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Robert Service - Stalin: A Biography
Acclaimed as 'the Stalin biography of our times' by Literary Review's reviewer,
Service's Stalin biography tells the story of how Stalin rose to despotic power in the
Soviet Union following Lenin's death, but not only that: Service also seeks to explain
Stalin's ways through a study of his childhood, his education and his early years in The
Party. As a result, one pictures rather a lonely old man than a feared tyrant by the end
of the biography.
I am inclined to say that all those traits of the biography makes it a good one because,
although set in a situation that seems nearly absurd to the modern reader, Stalin's
choices are explained in such a way that they are graspable to the reader. Let it be said
that Service makes no excuse on Stalin's part - and he certainly does not seek to morally
justify The Great Terror and Stalin's other murderous initiatives - he merely shows the
context of these decisions and thus explains them. In this way, to the reader,
like to those close to him, Stalin never appears insane and, as Service writes: "he had a
paranoiac streak [but] Stalin was not a certifiable psychotic and never behaved in such a
way as to be incapable of carrying out his public duties" (page 603).
But neither was Stalin a 'normal' man by any standard. His intellect was impressive, getting
but the best grades through school, and his artistic abilities were both underlined by the
poetry he wrote as a young man and by the fact that his daughter, Svetlana, would become a
noted author.
Another aspect of the book which should be celebrated is the way in which it serves not only
as a personal biography of Stalin's life, but really as a biography of The Russian Empire
and the Soviet Union of his time. Life and norms are, at least to some extent, described
and interlinked with Stalin's policies and world events. Indeed, the biography is also a very
handy history of the Soviet Union until 1953.
On one occasion, however, am I inclined to suggest that Service's research may have been
faulty or insufficient: the death of Stalin's former secretary and second wife, Nadezhda
Alliluyeva. While Service claims that she "shot herself" while Stalin was at a party
which she had left early, and that "her corpse was found by the morning maid" (page 292),
other reports credibly claim that Stalin was at home, encouraging her or even pulling the
trigger himself. Whatever the truth, the other theories should have been examined and
discarded more thoroughly.
Indeed, I am inclined to claim that Service describes an ordinary man - even if one with
peculiar abilities - in an extraordinary position and he concludes that "such individuals,
when they appeared, have usually displayed congenial 'orderly' features even while carrying
out acts of unspeakable abusiveness." (page 604). This conclusion - the book's second last
sentence - effectively sums up Service's biography.
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Acclaimed as 'the Stalin biography of our times' by Literary Review's reviewer,
Service's Stalin biography tells the story of how Stalin rose to despotic power in the
Soviet Union following Lenin's death, but not only that: Service also seeks to explain
Stalin's ways through a study of his childhood, his education and his early years in The
Party. As a result, one pictures rather a lonely old man than a feared tyrant by the end
of the biography.
I am inclined to say that all those traits of the biography makes it a good one because,
although set in a situation that seems nearly absurd to the modern reader, Stalin's
choices are explained in such a way that they are graspable to the reader. Let it be said
that Service makes no excuse on Stalin's part - and he certainly does not seek to morally
justify The Great Terror and Stalin's other murderous initiatives - he merely shows the
context of these decisions and thus explains them. In this way, to the reader,
like to those close to him, Stalin never appears insane and, as Service writes: "he had a
paranoiac streak [but] Stalin was not a certifiable psychotic and never behaved in such a
way as to be incapable of carrying out his public duties" (page 603).
But neither was Stalin a 'normal' man by any standard. His intellect was impressive, getting
but the best grades through school, and his artistic abilities were both underlined by the
poetry he wrote as a young man and by the fact that his daughter, Svetlana, would become a
noted author.
Another aspect of the book which should be celebrated is the way in which it serves not only
as a personal biography of Stalin's life, but really as a biography of The Russian Empire
and the Soviet Union of his time. Life and norms are, at least to some extent, described
and interlinked with Stalin's policies and world events. Indeed, the biography is also a very
handy history of the Soviet Union until 1953.
On one occasion, however, am I inclined to suggest that Service's research may have been
faulty or insufficient: the death of Stalin's former secretary and second wife, Nadezhda
Alliluyeva. While Service claims that she "shot herself" while Stalin was at a party
which she had left early, and that "her corpse was found by the morning maid" (page 292),
other reports credibly claim that Stalin was at home, encouraging her or even pulling the
trigger himself. Whatever the truth, the other theories should have been examined and
discarded more thoroughly.
Indeed, I am inclined to claim that Service describes an ordinary man - even if one with
peculiar abilities - in an extraordinary position and he concludes that "such individuals,
when they appeared, have usually displayed congenial 'orderly' features even while carrying
out acts of unspeakable abusiveness." (page 604). This conclusion - the book's second last
sentence - effectively sums up Service's biography.
