Klaus Kellmann Stalin. Eine Biographie. Primus Verlag Darmstadt 2005. ISBN: 3-534-18517-X

Klaus Kellmann Stalin. Eine Biographie. Primus Verlag Darmstadt 2005. 351 S. ISBN: 3-534-18517-X.

Specialists often find it difficult to relate to the ‘general’ reading public. This is particularly the case when it comes to subjects as complicated as Stalin. His reign (1922–1953) was long, perhaps longer than any of his contemporary world leaders and, similarly, the impact of his power on world affairs was perhaps greater than that of any other world leader of his time. This means that much of the twentieth century must be covered in order to write about him: This is no easy task. Moreover, the fact that the person of Stalin remains enigmatic and that many documents of critical importance are still closed to historians makes it exponentially more difficult to write about him. When specialists balk at a daunting task, a layman sometimes copes successfully with it.

Unfortunately, Klaus Kellmann’s short biography (or, as he notes, a “biographical essay”) is not such a case, leaving much to be desired. The ‘general’ reader may find it interesting, and there is some value to this book in the sense that he makes a complicated subject easy to comprehend. He does not lightly succumb to the new propositions that there was a genuine internal threat (opposition and resistance) to Stalin’s rule in the latter half of the 1930s or that Stalin was actually planning a pre-emptive strike against Nazi Germany in 1941 (rather than being caught off guard by Hitler’s Blitzkrieg). Nevertheless, one hesitates to recommend the present book even to the ‘general’ reader, because of the numerous inaccuracies, big and small, and, equally important, because it does not reflect the current state of knowledge. The author’s lack of knowledge of the Russian language in which the bulk of primary literature is written is a severe obstacle. Therefore, although Kellmann clearly has made considerable effort to read as widely as possible, he fails to make use of many recent findings. (There were many new revelations, some very important, thanks to the partial opening of the formerly closed Soviet archives.) Thus, a fundamental challenge to the traditional view of the succession struggle in the wake of Lenin’s death posed recently by a Russian scholar (V.A. Sakharov Politicheskoe zaveshchanie Lenina. Real’nost’ istorii i mify politiki. Moskva, 2003) is missing. Whether the conventional view (Lenin’s eventual rejection of Stalin as leader) will stand or collapse, it is a noteworthy scholarly development. There are numerous similar points missing in the Kellmann book. For example, he still attributes Stalin’s birth date to 21 December 1879, whereas it is now known that he was born in 1878. In addition, even some well-known works in German language (for instance, J. Iremaschwili Stalin und die Tragödie Georgiens. Berlin, 1931) are not utilized by Kellmann.

It would be churlish for a specialist to dwell on the numerous inaccuracies in a book like this. However, the overall picture of Stalin that emerges is rather one-dimensional: Stalin was power-hungry and became an ‘almighty’ dictator. This in itself is neither wrong nor bad, but the reader will not understand (or even sense) the complexity of Stalin as a person and as a dictator. Kellmann does not provide competing interpretations of important events and people. Nor does he compare Stalin with his rivals in any detail at all, thereby making it difficult to understand why Stalin managed to surpass them politically. There are other problems as well, such as confused arguments that are likely to prevent the reader from clearly understanding Stalin and his era.

Kellmann’s book is a bold attempt, a challenge that not many specialists have dared to take on. Unfortunately, he is not familiar enough with the subject, which clearly overwhelmed him. If his work had been properly refereed by specialists or if he had written this book in collaboration with a specialist, it would have been a much more valuable biography. As is, the book cannot be recommended without qualification to the ‘general’ reader for whom the book appears to have been written. Surely, German-speaking people deserve a new, better-informed biography of Stalin.

Hiroaki Kuromiya, Bloomington, IN