Stalinism and After The Road to Gorbachev [antikvár]

Preface The object of this book is to explain how Stalinism came to be, what was its nature, how it was modified after the despot's death. To this end I concentrate on causes and trends rather than on detail. If you wish to know the date at which Stalin arrived at Tsaritsyn, the text of any paragraph of the Constitution, or the output of steel in 1980, this is not the book for you. I do not wish to imply that these things are unimportant, and you will find in the list of recommended reading a number of books which deal with them. In fact, it is my hope that you will be sufficiently interested in this dramatic and eventful period to wish to read much more about it. This is not a biography of Stalin, of Khrushchev or of Brezhnev. We are concerned with them, of course, but as political men. We are concerned also with another and vital question: what difference did their personalities make? A great revolution, carried out in the name of equality, freedom and justice, turned into Stalin-despotism. Why? How? Is this explicable primarily in terms of Russia's historical heritage, or of the Russian revolution and its isolation in a hostile environment, or was it the result of the logic of Leninism, the seizure of power by a Marxist party in a backward peasant country? These are impersonal explanations. Do they miss out the vital factor of Stalin's peculiar personality? Similarly, we may ask ourselves whether the attempt by Khrushchev to demolish the Stalin myth and to alter course was a personal aberration, and whether this applies also to the partial return to more repressive methods under Brezhnev. This latest edition also takes into account what some regard as 'the Gorbachev revolution', which is going on as these lines are written. The book is almost without statistical tables and wholly without footnotes. The reader may be assured that statements of fact or citations are accurate, to the best of my ability. Hypotheses and interpretations are clearly indicated as such. In some degree the interpretation is personal, being influenced not only by the author's family background and reading but also by observations and conversations on numerous visits to the Soviet Union. I realise that academic histories are usually written in the third person. None the less, the occasional injection of personal reminiscences and opinions