Yes! I can recommend! The best, most readable and insightful one is the biography of Stalin by Edvard Radzinsky. Here’s the link. It’s available on Kindle and Audible. Read it, I promise it’s beyond good.
Of course, you could always read Kotkin, and he’s good, but there’s no joy in that reading. Kotkin is boring. Plus, Radzinsky had access to incredible materials.
Read it and tell me what you think. We can discuss right here because Radzinsky’s interpretation of Stalin’s personality can absolutely be debated.
I’m practically jumping up in joy that somebody is about to discover this excellent book.
Clarissa's Blog 
I actually asked on behalf of a friend…but I guess I’ll haaaave to read it myself too, what a shame 😉
LikeLike
(adds to to-read list)
LikeLike
Have you ever read Trotsky’s biography of Stalin? It’s a Marxist analysis and apology for the fall of Leninism, but still an interesting read since it’s a biography of the killer by the slain.
LikeLike
A big problem for the Communists in SA was that people tend to think interms of ethnic rather than class struggle.
https://www.politicsweb.co.za/opinion/clive-derbylewis-the-sacps-odious-behaviour
LikeLike
Communists everywhere threw away the idea of a class struggle when they noticed that proletarians have very little patience for boutique sexual identities.
LikeLike
The Cuban communists did gain respect due to their willingness to fight in Angola. Very few others were willing to volunteer for the international proletariat.
LikeLike
Mandela’s driver was a gay Communist. Probably a reasons why SA was one of the first countries to legalize gay marriage.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cecil_Williams_(anti-apartheid_activist)
LikeLike