The impact that Stalin had on the world is immense and in some periods of history devastating. Contrast this with Unknown Stalin by Zhores Medvedev and Stalin: Breaker of Nations by Robert Conquest, to get different historical perspectives of Stalin. Medvedev does not go into detail about Stalin's rise to power at the beginning of the book, but begins with his death. He takes an approach that provides a historical portrait of Stalin that focuses not only on how callous and brutal he could be, but how all of his success was made possible by his patience and intelligence. In contrast, Conquest's book begins with Stalin's birth, like many biographies, and his rise through the ranks of the Bolshevik Party, but his book is more intimate as it explains his emotional states. Conquest argues that Stalin's main goal was the preservation of his vision of Maxism-Leninism and the removal of people he considered enemies of that vision. These books take different paths to understanding Stalin as a person and as head of state of the Soviet Union. Is the portrayal of Stalin as a megalomaniac with an insatiable lust for control, fear and power accurate, and how should we use his other social positions, husband, father, friend and fellow revolutionary, to answer this question? By analyzing these two books we can find sides ignored by many and sides that were rightly feared by Stalin. According to Medvedev, Joseph Stalin's leadership style was shaped by his need to control the situation and paranoia. Stalin relied on his close network of political allies to govern effectively, but decisions that could affect the USSR had to be authorized by him and no other person. (Medvedev 115) This made the party members very nervous and also very repla...... middle of paper ......n he was used to controlling those around him and Nadezhda's actions were her form of rebellion against that control. The argument made by both of these books is that Stalin, for all his brutality, was a patient political leader, concerned about the direction of the Soviet Union. The simplicity of “If you were seen as an obstacle you would be removed” worked well for Stalin. Whether the future was political, ideological, or technological, Stalin deemed himself worthy of monitoring many aspects of Soviet society. Although we get a portrait of Stalin's domestic life, this was of relatively minor importance than managing a nation with difficulties in developing a thriving heavy industry, defending against external attacks, and spreading communist ideology. Stalin was a monster, but he transformed the Soviet Union into a world superpower state.