My Affair with Stalin by Simon Sebag Montefiore
Wednesday's book
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.In 1991, a young Cambridge graduate wrote a much-criticised novel called King's Parade, based on his escapades at university.
That same graduate, now a journalist, has answered all those who scorned his youthful blunder into literature by producing a comic tour de force. My Affair with Stalin is a breathtakingly intelligent, funny, and wholly "accurate" translation of Stalin's life into the picaresque career of William Conroy, an 11-year-old pupil at Coverdale Preparatory School.
Conroy is the school squit. Puny, blind without his glasses, rotten at games, his only protection is his ability to tell a good story. Every night he entertains the dorm with a reading from his magazine of famous murderers: Cripps, Jack The Ripper and then, one day, Stalin.
So begins his obsession with the Soviet monster. Renaming himself Koba, Stalin's nom de guerre, Conroy-Stalin inspires a revolution against the ruling cadre of older boys. With the help of his fanatical politburo (fortified with bribes from the grub-cupboard) and NKVD boss Petty minor (son of Lord and Lady Petty), he embarks on a ruthless extermination of his rivals.
A reign of terror ensues. Running dogs and cowardly wreckers are executed by conker and frozen ice-cream bombardment. Time speeds up: by half-term, the fathers of the Revolution have been expunged from the Party and Conroy- Stalin is confident that his Five Year Plan, started at tea, will be over by supper.
Yet he is caught out when he returns from half-term to find that Petty- Yezhov has become Petty-Hitler. German Panzer divisions have surrounded the Lubyanka boiler room. For a moment, the Supreme Commander in Chief is a tearful schoolboy running from his tormentors before the lower school saves him by rejecting fascism in favour of communism. Outnumbered and out-witted, Petty-Hitler sees his forces crushed during a wintry afternoon's onslaught of snowballs and hockey sticks.
When defeat does come for Stalin-Conroy, it arrives as the US imports which (so Sebag Montefiore alleges) destroyed the communist empire: sex and rock 'n' roll. Conroy's ideological commitment is no match for his hormones. It's a nice ending, but not one that matches the brilliantly sophisticated interweaving of juvenilia and Russian history that precedes it.
My Affair with Stalin is a masterful evocation of the world of smelly socks and grey shorts. The fact that prep-school boys and Stalin should have so much in common says much about the twisted development of the former - and the arrested development of the latter.
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, pounds 9.99
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments