THE OUTFIT

TITLE - THE OUTFIT

WRITTEN BY - DAVID TALLERMAN

PUBLISHED BY - REBELLION

PUBLICATION DATE - 1ST MARCH 2022 

Joseph Djugashvili -  soon to be known to history as Joseph Stalin - plans to pull off the biggest bank robbery ever to aid Lenin’s revolution in David Tallerman’s “The Outfit”, a glorious romp of a novel which also features Lenin and a motley band of revolutionaries in a crazy heist story set in revolutionary Russia. This is the true story of The Outfit - think Ocean’s Eleven meets Dr. Zhivago - and how they carried out one of the most daring and brutal bank raids in history. 

I absolutely loved this book. The narrative is brisk and the action scenes are vivid and dynamic. Tallerman writes well, making the story a joy to read; it may be a short book but it has great depth, with the genesis of the revolution set against the omnipresent threat of the Tsarist secret police like a shadow over everyday Russian life. Not a word is wasted by Tallerman as he depicts the days leading up to the robbery, the heist itself and its aftermath. 

The characters are superbly realised. David Tallerman skilfully paints the calculating Stalin as someone who is at least an antihero, because it would be difficult to make a legitimate hero out of him, and yet we find ourselves cautiously rooting for him, even as his “future self” comes ever more to the fore. His crazy associate Kamo, leader of the Outfit, has some wickedly funny passages devoted to him, and his zealous desire for immediate action contrasts with the more cautious Stalin’s. However, events conspire to completely alter their relationship and the mechanics of the heist as Stalin makes a deal with the Devil. 

At turns laugh out loud funny and shockingly serious, “The Outfit” is a supremely enjoyable, well-written tale made even more irresistible due to it being true, and I devoured it in one sitting.

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STALKING THE ATOMIC CITY

TITLE - STALKING THE ATOMIC CITY

WRITTEN BY - MARKIYAN KAMYSH 

PUBLISHED BY - PUSHKIN PRESS 

PUBLICATION DATE - 7TH JULY 2022 

Beginning with a potted and putrid history of the Chornobyl accident and displaying unconcealed disgust at the creation of nuclear power which promised an Utopia but delivered Hell on Earth, Markiyan Kamysh’s “Stalking The Atomic City” screams relentlessly from the pages in vivid, honest and profane language. 

This is a story about Stalkers, a subculture of adventurers unafraid of the radiation that still permeates the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone and its surroundings, described here as being the size of Luxembourg, including the infamous town of Prypyat. Kamysh, who is one of many such people, recounts his experiences as an “illegal tourist”, spending days or often weeks hiking through the Zone, sometimes with friends, camping out, getting drunk and exploring the deserted buildings. Run-ins with police, looters and wildlife, sleeping next to the remains of dead wolves and battles with the merciless Russian elements are tempered with the breathtaking sights of the Zone such as the Chornobyl-2 antennas, described vividly as “behemoths” and “titans”. In the abandoned houses, Markiyan finds peace, and considers himself to be the real deal amongst the rich hipsters who visit the Zone.

Markiyan also offers a field guide of sorts to the virgin visitor to the Zone,- what to wear, what to take - but advises us to do it not because he tells us to, but because we are degenerate; that normal people have no business even being there. He tells us about his father who was one of the original clean-up crew after the Chornobyl accident, of shepherding naive first-timers on trips into the Zone through waist-deep snow, and shares a beginner’s guide to looting. The Zone is almost like an addiction for Kamysh; he curses the Zone, hates it and swears he’ll never go back, but he always does, if only to feel the overwhelming relief of leaving it. He feels proprietorial towards the Zone, much like the titular stalker in the film by Andrei Tarkovsky; it is like a lover, the ultimate non-sexual relationship. He mourns the dismantled Chornobyl landmarks, victims of the most recent clean-up. Asked about the dangers to his health, he has no fears, taking life as it comes, his way. 

Haunting, monochrome photographs from inside the Zone, pepper the book, stark reminders captured for all time. The English translation by Hanna Lelia and Reilly Costigan-Humes of the 2015 Russian original is excellent, creating an unfussy style that is very easy to read. The writing is lean and immediate with hardly a word wasted. 

Markiyan’s story is told with a sense of freedom and irreverence throughout, and I felt a little envious of his having found joy and contentment, even in such an ostensibly awful place. We can envy him this, if not exactly the location where he finds it. “Stalking The Atomic City” is a short and affecting book that is full of life in a place of death and I cannot recommend it highly enough.

STALIN'S LIBRARY

TITLE - STALIN'S LIBRARY 

WRITTEN BY - GEOFFREY ROBERTS 

PUBLISHED BY - YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS, LONDON 

PUBLICATION DATE - 8TH FEBRUARY 2022

A voracious reader, Josef Stalin had his own library of some 25,000 books, for which he employed the services of a librarian. He developed his own classification system and ex-libris stamp, and was fond of annotating and marking the books he read. He was a great respecter of books, if not of the people who wrote them. Whilst Stalin despised his political opponents, he paid close attention to their writings. 

A surprising portrait of the infamous Russian leader emerges from the scholarly pages of “Stalin’s Library” by Geoffrey Roberts - that of an intellectual and deep thinking bookworm and autodidact who revered books, even berating his own children when they treated them poorly. Roberts discovers a tantalising (though not a complete) insight into the real Stalin by analysing the way he read his books and the marks he made in them. It is also an attempt to provide a verifiable biography of Stalin, debunking many “conspiracy theories” and incorrect yet widely believed facts about him. 

Stalin was, conversely, shy of allowing books to be written about himself, vetoing many biographies and pamphlets, and those that were published were vigorously marked up if he disagreed with them. However, Stalin was more enthusiastic about the creation of his collected writings, a popular publication running to thirteen volumes until they were halted by Khrushchev. There is a revealing chapter on these books, their legacy and the unpublished final volumes, and very interesting details of the specific genres of books that Stalin favourited and the historical attempts to study his library. The longest chapter in the book is devoted to an rich and illuminating study of Stalin’s “potemki”, the marks, annotations and sometimes angry crossings-out that he added to many of the books he read. 

Geoffrey Roberts has written a very readable and intelligent book; ostensibly pro-Stalin only in regard to establishing a factual biographical life of the man, and thoroughly researched. While there is much about Stalin’s library itself and its legacy and how his reading influenced him as a political leader, the book is also a history of Stalin’s rise to power and beyond. While this does create something of an identity crisis at times, this book is excellent throughout and is highly recommend to anyone searching for a slightly different take on Stalin’s life and times.

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BREZHNEV -THE MAKING OF A STATESMAN

TITLE - BREZHNEV -THE MAKING OF A STATESMAN

WRITTEN BY - SUSANNE SCHATTENBERG

PUBLISHED BY - I.B. TAURIS/BLOOMSBURY ACADEMIC

PUBLICATION DATE - 4TH NOVEMBER, 2021

Described as “Khrushchev without Khrushchev”, in 1964 Leonid Brezhnev replaced the “arrogant leadership” of that Russian premier with an ostensibly more democratic form of “collective rule” and a term in office of eighteen years - second only to Stalin’s in length. Fond of hunting, fast cars and male bonding sessions with the other members of the Politburo at his hunting lodge where he could be the alpha male, Brezhnev was a striking contrast to the previous leaderships. Forging strong relationships with his staff, he established himself as a leader that nobody had cause to fear. This would be played out on a larger scale with Brezhnev’s seemingly sincere desire to be “Europe’s greatest peacemaker”, a drive cut short by his own failing health and the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. 

My abiding memories of Brezhnev are of an inscrutable, bushy-eyebrowed and slightly scary man on grainy late 70s/early 80s news programmes - a distant, unknowable and oh-so Russian part of my childhood. I know much more about him after reading this excellent book, and even cautiously admire him. Brezhnev was a man of contradictions, an aspiring actor in his youth with many aspects of his life eventually being hidden from the public (such as his generally apolitical upbringing and early life ) and it is this side that Susanne Schattenberg explores in this scholarly, revealing biography, translated competently from the original German by John Heath. 

Schattenberg’s book joins a very small list of Brezhnev biographies, due to the man himself not attracting the same attention as some of his more “celebrated” predecessors, and also to the difficulty in accessing original files. With restrictions easing a little in recent years, the author was able to make an almost exhaustive trawl of the available archives, enhanced by the inclusion of diary entries and memoirs by Brezhnev’s contemporaries and colleagues at the time. 

Fully illustrated with photographs, some familiar - Brezhnev was the first party leader to have their own personal photographer - while other shots are candid and more revealing. It is that photographer’s own photos that have been used in this book, and they certainly show Brezhnev’s more human and charismatic side. Susanne Schattenberg discovers a man who strove to be more healer than hardliner, and someone who cared deeply for the working people and listened to their problems. She stresses that she hasn’t attempted to whitewash Brezhnev, but merely strove to show all sides of his character.

And in that respect, “Brezhnev: The Making of a Statesman” is a triumph. The writing is concise and lucid and this is much more than just a dry and boring political biography. For example, the chapter on Brezhnev’s foreign policy and his desire to build trust with foreign leaders is riveting and enlightening. The book is biography as archaeology, as Susanne Schattenberg has unearthed a wealth of firsthand knowledge about Brezhnev the man, and her book must be regarded as the definitive work on this much-maligned and misunderstood statesman.

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PETROGRAD

TITLE - PETROGRAD

WRITTEN BY - PHILIP GELATT

ART BY - TYLER CROOK 

PUBLISHED BY - ONI PRESS

PUBLICATION DATE - 11TH JANUARY, 2022

In 1916, in the midst of the First World War, the Russian city of Petrograd stands on the brink of revolution while Russia secretly attempts to broker peace with Germany. One of the most incendiary people in this powderkeg is alleged holy man Rasputin, the “mad monk”, trusted advisor to the Tsarina, and, as the official history dubs him, Russia’s greatest love-machine. Already the subject of gossip in the trenches and city streets, the Tsarina puts more and more faith in Rasputin’s advice. Eventually outstaying his welcome, the major players of the day plot to dispose of him in one of the most “extra” assassinations in history. “Petrograd” is the story of how a British intelligence agent gets caught up in these turbulent events. 

Tyler Crook’s artwork in “Petrograd” is quite stunning. It appears simplistic at first glance, but on closer inspection it blows you away. Some panels are filled with quiet emotion and depth, while others burst with kinetic action. Each one almost tells a story in its own right. The shape and positioning of the frames on each page is a masterclass in visual storytelling. The horrors of the Western Front and the faded grandeur of the streets of Petrograd and its people are vividly and memorably rendered. 

Philip Gelatt’s story is concise, tight and unflinchingly brutal when it needs to be. The shadow of Rasputin falls on every page even when he isn’t present. A story about secrets and conspiracies, it is a perfectly paced tale that leads up to the kinetic and brutal scenes of the assassination itself. The messy aftermath, which leads to full blown revolution in Russia, is powerfully intense. The characters are all well-rounded with believable motivations and distinct voices, from the conflicted Cleary to the hedonistic Rasputin himself. 

Presented here in a new edition, ten or so years after the original release, “Petrograd” is easily one of the best, most compelling historical graphic novels I have ever read and it comes highly recommended. 

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