I opposed the Iraq war from the first day it was mentioned as a possibility, during the Gulf War.

However, the Iraq war is a WAR.
By your death count, then, WWII was the biggest crime of all, Should it not have been fought?

In contrast, much of Stalin’s wrath was visited on civilians ON PURPOSE, and many of those civilians were his own people. If you want to find similarites, there are many, and more legitimate ones, between Stalin ad Saddam Hussein.
We try our GIs when accusations of rape or wanton slaughter surface.
For Stalin’s forces, rape and wanton brutality were so commonplace as to be de rigeur.

Clearly,anyone who doesn’t appreciate the difference has never lived in a war zone and makes these illogical comparisons from a comfortable chair.

Having been in Stalin’s war zone, I’m offended by these facile argumentations.

I wouldn’t take his love of the muse as a distinct persoanl trait. Admiration for this type of overblown verse was,IMO, very common in Russia and the territories it controlled. It’s part of the national character, like vodka and gypsy music.

It’s an example of Stalin being typical , rather than extraordinary.

Anyone making such a comparison between Bush and Stalin can’t have the vaguest notion of what Stalin contemplated and actually did.

Few things bring me to defending Bush, but this ludicrous statement is one of them.
I’m sure the victims of assasination, torture and exile who stood in Stalin’s way would not agree with this view.

For anyone interested in Stalin, Montefiore’s earlier “Stalin: In the Court of the Red Tsar” is probably the best biography on Stalin currently in existence.

Montefiore has managed to access Soviet archival material that previous Kreminologists have only dreamed of. Yet, as JS suggests with his book above, stylistically there are enormous problems…and Montefiore clearly is in need of a decent copyeditor.

Readers would be interested to note Stalin’s fascination with and admiration of Hitler. For example, there is an account of one of the frequent drinking parties among Stalin’s inner circle in the days after the Night of Long Knives – when Hitler purged the SA and executed Rohm and others – at which Stalin expressed admiration of Hitler’s lightning swift removal of threats to his power.

As you might imagine, everyone in the room nervously agreed with Stalin. Two years later, the only members of that drinking party still alive were Molotov and Stalin.

The Nazi-Soviet Pact shocked the world in 1939. Yet, Montefiore’s book reveals why those in Stalin’s inner circle were far from surprised by Stalin’s agreement to ally himself with a fascist whom superficial commentators believed to be his hated adversary.

Perhaps more than his poetry, Stalin’s doodles on notepaper during Politiburo meetings are highly revealing of his character. Invariably, he would draw mocking images of his fellow members in the margins…such as Bukharin as a fat pig…with wolves being a constant motif. His doodles from the 1920s are revealing of his attitudes to Trotsky and others who would eventually fall before him.

Thus, I would agree with JS’ conclusions. Montefiore’s work is marked by a stunning amount of research – much of it unparalleled – together with extensive stylistic problems. Odd that. Still, important work for anyone remotely interested in the Soviet Union and Stalin.