![]() ![]() ![]() The paranoid criminal underworld was Stalin's natural habitat, and murderous banditry and political gangsterism, combined with pitiless ideology, enabled Stalin to dominate the Kremlin-and create the USSR in his flawed image.-From publisher description. A mastermind of bank robbery, protection rackets, arson, piracy and murder, he was equal parts terrorist, intellectual and brigand. Admired as a romantic poet and trained as a priest, he found his true mission as a fanatical revolutionary. ![]() ![]() The shadowy journey from obscurity to power of the Georgian cobbler's son who became the Red Tsar-the man who, along with Hitler, remains the modern personification of evil: a merciless psychopath who was, as well, a consummate politician, the dynamic world statesman who helped create and industrialize the USSR, outplayed Churchill and Roosevelt, and defeated Hitler? Historian Montefiore tells the story of a charismatic, turbulent boy born into poverty, of doubtful parentage, scarred by his upbringing but possessed of unusual talents. ![]()
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