The Secret File of Joseph Stalin: A Hidden Life - Hardcover

Brackman, Roman

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0714650501 ISBN 13: 9780714650500

Publisher: Routledge, 2000

Synopsis

This account of Stalin's life begins with his early years, the family breakup caused by the suspicion that the boy was the result of an adulterous affair, the abuse by his father and the growth of the traumatized boy into criminal, spy, and finally one of the 20th century's political monsters.

About this title

About the Author

Roman Brackman was born in Moscow, Russia, in 1931. In 1935 his father, an engineer, was imprisoned in Gulag camp near Dmitrov. As a boy Roman stayed for weeks with his father in the camp’s barracks and saw the barb wire, watch towers and columns of prisoners going to and from work. He grew up during the Great Purges when many of his relatives were arrested and perished. He graduated from high school in 1948 and enrolled in the Moscow Oriental Institute, Arabic division. In 1949 Roman and two of his school friends tried to escape from the Soviet Union by swimming from the Black Sea port Batumi to Turkey. They were arrested and sentenced to 10 years in Special Political prison camps. Roman was sent to Norylsk Gulag where he took an active part in prisoners’ uprising in the summer of 1953 only to be released in 1955 in the first post-Stalin amnesty. In 1959 Roman managed to leave the Soviet Union legally - his wife was a Polish citizen. In 1962 he, his wife and their two sons immigrated to the United States. In 1965 Roman graduated from City College of New York with bachelor degree in science and in 1980 he received the doctorate degree in history from New York University. During Carter-Reagan election campaign in 1979-1980 Roman published his first book “Jimmy Carter Provocateur-in-Chief.” The first edition of his book “The Secret File of Joseph Stalin - A Hidden Life” was published in 2001 in London and translated to several languages, including Russian.

Synopsis

Starting with Stalin's early years, the author reveals the bitter family conflict caused by the suspicion that the boy was the result of an adulterous affair. The suspicion poisoned the lives of his parents and led to the family's breakup, and to severe abuse by Stalin's father that left the ten-year-old boy's arm crippled for the rest of his life. The traumatized boy grew up into a brutal and crafty criminal, becoming an agent-provocateur of the Tsarist secret police, the Okhrana. This account details Stalin's role as an Okhrana agent, and reconstructs his rivalry with Roman Malinovsky, the top Okhrana agent in Lenin's organization. The book explores why Stalin was not exposed after the collapse of the Tsarist regime. It gives an account of the discoveries in the odl archives of Stalin's Okhrana files after his rise to power. It came to light in 1926 and there were several attempts to use the file to depose and execute Stalin as an Okhrana provocateur.

Soviet officials of Polish and Jewish ethnic origin played a part in the story of this file, and Brackman argues that this inspired Stalin's hatred for these two groups, igniting the irrational urge to destroy them that led to his alliance with Hitler and the partitioning of Poland, which started World War II.

Edition details

• Publisher: Routledge
• Publication date: 2000
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0714650501
• ISBN 13: 9780714650500
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 486