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Article: Stalin and His Hangmen: An Authoritative Portrait of a Tyrant and Those Who Served Him.(Reviews)(Brief Article)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- Contemporary Review
- Article date:
- September 1, 2004
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 Contemporary Review Company Ltd. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Stalin and His Hangmen: An Authoritative Portrait of a Tyrant and Those Who Served Him. Donald Rayfield. Viking. [pounds sterling]20.00. xxvi + 528 pages. ISBN 0-670-91088-0. Historians have come to see that a true understanding of a dictatorship must centre not just on the dictator but on those who support him through obedience. Here Prof Rayfield follows Stalin's 'path to total power' and those who made it possible, in particular the five men who were in charge of security and the secret police: Dzierzynski, Menzhinsky, Iagoda, Ezhov and Beria. Without these, Stalin could have done little. Such men were marked by 'extreme fear, sadism, moral idiocy or delusion'. The ...
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