Charm: Stalin's ultimate weapon?

A British historian has written a new biography of Joseph Stalin which argues that the dictator was really a "people person".

Whether it was tucking children into bed or sending his chauffeur to pick up rain-soaked people at a bus stop, Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar may show a side to the former Russian premier never seen before.

This is because Simon Montefiore wrote his biography after spending three years in Russian archives that were never opened to the West until the fall of the Soviet Union.

So now we know that the dictator loved gardening, John Wayne movies and classic novels like The Last of the Mohicans.

But the historian does not deny that Stalin was ultimately responsible for ordering the deaths of an estimated 20 million people too, from close friends to complete strangers.
   
The book, first published in Britain, came out in the United States in April.

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/0270A8CA-B1D5-4A8A-B977-A31FF9E669EC.htm