Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928Penguin, 6.11.2014 - 976 sivua 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. We see a man inclined to despotism who could be utterly charming, a pragmatic ideologue, a leader who obsessed over slights yet was a precocious geostrategic thinker—unique among Bolsheviks—and yet who made egregious strategic blunders. Through it all, we see Stalin’s unflinching persistence, his sheer force of will—perhaps the ultimate key to understanding his indelible mark on history. Stalin gives an intimate view of the Bolshevik regime’s inner geography of power, bringing to the fore fresh materials from Soviet military intelligence and the secret police. Kotkin rejects the inherited wisdom about Stalin’s psychological makeup, showing us instead how Stalin’s near paranoia was fundamentally political, and closely tracks the Bolshevik revolution’s structural paranoia, the predicament of a Communist regime in an overwhelmingly capitalist world, surrounded and penetrated by enemies. At the same time, Kotkin demonstrates the impossibility of understanding Stalin’s momentous decisions outside of the context of the tragic history of imperial Russia. The product of a decade of intrepid research, Stalin is a landmark achievement, a work that recasts the way we think about the Soviet Union, revolution, dictatorship, the twentieth century, and indeed the art of history itself. Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 will be published by Penguin Press in October 2017 |
Sisältö
ii | |
11 | |
29 | |
Tsarisms Most Dangerous Enemy | 56 |
Constitutional Autocracy | 88 |
DURNOWſS REVOLUTIONARY | 131 |
Stupidity or Treason? | 139 |
Kalmyk Savior | 174 |
Dada and Lenin | 227 |
COLLISION | 409 |
IF STALIN HAD DIED | 724 |
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April arrested August autocracy became Bolshevik Bolshevism bourgeois British Bukharin capital capitalist Caucasus Central Committee Cheka Chicherin citing civil Comintern commander commissariat Communist party comrades Council of People's coup December delegates dictation dictatorship Duma Dzierżyński empire exile February forces foreign front Georgian German grain imperial imperial Russia industry internal Izvestia January Jughashvili July Kamenev Kerensky Kornilov Kremlin Krupskaya kulaks leader Left SRs Lenin March mass Menshevik ment Mikhail military million minister Molotov Moscow Nicholas October officials OGPU okhranka organization orgburo Orjonikidze Party Congress peasants People's Commissars percent Petrograd plenum Poland police Polish politburo political Pravda proletariat Provisional Government Red Army regime Republic revoliutsiia revolutionary RGASPI Russian empire Russian Revolution Rykov secret secretary Shakhty Siberia Sochineniia Social Democrats socialist Sokolnikov Soviet Stalin Stolypin Sverdlov telegram Tiflis tion took troops Trotsky Trotsky's tsar tsarist Tsaritsyn Ukraine USSR Voroshilov vote workers wrote Zinoviev