Stalin
Four dangerous visionary writers
Simon Ings examines the lives of Maxim Gorky, Maurice Barrès, Gabriele D’Annunzio and Ding Ling, whose propagandism helped shape – and misshape – the 20th century
In search of utopia: Chevengur, by Andrey Platonov, reviewed
After crossing the vast steppe, Sasha Dvanov reaches an isolated town where the communist ideal appears to have been achieved. But at what cost?
‘We cannot turn back’ from the League of Nations, said Woodrow Wilson – but did just that
His fateful intransigence over the negotiations has been variously ascribed to a Christ-complex, an unhappy childhood and even latent homosexuality
In seven years, Lenin changed the course of history
Between his return from exile and his death, Lenin launched – and perverted – the revolution that shapes world politics today
Lies about the Katyn massacre added insult to the horror
Alan Philps reveals how many western journalists, duped by Stalinist propaganda, rushed to blame the Nazis for the Soviet atrocity
The nondescript house that determined the outcome of the second world war
Sometimes the struggle for a single small strongpoint can tip the whole balance of a greater battle. One thinks of…
Nothing is certain in Russia, where the past is constantly rewritten
Nothing is certain in a country where the past is constantly rewritten, says Owen Matthews
Playing until her fingers bled: the dedication of the pianist Maria Yudina
The 20th century was an amazing time for Russian pianists, and the worse things got, politically and militarily, the more…
A macabre meditation on psoriasis
Obsessed with purity and pain, the boundaries of blame and innocence, Skin is a fascinating meditation on psoriasis, the long-lasting…
Dark days in the Balkans: life under Enver Hoxha and beyond
For many in the West, Albania remains as remote and shadowy as the fictional Syldavia of the Tintin comics. The…
A divided city: the Big Three fall out in post-war Berlin
Adam Sisman describes the toxic atmosphere in Berlin after the end of the second world war
Why did Hitler’s imperial dreams take Stalin by surprise?
The most extraordinary thing, still, about Operation Barbarossa is the complete surprise the Wehrmacht achieved. In the early hours of…
‘I’m not interested in moral purity’: St Vincent interviewed
Michael Hann talks to St Vincent about Sheena Easton, Stalin and performing in five-inch heels
Churchill’s enigma: the real riddle is why he cosied up to Stalin
The real riddle is why he cosied up to Stalin
Riveting: Dear Comrades! reviewed
Andrei Konchalovsky’s Dear Comrades! is based on a true event and set in 1962 in the Russian city of Novocherkassk…
The brutality of the Gulag was totally dehumanising
‘It was a gray mass of people in rags, lying motionless with bloodless, pale faces, cropped hair, with a shifty,…
Diplomatic daughters go behind the scenes at Yalta
From Downing Street to Pennsylvania Avenue, history’s powerful inter-family influencers, whether spouses or children, have long operated behind weighty political…
‘I was frightened every single day’: the perils of guarding Stalin
In Russian, the proverb ‘Ignorance is bliss’ translates as ‘The less you know, the better you sleep’. For those who…
Why do monsters make such good writers?
Did any of you know that most of the 20th-century monsters — Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Ceausescu, Duvalier, and even the…
Varlam Shalamov’s Kolyma Tales are among the most harrowing in all literature
‘I consist of the shards into which the Republic of Kolyma shattered me,’ Varlam Shalamov once told a fellow gulag…
History may hold the secrets of statecraft – but not the secrets of business leadership
‘How can one person lead one hundred?’ That was one of the questions in my Cambridge entrance exams back in…
The beauty of Soviet anti-religious propaganda
Deep in the guts of Russian library stacks exists what remains — little acknowledged or discussed — of a dead…
How does today’s world compare with Orwell’s nightmare vision?
Apart from a passionate relationship with the common toad, what do George Orwell and David Attenborough have in common? H.G.…
Vasily Grossman: eye-witness to the 20th century’s worst atrocities
Vasily Grossman’s novel Life and Fate (completed in 1960) has been hailed as a 20th-century War and Peace. It has…
What makes Kim Jong-il cute — and Barack Obama not?
Ordinarily, I love books that answer questions I’ve never asked, but Simon May’s baffling book has blown my mind. The…
