Book Reviews : Stalin: The Glasnost Revelations by Walter Laqueur. London: Unwin Hyman, 1990. 382pp. £16.95
| Author | Nigel Clive |
| Published date | 01 May 1991 |
| Date | 01 May 1991 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/004711789101000309 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
282
Gulf
states
are
not
fools.
They
have
observed
how
Western-style
democracy
in
Arab
countries
can
quickly
turn
into
a
corrupt
charade,
precipitating
military
dictatorship.
They
have
seen
Baathism,
so
idealistic
in
its
socialist,
pan-Arab
origins,
transformed
into
the
cruel
tyrannies
of
Iraq
and
Syria.
They
have
seen
Marxism-Leninism
reduce
the
South
Yemen
to
beggary
and
blood-stained
factionalism.
They
saw
Nasserism
collapse
in
the
disaster
of
the
June
War
of
1967.
They
have
done
well
out
of
shaikhly
rule
in
terms
of
domestic
tranquility
and
economic
well-being,
all
without
paying
a
penny
in
taxation.
They
would
like
to
have
more
participation
in
government,
more
open
societies,
less
scope
for
arbitrary
arrest,
greater
freedom
of
the
public
media.
These
things
will
no
doubt
come
in
time.
But
they
will
not
want
to
experiment
with
radical,
externally
formulated
blueprints
which,
if
imposed,
could
well
lead
to
the
grim
consequences
suffered
by
their
’brothers’
elsewhere
in
the
Arab
world.
SIR
ANTHONY
PARSONS
Stalin:
The
Glasnost
Revelations
by
Walter
Laqueur.
London:
Unwin
Hyman,
1990.
382pp.
£16.95
This
scholarly
study
is
largely
based
on
the revelations
about
Stalin
and
the
debates
on
Stalinism
in
the
Soviet
media
that
began
in
1987
and
ended
in
the
summer
of
1989,
so
far
as
access
to
new
documentation
is
concerned.
We
have
it
on
the
authority
of
the
head
of
the
main
State
archives
early
in
1990
that
the
files
dealing
with
‘repression’
had
not
yet
been
declassified
and
that
reference
to
them
in
the
press
was
not
permitted.
This
can
only
mean
that
if
political
circumstances
permit
it,
there
is
much
more
to
come.
Stalin’s
ghost
may
not
yet
have
been
exorcized;
but
this
book
provides
evidence
of
the
important
additions
which
glasnost
has
already
made
to
public
knowledge
of
how
Stalin
operated
as
the
supreme
technician
of
power,
totally
devoid
of
conscience
or
of
any
scruples,
with
his
demonic
qualities
always
seemingly
under
control.
At
the
same
time,
this
master
of
hypocrisy
made
himself
known
to
his
people
as
the
greatest
humanist
in
history.
The
first
divergence
between
legend
and
fact
began
with
Stalin
rewriting
Soviet
history
to
magnify
the
importance
of
his
participation
with
Lenin
in
carrying
out
the
Revolution
in
1917,
when
his
truthful
role
was
exceedingly
modest.
But
it
was
from
1930,
when
his
role
was
absolute,
that
the
first
main
case
against
him
can
be
made.
The
reports
of
the
Politburo
Commission
in
1989
threw
new
light
on
the
Moscow
trials
of
the
1930s
’proving’
the
frame-up
of Bukharin,
Zinoviev,
Kamenev,
Radek,
Piatakov
and
members
of
the
Supreme
Command
of
the
Red
Army.
Of
the
six
leaders
mentioned
in
Lenin’s
Testament,
five
were
killed
by
the
sixth.
Bukharin,
shot
on
Stalin’s
orders
in
1938,
was
a
’non-person’
until
1988
when
his
party
membership
was
posthumously
restored
and
he
was
hailed
as
the
hero
of
Lenin’s
New
Economic
Policy
in
the
1920s.
Glasnost
also
gave
permission
to
Bukharin’s
widow
to
publish
her
memoirs,
while
the
sentences
against
Zinoviev,
Kamenev,
Radek
and
Piatakov
were
quashed
and
all
four
were
legally
rehabilitated.
The
bogus
forced
confessions,
which .had
hitherto
only
circulated
in
samizdat,
became
common
knowledge
in
1988,
at
the
same
time
as
it
became
known
that
much
incriminating
material
in
the
Ministries
of
Justice
and
Defence
had
been
destroyed.
Moreover,
it
was
only
in
1988
that
details
were
revealed
of
the
case
of Martimian
Ryutin,
which
was
the
one
and
only
time
that
a
conspiracy
to
remove
Stalin
did,
in
fact,
exist.
Glasnost
also
revealed
the
vastly
exaggerated
figures
claimed
for
the
success
of
Soviet
industrialization.
Between
1929
and
1941
Soviet
GNP
had
grown
by
a
factor
of
1.5,
not
five
fold
as
recorded
in
the
official
statistics.
Whereas
previously
it
had
been
thought
that
the
purges
had
been
mainly
confined
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