By Daniel W. Michaels ∙ May 1, 1997
Daniel W. Michaels is a retired Defense Department analyst who lives in Washington, DC. After graduating in 1954 from Columbia University (Phi Beta Kappa), he studied in Tübingen, Germany (1957), with a Fulbright scholarship. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991–1992, and the end of the centrally controlled “command economy,” a new class…
By Daniel W. Michaels ∙ July 31, 2012
Simon Sebag Montefiore, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar, Knopf, New York, 2004, 785 pp. The British Book Awards’ History Book of the Year has been awarded to the distinguished Anglo-Jewish journalist/novelist Simon Sebag Montefiore for his Stalin: the Court of the Red Star.[1] Montefiore’s special writing interest is in matters Russian, especially in…
By Daniel W. Michaels ∙ July 31, 2012
Constantine Pleshakov. Stalin’s Folly: The Tragic First Ten Days of World War II on the Eastern Front. Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston and New York, 2005, 312 pp. As the title of Constantine Pleshakov’s book implies, the author, a Russian historian,[1] holds Stalin personally responsible for the debacle that befell the Red Army at the outbreak…
By Daniel W. Michaels ∙ July 31, 2012
Yuri Rubtsov, Alter Ego Stalina (Based on declassified archival documents), Svonnitsa-MG, Moscow, 1999, 302 pp. Yuri Rubtsov, Iz-za spiny vozhdya: poli ticheskaya i voyennaya deyatel’nost L. Z. Mekhlisa (Behind the Leader’s Back; The Political and Military Activities of L. Z. Mekhlis), Kompaniya Ritm, Moscow, 2003, 253 pp. Until the appearance of two recent Russian political…
By Daniel W. Michaels ∙ September 1, 2005
Vladimir Beshanov, Tankovyy pogrom 1941 goda (Tank Debacle of 1941); Series: Military History Library, ACT Publisher, Moscow, 2000, 528 pp Vladimir Beshanov. God 1942 – “Uchebnyy” (1942 Year of Learning), Series: Military History Library, Harvest Publisher, 2002, 624 pp Vladimir Beshanov. Desyat’ stalinskikh udarov (Ten Stalinist Blows), Series: Military History Library, Harvest Publisher, 2004, 768…
By Daniel W. Michaels ∙ September 1, 2005
Ronald Radosh, Mary R. Habeck, Grigory Sevostianov (eds.), Spain Betrayed: The Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2001, 576 pp. Stanley G. Payne, The Spanish Civil War, the Soviet Union, and Communism, Yale University Press, New Haven & London, 2004, 400 pp. The received legend about the…
By Daniel W. Michaels ∙ September 1, 2005
Since World War II the history of the Third Reich has been written – for the most part – in English by the victors. Understandably, the picture so painted of German life and of the accomplishments of the people under National Socialism has not been flattering, with the exception perhaps of German scientific and technological…
By Daniel W. Michaels ∙ August 1, 2004
Viktor Suworow, Marschall Schukow – Lebensweg über Leichen, Pour-le-Mérite, Selent, Germany, 2002, 350 pp., €25.80 Prologue Every war produces genuine military strategists and heroes, many of whom die on the battlefield or whose exploits go unrecognized. Decorated “Hero of the Soviet Union” four times, Marshal Georgi Zhukov was indisputably the most honored military figure in…
By Daniel W. Michaels ∙ May 1, 2004
Jonathan Brent, Vladimir Naumov, Stalin's Last Crime. The Plot Against the Jewish Doctors, 1948-1953, Perennial, New York 2004, 416 pp., pb., $14.95 Coauthored by researchers Jonathan Brent and Vladimir Naumov, Stalin's Last Crime covers the period from 1948 to Stalin's death in March 1953, with special emphasis on the Jewish Doctors' Plot.[1] Simply put, Stalin…
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