Stalin
"A magnificent new biography that revolutionizes our understanding of Stalin and his world. It has the quality of myth: a poor cobbler's son, a seminarian from an oppressed outer province of the Russian empire, reinvents himself as a top leader in a band of revolutionary zealots. When the band seizes control of the country in the aftermath of total world war, the former seminarian ruthlessly dominates the new regime until he stands as absolute ruler of a vast and terrible state apparatus, with dominion over Eurasia. While still building his power base within the Bolshevik dictatorship, he embarks upon the greatest gamble of his political life and the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted: the collectivization of all agriculture and industry across one sixth of the earth. Millions will die, and many more millions will suffer, but the man will push through to the end against all resistance and doubts. Where did such power come from? In Stalin, Stephen Kotkin offers a biography that, at long last, is equal to this shrewd, sociopathic, charismatic dictator in all his dimensions. The character of Stalin emerges as both astute and blinkered, cynical and true believing, people oriented and vicious, canny enough to see through people but prone to nonsensical beliefs.
Stats for nerds
10recommend
23mentions
18people
2016–2026years
43% recommend57% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- You know people love rUsSiA iS nOt ThE sAmE aS uSsR.
But having read "Stalin" by Stephen Kotkin I've concluded that the USSR was nothing more than a legal construction to increase Russian control over its neighbors.
- Powered thru Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 by Stephen Kotkin. How the Bolsheviks ended up in power is just such a ridiculous, improbable tale.
Fantastic book. Super hard to read, given the current events here in the USA. Paraphrasing, Kotkin's thesis is that revolution only succeeds when the elite stop defending the current regime.
I've since been wondering what our elite will do, when push comes to shove.
- Montefiore is a great one for telling the best story instead of the correct one. Much of his first book is based on sources known to be fabricated.
I would recommend Kotkin's Stalin biography instead.
- Stephen Kotkin (briefly referenced in the article) is a history professor at Princeton University and known as the leading Stalin scholar. He's written amazing books and has long interviews on the subject on youtube. One thing that stood out from his talks/books is that he proposes that Stalin was no a psychopathic killer (unlike many other biographers/scholars) but a person who genuinely and deeply believed in communism and was willing to sacrifice anything and everything for it. He also describes Stalin as a super hard-working and pretty smart person.
Disclaimer: Kotkin is absolutely NOT a fan of Stalin, just trying to be thorough and impartial.
- Kotkin (of the New Yorker interview recently making the rounds, the Stalin bio, etc) wrote Armageddon Averted - one interesting and fairly brief summary.
- It sort of reinforced the stereo types of how Stalin and his circle behaved. Stalin had psychopath traits, but what's shown in the film isn't remotely anything like how things may have happened.
I highly recommend Stephen Kotkin's new 3-volume biography of Stalin.
