Worshipped by the Russians as a great leader, Stalin was one of modern history's greatest tyrants, rivalling Hitler, Mao Zedong and Pol Pot. But he probably had more blood on his hands than any of them. Born Josef Dzhugashvili in Gori, Georgia in 1879, Stalin studied to be a priest while secretly reading the works of Karl Marx. Politics soon became his religion and, under his ruthless rule, up to 60 million people perished. Peasants who resisted Stalin's policy of collectivization were denounced as kulaks, arrested and shot, exiled or worked to death in his ever-expanding network of concentration camps, the Gulag. Nobody was safe, not even his friends, his family, or his political allies. This is the story of a man who never let up for a second in his pursuit of absolute power. Complete with maps and photographs, this book details Stalin's rise to power from humble beginnings and his ascent to total power of dictatorship, and the creation of the USSR.

ナイジェル・コーソーンは、スターリンという怪物の内面に潜む権力の病理を冷徹に解剖します。神学生から六千万人の命を奪う暴君へ変貌したその軌跡は、政治を宗教に置き換えた狂信を描く一級の人間ドラマです。事実の集積が、読者の肌を刺すような根源的な恐怖を呼び起こします。 本書の白眉は、巨大な収容所網と、友すら抹殺する異常な猜疑心の対比にあります。写真や地図を駆使し、個人の野望がいかに国家規模の惨劇へと昇華されたのかを突きつけます。絶対的な力への渇望が招く地獄。その深淵を覗き込み、悪の本質を問う、あまりに重厚な記録です。