First viewed : 13 March 1990
This three part documentary series on ITV was part of a wave of programmes about the Soviet Union as a result of the open access to archive material - and people - resulting from Gorbachev's glasnost policies. Narrated by Ian Holm, it looked at the career, personality and impact of History's greatest mass murderer with an emphasis on interviews with survivors of his regime both supportive and hostile. One of those was his daughter and I remember her complaining at the end about his death in 1953 that a seventy-four year old man didn't receive proper medical attention. I doubt the millions in the gulag got that either, love.
As a well-marshalled account of a story that defied belief, this could hardly fail but it didn't exactly warm the cockles of one's heart.
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