Revisioning Stalin and Stalinism: Complexities, Contradictions, and Controversies, ed. James Ryan and Susan Grant

Abstract

Adorning the spines of innumerable books, the name ‘Stalin’, Iosif Dzhugashvili’s final and most famous moniker, continues to loom large in the popular imagination of the Western world. Memorialised in monographs littering the shelves of bookstores across the world, Stalin is generally considered to be one of the single most significant individuals of the twentieth century. Battling the common belief that there is little more to learn about this man and his reign as the undisputed leader of the Soviet Union for over two decades, this modest and illuminating volume seeks to ‘revision’ Stalin in the sense that the essays throughout ‘depict “many Stalins”, including the “despot and diplomat” and the “rational bureaucrat and paranoid politician”, as well as some of the wider complexities of the Stalinist political system’ (p. 3). Divided into three broader categories, Stalin as leader, the cult of personality, and Stalinism in the Cold War, this book brings together eleven scholars and their work.