Stalin and His Hangmen

Stalin and His Hangmen
Author :
Publisher : Random House
Total Pages : 592
Release :
ISBN-10 : 9780307431837
ISBN-13 : 0307431835
Rating : 4/5 (37 Downloads)

Book Synopsis Stalin and His Hangmen by : Donald Rayfield

Download or read book Stalin and His Hangmen written by Donald Rayfield and published by Random House. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Stalin did not act alone. The mass executions, the mock trials, the betrayals and purges, the jailings and secret torture that ravaged the Soviet Union during the three decades of Stalin’s dictatorship, were the result of a tight network of trusted henchmen (and women), spies, psychopaths, and thugs. At the top of this pyramid of terror sat five indispensable hangmen who presided over the various incarnations of Stalin’s secret police. Now, in his harrowing new book, Donald Rayfield probes the lives, the minds, the twisted careers, and the unpunished crimes of Stalin’s loyal assassins. Founded by Feliks Dzierzynski, the Cheka–the Extraordinary Commission–came to life in the first years of the Russian Revolution. Spreading fear in a time of chaos, the Cheka proved a perfect instrument for Stalin’s ruthless consolidation of power. But brutal as it was, the Cheka under Dzierzynski was amateurish compared to the well-oiled killing machines that succeeded it. Genrikh Iagoda’s OGPU specialized in political assassination, propaganda, and the manipulation of foreign intellectuals. Later, the NKVD recruited a new generation of torturers. Starting in 1938, terror mastermind Lavrenti Beria brought violent repression to a new height of ingenuity and sadism. As Rayfield shows, Stalin and his henchmen worked relentlessly to coerce and suborn leading Soviet intellectuals, artists, writers, lawyers, and scientists. Maxim Gorky, Aleksandr Fadeev, Alexei Tolstoi, Isaak Babel, and Osip Mandelstam were all caught in Stalin’s web–courted, toyed with, betrayed, and then ruthlessly destroyed. In bringing to light the careers, personalities, relationships, and “accomplishments” of Stalin’s key henchmen and their most prominent victims, Rayfield creates a chilling drama of the intersection of political fanaticism, personal vulnerability, and blind lust for power spanning half a century. Though Beria lost his power–and his life–after Stalin’s death in 1953, the fundamental methods of the hangmen maintained their grip into the second half of the twentieth century. Indeed, Rayfield argues, the tradition of terror, far from disappearing, has emerged with renewed vitality under Vladimir Putin. Written with grace, passion, and a dazzling command of the intricacies of Soviet politics and society, Stalin and the Hangmen is a devastating indictment of the individuals and ideology that kept Stalin in power.


Stalin and His Hangmen Related Books

Stalin and His Hangmen
Language: en
Pages: 592
Authors: Donald Rayfield
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2007-12-18 - Publisher: Random House

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Stalin did not act alone. The mass executions, the mock trials, the betrayals and purges, the jailings and secret torture that ravaged the Soviet Union during t
Master of the House
Language: en
Pages: 344
Authors: Oleg V. Khlevniuk
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2008-12-30 - Publisher: Yale University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Based on meticulous research in previously unavailable documents in the Soviet archives, this compelling book illuminates the secret inner mechanisms of power i
Stalin's Library
Language: en
Pages: 277
Authors: Geoffrey Roberts
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2022-01-01 - Publisher: Yale University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

A compelling intellectual biography of Stalin told through his personal library "[A] fascinating new study."--Michael O'Donnell, Wall Street Journal In this eng
Yezhov
Language: en
Pages: 316
Authors: John Arch Getty
Categories: Biography & Autobiography
Type: BOOK - Published: 2008-01-01 - Publisher: Yale University Press

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The definitive study of Nikolai Yezhov's rise to become the chief of Stalin's secret police--and the dictator's "iron fist"--during the Great Terror Head of the
Stalin's Secret Police
Language: en
Pages: 348
Authors: Rupert Butler
Categories: History
Type: BOOK - Published: 2015-09-15 - Publisher: Amber Books Ltd

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Illustrated with more than 100 black-and-white photographs and expertly written, Stalin’s Secret Police is a chilling history of the Soviet secret police from