Adolf Hitler has long been established as the 20th century's Great Satan, the base line of evil; Joseph Stalin, equally monstrous by most objective measures, comes in a distant second--maybe even third behind Pol Pot. One big difference was World War II: the enemy of my enemy is my friend, and so Stalin's enormities were courteously minimized in the wartime alliance against Hitler, when the Russian leader became pipe-smoking "Uncle Joe." After that, the demonology never entirely caught up with him.
Historians have applied ingenious psychoanalysis to Hitler. Now, in The Autobiography of Joseph Stalin (Counterpoint; 261 pages; $25), the author...
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