The John Hospers First Circle THE FIRST CIRCLE. By Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn. New York: Bantam Books. 1969. 675 pp. $1.50 (pb). In The First Circle there occurs a portrait of Josef Stalin in his final years-a portrait more unforgettable than any historian's biography. We see the dictator ensconced in a secret resi· dence outside Moscow, reading and re flecting until dawn, justifying his place in history, ordering the arrest and im· prisonment of others on the bares...
