Stalin; The Career of a Fanatic
New York: The Viking Press, 1932. Presumed first edition and first printing thus. Hardcover. [viii], 391 [3] pages. Index. Black and white illustrations and photographs. Cracked binding. Loose dust jacket. Discoloration on page edges. Markings in pencil on back end paper. Cover worn and edges rubbed. Photo, typewritten poem, and page cut out of the lyrics to "The Internationale" in Russian laid in. This is an early, highly dramatized biography of Joseph Stalin, providing a captivating but heavily sensationalized look into the Soviet dictator’s rise to power. Lev Nussimbaum (October 17, 1905 – August 27, 1942), who wrote under the pen names Essad Bey and Kurban Said, was a writer and journalist, born in Kiev to a Jewish family. He lived there before fleeing the Bolsheviks in 1920 at the age of 14. In 1922, while living in Germany, he obtained a certificate claiming that he had converted to Islam in the presence of the imam of the Turkish embassy in Berlin. He created a niche for himself in the competitive European literary world by writing about topics that Westerners, in general, knew little about - the Caucasus, the Russian Empire, the Bolshevik Revolution, newly discovered oil, and Islam. He wrote under the name of Essad Bey in German. The topics Essad Bey wrote about are still relevant. The fact that Essad Bey was so prolific calls into question the authorship of these books and whether Essad Bey was doctoring manuscripts and marketing them under his pseudonym, which had become famous. In 1934, his agent Werner Schendell warned him to take a year off between books so that he would not appear to be so prolific. That year no books were published in German – only two Polish novellas. Lev Nussimbaum (1905 - 1942) was a prolific Jewish writer who reinvented himself as a Muslim under the pseudonyms Essad Bey and Kurban Said. Despite his being an ethnic Jew, his politics were such that, before his origins were discovered, the Nazi propaganda ministry included his works on their list of "excellent books for German minds". Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (né Dzhugashvili; 18 December [O.S. 6 December] 1878 – 5 March 1953) was a Soviet revolutionary and politician who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until his death in 1953. He held office as the General Secretary of the Communist Party from 1922 to 1952 and as the premier from 1941 until his death. Despite initially governing the country as part of a collective leadership, he eventually consolidated power to become a dictator by the 1930s. Stalin codified the Communist Party's official interpretation of Marxism as Marxism–Leninism, and his version of it is referred to as Stalinism. Condition: Fair / Fair--Plastic cover over alternate dust jacket.
Keywords: Joseph Stalin, Bolshevik, Russian Revolution, Baku, Caucasus, Siberia, October Revolution, Russian Civil War, Stalinism
[Book #91236]
Price: $125.00