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Article: The ice in Stalin's heart Michael Burleigh considers the rise of the one-time seminary boy to dictator and mass killer
- Article from:
- The Sunday Telegraph London
- Article date:
- October 3, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 2004 The Sunday Telegraph London. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Stalin: A Biography
by Robert Service
Macmillan, pounds 25, 718 pp
pounds 23 ( pounds 2.25 p&p) 0870 155 7222
ROBERT SERVICE is the Stakhanov of British historians of Russia -
producing weighty volumes at the epic rate that the Soviet miner
Stakhanov hewed coal. Service has a talent for using recently opened
archives to cast new light on his subjects. He subtly amends received
opinion in a way that does not shout its claims to novelty. He also
has the moral sense to identify the cant that seeks to displace
Stalin's responsibility for mass murder on to anodyne social
processes.
Service also, however, has a flatly functional style -
disappointing to those familiar with the grace and ...