Autopsy For an Empire

March 30, 1998
Volkogonov, a Soviet historian, military general and debunking biographer of Lenin, Stalin and Trotsky, completed this illuminating study shortly before his death in 1995. Of the seven Soviet rulers profiled, Gorbachev gets the highest marks for initiating epochal reforms, though the author stresses that Gorbachev could have accomplished much more had he relinquished his faith in the communist system. Volkogonov cogently argues for a seamless connection between Lenin's absolutism and Stalin's merciless dictatorship. Drawing on new material, including declassified documents from state and Party archives, he reveals Lenin's paranoia toward foreigners as well as Stalin's pivotal role in egging on his puppet in North Korea, Kim Il-sung, to start a war with the South in 1950. Khrushchev, though he repudiated the Stalinist cult of personality, was out of touch with the masses, in Volkogonov's estimate, while indecisive, mediocre, suave Brezhnev mistook economic and social stagnation for stability. Both Yuri Andropov and Konstantin Chernenko were "political pygmies" who strived to preserve a sclerotic system. Bristling with startling revelations, this scathing panorama of seven decades of Soviet rule brims with much treachery, intrigue, reversals of fortune and personal idiosyncrasies. Photos not seen by PW.