Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928-1941

Many Western historians portray Stalin as a pragmatic, if disastrously blundering revolutionary who had no overarching vision of where Russia was heading under his leadership. Not so, argues Tucker in this massive, provocative history; Stalin acted with forethought. Driven by a need to prove himself ``a second and greater Lenin,'' he boldly and confidently implemented his collectivist schemes, backed by a policy of terror and accomplished through the seizure of peasant lands and households, mass murder, forced resettlement and prison camps. His state-directed, state-enforced ``revolution from above,'' in Tucker's ( Stalin as Revolutionary ) view, was a throwback to the state-building of the earliest Muscovite grand princes. The author illumines the ``Stalinist culture'' the dictator promoted in everything from movies to ``folk'' songs, with its master themes of heroism and communal uplift. This gripping history is crucial reading for anyone seeking to understand Stalin or contemporary Soviet affairs. Photos. (Nov.)