Stalin in Power
The Revolution from Above, 1928-1941

Complex, fascinating, well written and most important, brilliantly documented. Robert C. Tucker did a marvelous work in dissecting one of the deepest horrors in history, the tragedy which struck not only the Russian people, but the entire eastern Europe, as well as the rest of the world. The complex......more

Tucker continues his political and psychological study of Stalin, focusing on how and why he built his near-absolute rule. Tucker emphasizes Stalin's ongoing need to reconcile his internal self-image with the realities of the world around him but bending the latter to match the former.......more

This book took me all summer off and on. There were many takeaways that I'd like to go into but I don't have the time here. 1.) Stalin is remarkably similar to President Trump. They suffer from the same inabilities to admit weakness or have mistakes exposed. They refuse to allow criticism. Stalin so......more

The Soviet Union's Ivan the Terrible This book shows evidence of exhaustive research on Tucker's part, which leads me to my two chief criticisms of this book. The first one is that this book is far too long; I felt it could easily have been compressed to 300 pages, instead of the 900 pages that Tucke......more

Meticulous character study psychodynamic dissection of Stalin, his pathological fusion of personal self worth and ability as a leader magnified the ruinous impact of ideological zealots, The author represents Marxist Lenin communism as humanistic, drawing a distinction between idealised communist th......more