It was to be a nation ruled by the people, yet in reality it was controlled by one man. Hailed in public demonstrations of devotion as a benevolent father to his people, he was known and feared by his associates as the man who consigned tens of millions to death. The world knew him as Stalin — "Man of Steel."

Born Joseph Djugashvili, the son of a poor shoemaker, Stalin would rule the Soviet Union for more than a quarter of a century, overseeing its transformation from a backward nation to a superpower. In that time he brought the largest country in the world completely under his control, conforming the press, the people, even history itself to his needs. He commanded communities and entire cities to rise where only fields had been. The man who'd lived in Siberian exile under the tsars built history's most vast and inhuman prison system, the slave-labor camps of the gulag. He played democracy's most invaluable ally during World War II, then quickly turned into its most feared enemy with the fall of the "Iron Curtain." His death ended a reign of terror, yet his spirit still overshadows the nation he built.

In this riveting account, Albert Marrin tells the fascinating story of the man who shaped a nation born in revolution, and of the promise denied and the losses endured by the people who built his superpower.

From the dust jacket