Word: stalins
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Dates: during 1960-1969
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Such was the astonishing portrait of Joseph Stalin conveyed by his daughter, Svetlana Allilueva, in her first book, Twenty Letters to a Friend. Svetlana has since had some second thoughts. In her latest book, Only One Year, published this week by Harper & Row, she pictures her father as a despot who brought about a bloody terror that destroyed millions of people-in sum, "a moral and spiritual monster...
Svetlana has obviously done some reading, notably Leon Trotsky's biography of Stalin. Trotsky's devastating observations crop up in semidigested form throughout her new chapter on Stalin. No doubt it took courage for Svetlana to accept Trotsky's verdict that Stalin had created "an infernal hive of intrigues, forgeries, falsifications, surreptitious poisonings and murders." That is especially true since she had so recently regarded her father as a "victim" of the atrocities committed during his 25-year rule rather than their "author and perpetrator...
...worry about what his venture into highest education will bring him. After all, learning and frustration often cross. At the same time, he is terribly aware that his future depends on the unpredictable actions of Major General Hershey and Congressman Vinson of Georgia and, of course. Premier Joseph Stalin. No, this is not a beginning to crow about, hardly a start to the supposedly leisurely, satisfying process of learning...
Speer evokes one memorable night at Obersalzberg. It was Aug. 23, 1939. Hitler had just received a telegram from Stalin agreeing to the nonaggression pact that set the stage for the invasion of Poland nine days later. An unusual polar light flooded the sky and, Speer writes, "the final act of the Götterdämmerung could not have been staged with greater effect. All our faces and hands cast off an unnatural red glow. Abruptly Hitler turned to one of his military adjutants and said: That looks like much blood. This time it won't come...
That past is enjoying a revival. While Stalin used the vision of Mother Russia to inspire patriotism and encourage resistance during World War II, Russia's present leaders have encouraged it to open up the way for a renewed appreciation of Russia's past glories. During the summer, to the delight of Russian and foreign tourists alike, many of the old wooden churches and onion-domed cathedrals that dot the Soviet countryside were opened to the public. The result was an artistic revelation...