Historical and journalist detective story
Annotation, background and main ideas of the book
Thirty years in the darkness of Stalinism — is a severe lesson for Russia and all the mankind. Following step-by-step the methodology and psychology of Stalin’s jump to the heights of power and adoration, we shall try to reveal the real ‘strings’ of his seizure of the power, the genocide of the Bolshevik’s party and of the army, his alliance with Hitler and the bitter defeats in the first year of the Great Patriotic War, the technology of “the Pyrrhic victory”, the mystery of Stalin's birth, private life and death. Detective plots turned into reality during the rule of Stalin — undereducated, physically and mentally ill man — and brought the whole country to the edge of extinction: its science, culture, people’s health and human rights. The mechanism of insidious lie, the propagation of fear, communist fanaticism and the cult of Stalin led to bloodcurdling repressions, terror, and death of millions of people during “raskulachivanie” (the Bolshevik’s policy aimed at eliminating wealthy farmers), in GULAG, during the World War II. Psychological analysis of the incredible fusion in time and space of the people historically used to slavery and obedience and the cruel tyrant who went the way from a criminal and provocateur to a dictator seeking the world power. The possible repetition of the past points to the real danger for Russia and all the mankind in the present and the future. No detective plot invented by the most sharp-witted writer can be compared to the paradoxical reality of Stalinism, and yet the number of murders and corpses would suffice a million of detective stories.
For the first time this book is provides some data compilation of which with the known versions of Stalin's biography, his entourage and victims, psychological features of these “characters”, allows the author to offer a plausible explanation of the “the Stalin mysteries”. Nowhere in the book I refer to paranoia or schizophrenia, as some authors do trying to explain what a sensible man would seem as irresoluble behavior of the “genius of all times and peoples”. Everything is accounted for by natural psychological reasons rooted in the live-style, sexual and ideological features, the relations formed through the leadership of the country, the mentality and intellectual level of Stalin and his supporters. The book is called a “detective story” intentionally, and not only due to the large (multimillion) number of corpses. We reveal the true reasons of the genocide of the army leaders in 1937—1941, the seizure of power by Stalin, the alliance with Hitler, trust in him, the illusion of a “sudden attack”, the suicide of Nadezhda Allilueva, the “confessions” made by the old party members without obvious reasons, the assassination of Kirov, etc.
The solution of the genetically paradoxical emergence of the unique personality in the family of an alcoholic farther and a dull peasant mother originating from serfs was that Stalin was neither “a brilliant scientist”, nor a great military leader or a cunning diplomat. He was a great criminal basher, a brazen and unprincipled bandit, a remarkable organizer of the system of impudent lie and cruel terror, who usurped the power due to a fortunate (for him) circumstances and the support of semiliterate people. Having eliminated the intellectuals in Russia, he entangled the remaining crowd with a false propaganda. The lie gradually transformed into self-deceit — a suitable form of surviving, making a career and a good living by means of obedience to the tyrant and eulogy of his role to the extent of sincere trust in his divine mission. This trust prompted by the instinct of self-preserving substituted religion, conscience, common sense and economic expediency in Russia.
The mankind is not guaranteed from the emergence of a new dictatorship claiming the world’s dominance by means of terror and deceit of the crowd. The proof of it is not only the genocides at the end of the XX century, but also the appearance of new terrorist regimes such as, for example, Taliban. It is necessary to know about the phenomenon of Stalinism for better understanding of the past and future, and not only in Russia.
While working on this book I came across a large number of publications about Stalin, almost all new ones, including those accessible via Internet and at the library of Toronto. As a result a new book has emerged which is unlike any other on the subject. It appears to be the most negative in evaluating Stalin and the consequences of Stalinism among all those I have encountered. The peculiarities of my monograph are as follows:
The book is an interesting reading because of its detective nature. Among other stories it tells about Soviet intelligentsia, the disclosure of such “mysteries” as genocide of the command before the war, Stalin's trust in Hitler, the suicide of Allilueva, the blockade of Leningrad, the date of Stalin's birth, his ascent to power, the nuclear bomb, the suicide of Stalin’s eldest son Jakov, the assassination of Kirov, the decline of industry, science and agriculture in USSR, the internal strings of the assassination of Trotsky, the doctors' prosecution, the Moscow trials, etc.
Not many documents of that period have managed to survive as Stalin tried to destroy them all mercilessly. But taking into account the characters of Stalin and his associates, impossibility of alternative explanations of the well-known events and the documents and testimonies, which have survived accidentally, I bring the reader to the logic of the real events.
The literary component of the book is formed by description of events and persons, first of all, the characters of Stalin and his supporters as well as (I beg your pardon) of the people submitted to him. A great deal of attention is paid to the problem of transformation of a dictator's nature including the danger of degradation of any sovereign, even a “good” one.
Although a great deal of information is known from other sources, yet not everything. My book offers a step-by-step description of the tyrant’s ascent to power from his birth till death, which and it allows me to give a comprehensive picture and to explain all the details not obvious from separate fragments.
Lev Barskii