The Back Room: My Life With Khrushchev and Stalin -Alexander Contract -Hardcover
excellent condtion - tight binding - clean crisp pages - dust cover included - non-smoking home - sign by author and dated
Hard to find item
Synopsis:
Absolutely amazing Book! What a life this guy lived! Reading about him makes everyone else's life seem dull. So much for one person to have seen. I don't think there could be a more informed expert on what life was like in the Soviet Union before and during WWII. As a spy for Stalin he had access to top level government information and was present or actively spying during the conferences between Stalin, Roosevelt/Truman, and Churchill. Sure Stalin and a few others may have had more information then he did at the top (OK, Stain certainly did), but Alex also walked and lived among the people. Even though he was a Captain in the KGB he would go undercover as a peasant and see the country from that perspective. Something Stalin never did. He would spy on the commissars at the top of the government to commissars that ran factories and schools to see if they were on the take. He would would get himself thrown into the prisons and be treated as just another prisoner. He went into Germany and would spy on the Germans. He would go to the slave labor camps and see how they were being run. He watched movies with Stalin and knew him personally. As a KGB member he could travel freely anywhere he pleased. He didn't just view his section of the country but saw it from east to west. He saw it as a solider, as a spy, as a civilian, a peasant, a Jew, a prisoner and as a KGB officer. He was wounded 3 times including once while driving a tank that was blow up by the Nazi's. His very large family was killed in the holocaust. Almost died as Stain's food taster, as well as having his train car end up in the river when an assassination attempt on Stalin blew up a train bridge. Was picked up by the Russians as a German spy and almost killed by the Russians three times. They knocked his teeth out, and once left him tied up naked in water for three days. He spoke 11+ languages and dialects. It made my life feel pretty bland by comparison. But it's probably a good thing. But the coolest part about this book is that it's really two stories in one. It not only tells his amazing life story which alone makes for a five star book, but also tells the story of what life was like in the Soviet Union form virtually every possible perspective.
F79