Download or read book Stalin and His Hangmen written by Donald Rayfield and published by . This book was released on 2004 with total page 592 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This work has a strong historical and political orientation but its main focus is the psychological chain that connected Stalin with those men he chose as executioners, in both the narrow and broad sense of the world. His successful manipulations depended on an attraction to figures like himself to laconic and ruthless controllers. To understand Stalin, the reader must understand the background of his life - abused child, trainee priest, resentful victim of imperial power, bandit and puppet master.