| Title | : | On Stalin's Team: The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics |
| Author | : | |
| Rating | : | |
| ISBN | : | 0691145334 |
| ISBN-10 | : | 9780691145334 |
| Language | : | English |
| Format Type | : | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages | : | 384 |
| Publication | : | First published September 15, 2015 |
Stalin was the unchallenged dictator of the Soviet Union for so long that most historians have dismissed the officials surrounding him as mere yes-men and political window dressing. On Stalin's Team overturns this view, revealing that behind Stalin was a group of loyal men who formed a remarkably effective team with him from the late 1920s until his death in 1953. Drawing on extensive original research, Sheila Fitzpatrick provides the first in-depth account of this inner circle and their families. She vividly describes how these dedicated comrades-in-arms not only worked closely with Stalin, but also constituted his social circle. Stalin's team included the wily security chief Beria; Andreev, who traveled to provincial purges while listening to Beethoven on a portable gramophone; and Khrushchev, who finally disbanded the team four years after Stalin's death. Taking readers from the cataclysms of the Great Purges and World War II to the paranoia of Stalin's final years, On Stalin's Team paints an entirely new picture of Stalin within his milieu―one that transforms our understanding of how the Soviet Union was ruled during much of its existence.
On Stalin's Team: The Years of Living Dangerously in Soviet Politics Reviews
-
Εξαιρετικό ιστορικό βιβλίο, διαβάζεται πολύ εύκολα. Βασισμένο στα αρχεία που άνοιξαν, δίνει μια πολύ καλή εικόνα του Στάλιν και των άμεσων συνεργατών του στο Πολιτικό γραφείο, το οποίο μέχρι τις μεγάλες εκκαθαρίσεις είχε ουσιαστικό λόγο, αν και όσο περνούσαν τα χρόνια και εδραιωνόταν η δύναμη και η φήμη του Στάλιν, ο φόβος του αντιλόγου ήταν μεγάλος.
Ο Στάλιν αποτέλεσε μεγάλη προσωπικότητα, που κατάφερε να κρατήσει αυτό που κέρδισε η επανάσταση και ίσως τελικά λόγω του χαρακτήρα του, να επιβάλλεται, έστω και με τα χειρότερα μέσα, ήταν η καλύτερη επιλογή στη διαδοχή του Λένιν, ο οποίος αν και αναγνώριζε τα ελαττώματά του τον προέκρινε από τους υπόλοιπους. Είχε την ικανότητα να παραμένει ήρεμος όταν δεχόταν επιθέσεις και σε δεύτερο χρόνο να διαρρέει κάτι για τον υποψήφιο εχθρό του, έως ότου να αποδυναμώνεται εντός της ομάδας και τελικά να γίνεται εύκολος στόχος. Η μόνη περίπτωση που τον εξόργιζε ήταν ο Τρότσκι.
Στα μέσα της δεκαετίας στις στημένες δίκες, τα πράγματα χειροτέρεψαν και ο Στάλιν έγινε ο φόβος όλων, ο οποίος γινόταν όλο και πιο καχύποπτος ώσπου στα τελευταία του χρόνια δεν εμπιστευόταν πια κανέναν και έχοντας στείλει στην εξορία ακόμα και τους περισσότερους συγγενείς του, τον είχε κυριεύσει η μοναξιά. Σ αυτά τα τελευταια χρόνια έχασε τη δύναμης του στο πολιτικό γραφείο, όπου τα υπόλοιπα μέλη στηρίζονταν μεταξύ τους.
Είναι εντυπωσιακό από τη μία και τελείως κυνικό από την άλλη, όταν κατά τη διάρκεια του πολέμου ο γιος του συνελήφθη από τους Γερμανούς και προτάθηκε για ανταλλαγή, την αρνήθηκε λέγοντας ότι πολλά παιδιά είχαν ανάλογη τύχη.
Αναρωτήθηκα αρκετές φορές διαβάζοντας, τις ομοιότητες με τον Χίτλερ, αλλά και τις διαφορές. Δεν έχω καταλήξει ακόμα, αλλά ήταν τροφή για περαιτέρω σκέψη. Πάντως υπήρξαν θέματα αντισημιτισμού και στη Ρωσία μετά το τέλος,του πολέμου. Αναρωτιέμαι επίσης το μέγεθος της ευθύνης στη συμμετοχή αυτών των κτηνωδιών των υπόλοιπων της ομάδας, όπως του «υπαρχηγού» Μόλοτοφ, του Μπέρια (του οποίου ο φάκελος είναι από τους λίγους που δεν έχουν ανοίξει ακόμα) κτλ.
Ο Στάλιν κατάφερε να περάσει στην κοινή γνώμη τον αντιδιανοουμενισμό. Γι αυτό και δεν ήθελε τους πιο μορφωμένους Τρότσκι, Μπουχάριν κτλ. Παρόλα αυτά αναφέρεται ότι διάβαζε 500 σελίδες τη μέρα. -
Well worth reading. A nice corrective to all the "Stalin, uniquely evil, one-man killing machine" books, but she does go too far in the opposite direction. She presents the team without any moralizing commentary at all. It is not like she doesnt tell you about the horrors; she does, but the tone is completely objective and non-judgemental. Perhaps too non-judgmental. As she notes, 688, 000 shot in the 1037-38 purge alone (just shot, not died in freezing starving camps) by the party's own careful record keeping, yet reported as just another mundane statistic in her book, almost off-handedly. Similarly, all the family members shot and killed just because they were in the wrong family, mentioned almost too casually.
But still, absolutely worth a read.
New insight for me: how hard-working, independently active and important for the regime, people like Molotov and Mikoyan were. Not just cogs or thugs, but real high level managers of a huge world-changing effort.
Reinforced: the fact that it WAS a world-historical event. Just not of the good kind. -
A very interesting history of the politburo of the USSR, mostly during Stalin's reign. Written by a professional historian who aims, and succeeds, to make the text readable also for non-professionals. It contains many surprises, at least for me, in that people were often different from how they got to be depicted conventionally. There's also plenty of information on Stalin's character, his loneliness, his tactics when dealing with adversaries etc. It does however confirm that Stalin was a ruthless mass murderer, e.g. during the collectivization of agriculture, the purges of the 1930's, the forced migration of whole national populations that were suspected of having sympathized with the Nazi's. In the early 1950's it seemed Stalin became completely paranoid and that great purges were on his mind again, this time threatening to kill some of his most loyal collaborators, such as Molotov. He died, of a heart attack, before the plan could be executed though. The book then continues, showing that the collective leadership exercised by the politburo did a much better job than Stalin, including the denouncing of the latter's many crimes. A register with the names and short description of the recurring characters would have been useful.
-
Historian Shelia Fitzpatrick’s thesis is straightforward, and in some ways, obvious. However monstrous Stalin’s tyranny, he didn’t operate like a version of Ming the Merciless, issuing edicts from his Kremlin ice palace. Instead, Stalin worked for decades with a varied yet remarkably stable coterie of advisers and party officials who remained personally loyal throughout his reign. Moreover, this “team” managed to sustain its collective leadership of the Soviet Union after Stalin’s death in 1953 until Nikita Khrushchev took full power in 1957.
Fitzpatrick offers an important and often overlooked perspective on how Stalin wielded such unprecedented, brutal, and often erratic power for almost three decades, from the 1920s to his death. He did so by manipulating his inner circle, alternately praising and criticizing them, always ensuring that their chief loyalty was to him, and cutting down anyone whose stature seemed, even momentarily, to rival his own. His advisers may have held great authority in such areas as security, agriculture, and industry — even party affairs — but ultimately, they were all dependent on Stalin’s good will.
Who were the chief members of this team who, falling in and out of favor, largely survived the Stalin years — unlike millions of other victims, from party apparatchiks to peasants— who suffered death or the gulag? Vyacheslav Molotov, Anastas Mikoyan, Georgy Malenkov, Laventy Beria, Lazar Kaganovich, Grigory Ordzhonikidze, Klim Voroshilov, and later, Nikita Khrushchev. This is only a partial list of figures that cycled in and out of the leadership in these years. On Stalin’s Team, based on extensive archival research of Soviet Communist Party records, may be nirvana for Kremlinologists, but rather daunting for the general reader for whom many of the names are relatively unfamiliar.
The intense focus on the minutia of inter-group relations effectively conveys the claustrophobic quality of working within Stalin’s inner circle. But it also smothers the larger narrative of what Stalin’s policies meant for the country, and the world, when carried out by such zealous subordinates, each trying to outdo the other in loyalty to their leader. True, figures like Molotov and Beria had more latitude to question and even dissent from some of Stalin’s proposals. On the other hand, they could only preserve themselves, and their careers, by implementing such major policies as the enforced collectivization of agriculture, which led to a horrific famine in Ukraine, and signing off on the torture and execution that marked the Great Terror of the late 1930s.
The highpoint for the collective leadership may have been World War II, when Stalin needed every bit of political support after misjudging Hitler and presiding over an unprecedented military disaster in 1941, until the German advance stalled before Moscow and the turning-point victory at Stalingrad in 1942. This also would have been the only moment when the team could have united and collectively ousted Stalin. Their combination of loyalty and fear, however, was too great and the moment passed.
The coming of the Cold War and Stalin’s increasing paranoia crushed any hopes of a genuine political thaw in the late 1940s. For the first time, moreover, Stalin’s differences with his team members threatened their careers and even their lives. The most notorious example was the arrest of Molotov’s Jewish wife, who was imprisoned and exiled until Stalin’s death.
Fitzgerald portrays a diminished but dangerous Stalin in the postwar years, someone who hated to be alone, yet proceeded to arrest and interrogate members of his own extended family. As a result, Stalin became even more dependent on his inner political circle to accompany him in drunken late-night dinners while they still had responsibilities running party and government affairs. It comes as no surprise that chronic fatigue and ill health plagued them all.
Stalin’s paranoia peaked at the time of the concocted Doctor’s Plot in 1952, but fortunately he died before his plans could be implemented. The team executed Beria, the secret police chief whom the others feared most, but Fitzgerald argues that the collective leadership proved its strength and resilience by continuing to operate effectively until Khrushchev’s Anti-Party campaign ousted his rivals in the late 1950s. -
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016... -
Wonderfully written, the personalities come to life as never before and give a human dimension to the interaction of Stalin with his "team". This advances our understanding of Stalin's method of running the USSR. The book makes the case that the "team" had a direct impact in advancing the party line, even if Stalin had the most important role in deciding changes in policy. As a result, there was no crisis when Stalin died. The team just kept doing their jobs.
-
I'm no historian, just someone slightly interested in history. I say this, because I'm far away from the skirmishes among different schools. All I can say is that I found this book very interesting. I remember having decided that it could be a good one reading an interview with a historian who was reading it. He didn't say whether it was good or not, but my guess was that it deserved to be read. Indeed, it seems to have an innovative approach in that it tries to reflect the relations inside Stalin's team, not based on official policy documents, but on what they were telling to others and their observable behaviour. In this sense, it is very enlightening and departs clearly from the standard interpretation of a lonely mad dictator. There's for many years a real team work, directed by Stalin, but still with lots of consultations, especially during certain periods. What you won't see is bitter attacks on the malevolence, evil of Stalin. He comes out as a person able to kill hundreds of thousands, but the book keeps a sense of impartiality which is appreciated. In this sense, not being a pamphlet, it has even more impact, because you can feel how the team -well, those who could- survived years of terror and even were able to extend it a bit, for instance, by suppressing Beria, a helpful scapegoat.
I think I made a good choice when I decided to read it. -
Está bastante bien. Me ha gustado aunque al final se me ha hecho un poco pesado y al final te acabas perdiendo con la cantidad de personajes. La hipótesis que se desarrolla, bastante convincentemente, en el libro es que lejos de ser la dictadura unipersonal de Stalin, a partir de los años 20 el gobierno de la Unión Soviética era más similar a un liderazgo colectivo en el que Stalin era el primus inter-pares, de ahí el título "El Equipo de Stalin". El libro cuenta básicamente las relaciones entre los miembros del equipo desde 1920 a 1960, pasando por la eliminación de las facciones en los 20, la colectivización y las Grandes Purgas en los 30 y la guerra en los 40. El capítulo más impresionante es de las Grandes Purgas. Sin ser la autora una antiestalinista furibunda, (de hecho en las reseñas del libro se la acusa demasiado de humanizar a Stalin y cía.), es bastante impresionante el alcance de las mismas, la crueldad, la ida de olla general que supuso.
100% recomendado si os mola la sovietología y las intrigas de poder. -
This was a joyful read. A person interested in the Soviet history will find very interesting anecdotes and stories in the text. In this regard, it is definitely worth reading. But unlike what writer suggests in the introduction, the book does not really say anything new or challenging for the existing knowledge (paradigm) on Stalin's modus operandi.
-
Another in Fitzpatrick's ongoing attempt to rehabilitate Stalin and mitigate his disastrous forced collectivization and various purges.
This one is an amoral and bloodless description of the role she thinks Stalin's "team" played during his reign but she doesn't really prove her thesis that there was a collective leadership, with Stalin first among equals, running the USSR from the late 20s through Stalin's death in 1953.
The author does do a good job of tracking who was in and out of favor among the henchmen at various times during Stalin's reign. She also details how Mikoyan was apparently the only "team" member who had a shred of conscience and how Molotov acted more like a Socialist robot rather than a human being. But she either glosses over the bloodshed, i. e. the Leningrad Affair didn't just remove Kuznetsov and Voznesensky, many others were executed and thousands were arrested, or repeats the Soviet line that Kirov was assassinated by a lone gunman and that Ordzhonikidze committed suicide because of his depression.
If you want a better picture of how Stalin ruled USSR I would recommend Simon Sebag Montefiore's Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar; Donald Rayfield's Stalin and His Hangmen: The Tyrant and Those Who Killed for Him; and all of Robert Conquest's work. -
An excellent book about an overlooked area of Soviet history. No matter how cutthroat you think your management team is...
-
It is easy to imagine Stalin as the absolute leader of the Soviet Union, who ruled and made decision single-handedly, with people around him as merely yes-men. However the truth is not that simple. As this book explains, Stalin, in fact, acted as a captain of a team (or a gang, if you wish), and only moved into erratic behaviours late in his life.
His team was filled with colourful set of characters, first with people such as Molotov (the greyish, hard-working, "stone-bottomed), Kaganovich (the explosive, actually the last one to die of the team), Kirov (the affable, who met an untimely death rather suspiciously), Khruschev (the vulgar, peasant-like, rather unassuming kind of person, who surprisingly took the leadership baton), and Mikoyan (called The Great Survivor, for he was the last one from the team who went out from Soviet political scene). Later on, many new faces also joined, like Malenkov (the quintessential team player) and Beria (the smart, although power hungry with rather radical, liberal reformist tendencies shown only after Stalin was finally dead).
Although Stalin himself had said that the team would be on the lost after he died, suprisingly, the team kept on playing, even without its captain, plotting and manuveuring for few years and only died out when Khruschev denounced Molotov, Malenkov and Kaganovich as part of "anti-party faction" and banished them. The author itself stated that the team's survivability was the greatest plot twist.
In the end, the book is a great reference if you wish to know more about the lives of Stalin and people who interacted intimately with him, and how the team work together to fight threats, both from inside and outside, and also to dispel the myth about Stalin as an absolute ruler. -
This book revolves around "Stalin's team" or the semi-formal team of people that was the government of USSR between ~1925-1957. This period saw a rapid transformation of the Soviet Union from a backward agricultural part of Europe to an industrial superpower with nuclear weapons. Could Stalin do this alone? The answer of the book is a definite "no". A group of various people with the most prominent being Molotov, Beria, Mikoyan, and lately Khrushchev not only assisted, but engineered many of the soviet policies these years. Stalin was "first among equals", or that what he wanted to appear inside the communist party. The leadership was collective from the beginnings when the team rallied to defeat Trotsky and the right-wing opposition in the Party, and when the country began to industrialize in the 30s. Stalin started to accumulate more personal power in the late 30s, but the german invasion reverted the way of governing USSR back to "teamwork". Finally, in the early 50s , Stalin attempted again to assert more power , but the team stopped him and ruled the USSR collectively after his death. Khrushchev dissolved the team and attempted to rule alone, breaking a taboo, but after a series of economic failures he was dismissed , and soviet governance reverted back to group rule.
The book helps dissolve some nonsense that Stalin was the "absolute dictator" of USSR, which is clearly not the case, although he was a big big factor in the government. It is also an interesting insight in the workings of soviet government in 1930-1950. On the other hand the book sometimes makes blatant anti-soviet comments, that make reading inconsistent, as if the author doesn't want to be accused of liking the soviet leaders.
I give a 4/5 , but it is actually a 3.5/5. -
The subject of this book is a relationship between Stalin and his inner circle men. The contents of this team has been changing over the years. Some of its members have been put shifted aside, or even persecuted or killed. The longest tenure ones like Molotov (since 1927) and Mikoyan (since 1935) have been termed by Stalin as rightists and only survived due to Stalin's death in 1953. Only four members of the inner circle lasted till the very end: Malenkov, Beria, Khrushchev and Bulganin. Malenkov was ousted by Khrushchev in 1957 as a member of the Anti-Party Group. Bulganin was forced to resign in 1958, and Beria arrested in 1953 and shot.
The Khrushchev's revelations at XX Party Congress in 1956 about Stalin had been based on an investigation by Petr Pospelov, a Central Committee secretary and editor of Pravda. It found that between 1935 and 1940 almost two million people had been arrested for anti-Soviet activity and almost 700 hundred thousand had been shot. Out of all the Central Committee members and candidates elected at the Party Congress in 1934, 70 percent had been shot by the time the next congress met in 1939.
Stalin's paranoia about any potential threats, did not even spare his own family. His sister in law Zhenya Alliluyeva was sentenced for 10 years for "anti-soviet agitation", in other words, careless talk. Anna Redens, another sister in law, Fedor Allilyuev, a brother in law; and 21 year old Dzhonik Svanidze, whose parents had been Great Purge victims, had been imprisoned as well.
Molotov had to divorce his wife, as she became active in the Jewish organisation. She was exiled to Siberia and allowed to return only after Stalin's death. -
Shelia Fitzpatrick's 'On Stalin's Team' is an excellent book covering the emergence of Stalin as the leader of the USSR along with what Fitzpatrick calls Stalin's 'team'. Fitzpatrick is a revisionist historian and disputes the totalitarian model of looking at Stalin and USSR history and governance. Fitzpatrick does not dispute the power that Stalin wielded, but explains that his position is always supported by his team. Some of the team members shifted over time, but the team was always essential to the governing of the USSR. The significance of such a thesis implies that all the traditional explanations of 'Stalin as omnipotent dictator controlling every aspect of life in the USSR' is absurd (as if you didn't already know that).
Fitzpatrick's intent was to appeal to both popular and academic audiences, which is an admiral goal. She pulls from a variety of sources with an emphasis on primary texts of those who were part of the team, from their relatives, and the archives that were opened after the fall to the USSR. The book is wonderful, and gives a great overview of the lead up to the Stalin period as well as a brief look at the post-Stalin period. That said, I personally was looking for a text that engaged more deeply with the historiography of the USSR. She does this in a few places, mainly the introduction and conclusion, but not in any significant depth. -
E celebră fotografia de grup a conducerii sovietice din care, în timp, după fiecare epurare, mai dispare cîte un personaj, pînă cînd Stalin rămîne singur în ea. A fost evocată, printre alții, și de Arthur Koestler în romanul Întuneric la amiază, publicat prima oară în 1940 – semn că imaginea de dictator solitar a lui Stalin a circulat de timpuriu. Dar e posibil ca fotografia menționată să nu dea seamă de tot mecanismul puterii staliniste. Cel puțin aceasta e ipoteza lansată de Sheila Fitzpatrick în cartea sa cea mai recentă, În echipa lui Stalin. Dinamica schimbărilor în anturajul dictatorului, argumentează istoricul australian, nu a fost atît de pronunțată precum lasă să pară istoriografia ulterioară; ba chiar sînt personaje care au rezistat în „poza de grup” pînă la capăt, supraviețuindu-i lui Stalin. Sînt cei fără de care, a scris Sheila Fitzpatrick, Stalin nu ar fi putut face ceea ce a făcut ca lider politic și dictator, și în același timp sînt cei ce nu ar fi avut puterea pe care au avut-o fără Stalin.
Citește mai mult:
https://dilemaveche.ro/sectiune/carte... -
Jiný a nový pohled na politiku sovětského svazu - pohledem nejbližších Stalinových spolupracovníků se člověku dostává jiná optika. Autorka navíc jako sociální historička neopomíjí ani názory sovětské veřejnosti, která zde není vnímání jako zcela pasivní masa lidí. Sheila Fitzpatricková představuje proud tzv. kritiků totalitarismu a zde ukazuje přesně proč, protože totalitární přístup k dějinám vyviní téměř všechny kromě totalitního vládce. Nový přístup se snaží o barvitější obraz a tento čtivě napsaný mi připadal docela přesvědčivý.
-
Jiný a nový pohled na politiku sovětského svazu - pohledem nejbližších Stalinových spolupracovníků se člověku dostává jiná optika. Autorka navíc jako sociální historička neopomíjí ani názory sovětské veřejnosti, která zde není vnímání jako zcela pasivní masa lidí. Sheila Fitzpatricková představuje proud tzv. kritiků totalitarismu a zde ukazuje přesně proč, protože totalitární přístup k dějinám vyviní téměř všechny kromě totalitního vládce. Nový přístup se snaží o barvitější obraz a tento čtivě napsaný mi připadal docela přesvědčivý.
-
Exquisitely researched account of how Stalin governed.
-
Livre sur l'entourage de Staline que l'auteur appelle "L'équipe". Où on apprend plein de choses passionnantes sur Molotov, Beria, et les autres.
-
Muy entretenido.
-
Unexpectedly interesting and easy to read, this is a primer on the team of ministers and party leaders who formed a core around Stalin from his earliest days through four years after his death. I was impressed by Fitzpatrick's analysis of "dosage," a Stalin tactic to slowly signal disfavor with a minister or administrator to test popular and team reaction before a show trial, banishment, or other punishment. It's a simple idea but she repeatedly demonstrates how Stalin tested the waters and did make decisions with feedback from his inner team. I was also interested in how, during the final years of Stalin's decline, the team entered a fragile equipoise, protecting each other from Stalin and quietly directing the daily business of government in the absence of the ill and increasingly paranoid leader. It was this consensus that enabled the smooth move to a post-Stalin government. The consensus was never defined through formal structures or authorities but instead relied on the long-standing personal and professional bonds between the team. It was less than friendship but more that simple acquaintance- the group knew each other's strengths and weaknesses, arrived at a rough policy consensus, and distributed work accordingly. It's an interesting reference point for a transition that was never clearly defined or planned, but nevertheless proceeded without disruption to the state and its people, and without bloodshed until they removed Beria.
I would absolutely recommend this book, even to those not particularly interested in or well-read on Soviet history. It models a certain sort of analysis that encompasses both individuals and structures, and is a useful reminder of the complexity behind the curtain for those trying to read opaque or authoritarian regimes. -
Sheila Fitzpatrick’s contention is that Stalin, far from operating as the lone-wolf dictator that he is often represented as being, a ruthless leader who ran rough-shod over his colleagues, was in fact far more of a team-player than we might expect and that his “team” however much it changed over the years was an important aspect of Soviet government. Painstakingly and meticulously researched, written in a lively and accessible way, this is an excellent account of the Stalin years, informative, deeply fascinating and above all convincing. Fitzpatrick is adept at making the subjects of the narrative come alive and develop into real people, and the atmosphere of those difficult years is wonderfully conveyed. Readable but also scholarly, with copious notes and references (in fact only about half the book is narrative) this is an important and valuable book and one which I very much enjoyed.
-
A good textbook but not ideal for beginners. While the book is written in a very conversational and understandable tone, it can be hard for someone without at least an introductory knowledge of Russian politics at the time to differentiate between the various politicians. Does a very good job of presenting and supporting the argument that Stalin didn't lead by himself but had a team of people around him whom he sometimes listened to.
-
A surprisingly compact rehash of Stalin's immediate co-workers. Could be interesting for someone who has not read much about Stalin or his entourage, but if you have already read Montefiore's "Stalin: the Court of the Red Tsar" look elsewhere, you will find no new information here.
