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Co-Winner of the 2016 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction, Australian Government Department of Communications and the Arts
2015 Silver Winner in History, ForeWord Reviews’ INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards
Honorable Mention for the 2016 PROSE Award in Government & Politics, Association of American Publishers
One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2016
Stalin was the unchallenged dictator of the Soviet Union for so long that most historians have dismissed the officials surrounding him as mere yes-men and political window dressing. On Stalin's Team overturns this view, revealing that behind Stalin was a group of loyal men who formed a remarkably effective team with him from the late 1920s until his death in 1953. Drawing on extensive original research, Sheila Fitzpatrick provides the first in-depth account of this inner circle and their families. She vividly describes how these dedicated comrades-in-arms not only worked closely with Stalin, but also constituted his social circle. Stalin's team included the wily security chief Beria; Andreev, who traveled to provincial purges while listening to Beethoven on a portable gramophone; and Khrushchev, who finally disbanded the team four years after Stalin's death. Taking readers from the cataclysms of the Great Purges and World War II to the paranoia of Stalin's final years, On Stalin's Team paints an entirely new picture of Stalin within his milieu—one that transforms our understanding of how the Soviet Union was ruled during much of its existence.
Explanatory Note vii
Glossary ix
Introduction 1
ONE The Team Emerges 15
TWO The Great Break 43
THREE In Power 64
FOUR The Team on View 89
FIVE The Great Purges 114
SIX Into War 143
SEVEN Postwar Hopes 171
EIGHT Aging Leader 197
NINE Without Stalin 224
TEN End of the Road 255
Conclusion 269
Acknowledgments 279
Notes 281
Biographies 317
Bibliography of Works Cited 333
Index 349
Description
Co-Winner of the 2016 Prime Minister’s Literary Award for Non-Fiction, Australian Government Department of Communications and the Arts
2015 Silver Winner in History, ForeWord Reviews’ INDIEFAB Book of the Year Awards
Honorable Mention for the 2016 PROSE Award in Government & Politics, Association of American Publishers
One of Choice's Outstanding Academic Titles for 2016
Stalin was the unchallenged dictator of the Soviet Union for so long that most historians have dismissed the officials surrounding him as mere yes-men and political window dressing. On Stalin's Team overturns this view, revealing that behind Stalin was a group of loyal men who formed a remarkably effective team with him from the late 1920s until his death in 1953. Drawing on extensive original research, Sheila Fitzpatrick provides the first in-depth account of this inner circle and their families. She vividly describes how these dedicated comrades-in-arms not only worked closely with Stalin, but also constituted his social circle. Stalin's team included the wily security chief Beria; Andreev, who traveled to provincial purges while listening to Beethoven on a portable gramophone; and Khrushchev, who finally disbanded the team four years after Stalin's death. Taking readers from the cataclysms of the Great Purges and World War II to the paranoia of Stalin's final years, On Stalin's Team paints an entirely new picture of Stalin within his milieu—one that transforms our understanding of how the Soviet Union was ruled during much of its existence.
