Lenin's Mistress is a fascinating story not only about his mistress but about a whole class of people who worked to achieve the revolution in Russia while Lenin was out of the country. The author makes his contempt for Lenin obvious.
One of the best books I've read about this period in Russia.
This book would also be good for people interested in Women's history.

A fictional diary, this Lenin's tale through his own eyes, starting from early boyhood until shortly before his death. Though some 700 pages, it is more exhaustive than exhausting, and so awfully entertaining I daresay for a month I couldn't put it down. While no substitute for Trotsky's history of the Revolution, this is a historical distillation bound to give an insight into both Lenin and his times. Alan Brien has worked an undiscovered masterpiece!

This is a book of supplemental speeches and writings of Jos. Stalin which date from 1924 until 1939. Some of the speeches are very interesting and important for an understanding of Soviet history of that period.

The book is a 1942 publication by International Publishers of New York City. One of the most interesting articles in the book is the speech of February 4, 1931, called "The Tasks of Business Executives."

In this speech Stalin warns of the lack of ecomonic development in the Soviet Union as opposed to the advanced western counties and states that unless this distance behind the western countries is made good in 10 years the Soviet Union would be crushed. It is significant that although Hitler was leading the Nazi party in Germany in 1931 he was not yet in power in Germany. Still the speech seems to predict German invasion of the Soviet Union occurred exactly 10 years after that speech.

All in all the book is a valuable addition to any library Russian history.

I knew Hedda Garza for about 20 years. She was a lunatic. She actually came out of the Communist Party USA Cesspool in the mid 1950s and never learned better.

Worse than that, she was constant thorn in the side of people trying to build a genuine socialist movement in this country, against the very people who Trotsky had trained. She constantly put up conservative pressures: antiGay, anti women's liberation, antieverything from her position as a writer of trashy confession stories for trashy publications and her nest in suburban Long Island.

Hedda topped that off by testifying as an FBI agent witness and as a spy for the US government in the successful suit in which the Socialist Workers Party convicted the US government for spying, burgluries, and other illegal harassment of socialists, antiwar activits, civil rights workers, and others fighting for social progress. More or less she tried to help the government fight the civil liberties of people in this country at a time when the government was being defeated and human rights were extended!

That this person dares to have anything to write about a man like Trotsky who dedicated his life and his honor every minute to the socialist future of humanity, that this person who heaped stupid calumny on people who were trained by Trotsky, on the movement he founded dares to write something like this is simply revolting, simply revolting. Reading Hedda Garaz on Trotsky is like reading something about Martin Luther King written by George Wallace!

This is a must read for anyone interested in the history of monetary unions or alternatively interested in the development of Economic and monetary Union in Europe.

Published by the London based Institute of Economic Affairs this small but insightful book looks at selected monetary unions and draws on the experiences to put forward some lessons for policy-makers to draw upon as the Eurozone countries move inexorably towards a single European currency.

Almost as good as the original text are the contributions by way of commentaries from six luminaries from the world of economics who serve to place the original paper in a broader context of the greater EMU debate.

The result is a well balanced, thoughtful and well-argued book which I am sure will generate much debate and discussion about economic and monetary union. In a typical cogent and lucid way with a breezy style I would highly recommend this book to students and policy-makers alike from both sides of the Atlantic.

Georgi Vins gave all to minister the Gospel and ultimately found his place of ministry to be the Gulag. Under severe persecution he delivered the Gospel of Jesus to those that were able to receive it due to their stress and situations in prison. He did it with great zeal and determination,never doubting the Lord Jesus or his need to preach. Like Paul, it seems that Mr. Vins cried " woe to me if I do not preach the gospel of my Saviour".

Georgi Vins should inspire each of us to do all we can wherever we are. Taking time to lick wounds and feel self pity simply take away from our mission of preaching the Gospel to everyone everywhere. Enjoy this book and allow it to fuel your personal witness wherever you are in life.

Words have tremendous power, and reading the letters written from one person to another often helps us to know that person far more intimately than anythng else ever could.

During the summer of 1926, three extraordinary poets (two Russian and one German) began a correxpondence of the highest order. These three extraordinary people were Boris Pasternak, Marina Tsvetayeva and Ranier Maria Rilke. Rilke, who is revered as a god by both Pasternak and Tsvetayeva, is seen by them as the very essence of poetry, itself.

None of these three correspondents is having a good year: Pasternak is still living in Moscow, attempting to reconcile his life to the Bolshevik regime; Tsvetayeva has been exiled to France with her husband and children and is living in the direst financial straits, with each day presenting a new hurdle in the struggle to simply "get by;" Rilke's situation is perhaps the worst of all...he is dying of leukemia in Switzerland.

Pasternak and Tsvetayeva have already exchanged years of letters filled with the passion and romance of poetry, itself. Although Pasternak saw Rilke briefly in 1900, Tsvetayeva has never laid eyes on her idol. These three poets are, however, connected by a bond far stronger than the physical. They are kindred spirits, and each find repetitions and echoes of himself in the other.

Tsvetayeva quickly becomes the driving force of this trio. This is not surprising given her character. She's the most outrageous of the three, the boldest, the neediest, the one most likely to bare her inner soul to its very depths. Tsvetayeva's exuberance, however, eventually has disatrous effects.

Although Pasternak and Tsvetayeva consider Rilke their superior by far, these are not the letters of acolyte to mentor, but an exchange of thoughts and ideas among equals. If you've ever read the sappy, sentimental "Letters to a Young Poet," you'll find a very different Rilke in this book. Gone is the grandiose, condescending Rilke. In his place we find an enthusiastic Rilke, one filled with an almost overwhelming "joie de vivre," despite his sad circumstances.

As Susan Sontag says in her preface, these letters are definitely love letters of the highest order. The poets seek to possess and consume one another as only lovers can. But even these lovers haven't suspected that one of their trio is fatally ill. Pasternak and Tsvetayeva are both shocked and devastated when Rilke dies.

Love, many people will argue, is best expressed when the people involved are able to spend time together. There is, however, something to be said for separateness, for there is much that can only come to the surface when the lover is separated from the beloved.

These letters can teach us much about Rilke, Pasternak and Tsvetayeva. They can also teach us much about the very depths of the soul...both its anguish and those sublime, angelic heights...areas not often explored by anyone, anywhere, at any time.

If you have an academic or casual interest in the Newly Independent states, this book is a gem. I purchased it for my own reading and enjoyment, and found it a pleasurable read. It covers economic and political issues with brevity and clarity, and provides an excellent quick look at these states. I recommend it to anyone, as the reading level is not as pedantic as some political science books tend to be and could as easily be enjoyed by a casual reader as a student of political science.

This is the finest work on Confederation that exists. Peter Waite did the research for this book as a graduate student working under Donald Creighton, Canada's great historian and biographer. The Life and Times of Confederation put a human face on the process of joining the scattered colonies of British North America in the 1860s, recreating the day by day process, including the possibility, even probability, of failure. It also explains the national feelings that soon allowed Canada to move west to the Pacific. As always Professor Waite has a sharp eye for character and a good story. He drew the material from all available sources in either official language and from records in Britain and elsewhere. It is a work of first-class research and historical imagination, the product of a great writer.

No one, French or English-speaking, can understand how Confederation came about or its subsequent discontents without reading this wonderful book. More than 30 years after first printing, it is still without equal.

The reader should also know about Professor Waite's next book, Canada 1874 - 1896: Arduous Destiny, which explains how Confederation worked out in practice - another very rich work and equally readable.

This is a great Eastern Christian work on the pursuit of the Spirit-filled life within the context of the Mysteries (sacraments) of the Church. The author does a great job of unfolding his vision by using a wealth of material from Holy Scripture. Moreover, the translation is very user-friendly. However, the Bobrinskoy introduction was too long - subsequent editions should pare it down. While the "Life in Christ" is written from an Orthodox perspective, I think non-Orthodox Christians would enjoy this visionary work.