Koba the Dread - post III

The content starts to focus on the life and upbringing of Stalin and covers his relationship with Lenin but all through this there are constant references to the horrible excesses of the regime and a haranguing voice that is shouting out: ‘how could you be so stupid and support these monsters?”

Bullet points between pages 100 – 170

* Stalin creeps up on the Lenin regime disturbing the leadership with his brutal behaviour handling Georgia and heading for a final split with Lenin but he is put in charge of Lenin’s medical care and makes sure that he is not isolated

* Trotsky makes a few mistakes and Stalin rises with a determination and a willingness to destroy his rivals at quite a pace and the purges begin and the volume of people fed into the camps is phenomenal with whole families going into captivity

* There are references to some of the most famous Gulag memoirs with the experience and the language of those incarcerated is limited to reducing them to idiots with doctors losing their ability to talk and think

* Those who voted against Stalin, expressed an opinion against him were destroyed and he almost willingly destroyed the lives of his two sons and even made the life of his daughter difficult although she survived him unlike Stalin’s two wives

More tomorrow…