life of Joseph Stalin, from his childhood in Gori to his death at his Nearer dacha (Kuntsevo) near Moscow on March 5, 1953. This book is 346 pages, including bibliographical notes and index. The book is easy to read, well-organized, and ideal for the beginning student of Soviet history and Stalinism.

Young Stalin by Simon Montefiore is a well-researched, well-written, absorbing, and authoritative biography of Joseph Stalin's early years. Following the usual formalities, the book begins with a tantalizing "Prologue," the audacious robbery and bloody bombing at the festive Yerevan Square in the center of the town of Tiflis (now Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia).

It is estimated that between 20 million to 40 million Russians were killed during Josef Stalin’s dictatorship (1924-1953). Stalin not only exterminated purported “enemies of the peoples,” but also liquidated almost the entire slate of communist Bolshevik leaders, who had been his and Vladimir Lenin’s friends.

The “Great Leader,” Stalin, 1879-1953, killed more communists of all nationalities, than all his fascist, Nazi, and Western democratic enemies combined. But for Stalin, “One death is a tragedy; a million is a statistic.”

Old Bolsheviks Cadres

Stalin's Loyal Executioner: People's Commissar Nikolai Ezhov, 1895-1940 by Marc Jansen and Nikita Petrov is a great addition to the story of Soviet communism, a story that is still unfolding, but has not completely been told. This book will remain the authoritative source of the life and times of Nikolai Yezhov, until the Russian archives are once again fully opened to scholars.

"As Lavrenti Beria stood over Joseph Stalin's deathbed in early March 1953, witnesses observed that he could barely contain his pleasure in watching the leader edge toward his final moments of life."

Press Release (Monday) November 14, 2011: Stalin's Mysterious Death

Did Stalin, the Soviet dictator, die a peaceful death in his own bed or was he poisoned by Beria? What is the new medical evidence?

Let us now discuss the more arcane, extreme and revolutionary, right-wing philosophy, namely anarchism. You may ask when and where in recent history have anarchist revolutionaries been successful?  For the answer, we must travel back in time to Spain during the Spanish Civil War (1936-39). It was in Barcelona and surrounding districts that idealist anarchism flourished in the early period of the war as anarchists defended the radical Republican government that the communists also supported against the military insurrection of General Francisco Franco.