To get to the top, Joseph Stalin outmaneuvered Lenin, Trotsky, Kirov, and a legion of equally ruthless revolutionaries. An accessible and easy-to-read reference work now reveals the more personal side of the Machiavellian mastermind who not only orchestrated the Great Terror but also forged the USSR into a world power. Here are the henchmen, the bystanders, and the innocent victims who became caught in Stalin's web, along with key events in Soviet history. Did you know that Stalin took as his alias "Koba," the name of a fictional Georgian hero? That the famine of 1932 was Stalin's version of social control and cost 7 million lives? That Andrey Tupolev, the legendary aircraft engineer, designed his famous TU-2 bomber as a prisoner in the Gulag? The book's balanced coverage makes use of new information from Soviet archives but avoids the mind-numbing communist jargon and terminology. There are scores of rare illustrations, some never before published in the West.

About the Author:

Helen Rappaport is a graduate in Russian Special Studies from Leeds University who has worked as a freelance writer and editor for leading reference publishers.