Waiting for Hitler was widely reviewed in notable academic journals. Kotkin’s Stalin is shrewd and crafty, but sometimes too crafty for his own good. The complicity of Stalin's inner circle and their intimate involvement in forming this policy and carrying out its implementation are made clear, as is their knowledge of its consequences in the countryside. [1] Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 was originally published in October 2017 by Penguin Random House (Hardcover and Kindle), and as an audiobook in December 2017 by Recorded Books, and was reprinted as a paperback by Penguin in November 2018. The second volume, Stalin… II: Waiting for Hitler 1928–1941, Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 by Stephen Kotkin, Stalin’s Ism: A review of Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941 by Stephen Kotkin, Stalin, Vol. Stalin, Vol. See the book at Amazon.com. https://www.audible.com/pd/Stalin-Volume-I-Audiobook/B00QJEQ09Q In a review of Paradoxes of Power, the Guardian states "It feels not so much like a biography of the man as a biography of the world in his lifetime. Kotkin describes what motivated Stalin to make the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Hitler and the consequences of his decision. Cynical about everyone else’s motives, he himself ‘lived and breathed ideals’. Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 is the story of how a political system forged an unparalleled personality and vice versa. Stalin killed more communists and did more to undermine the international communist movement than Adolf Hitler did. Later, Suny states "The Stalin that Kotkin presents was a strategic thinker, both realistic to the point of cynicism and ideological to a fault", highlighting one more of the many paradoxes of power Kotkin explores. "[11], The Great Purges are covered in all their horror and the author provides a detailed account of how Stalin was responsible for their initiation and course and that his inner circle were accomplices, sometimes willing and sometimes due to self-preservation. What made Stalin capable of such cruelty, and how did he manage to accumulate the power to practice it? In this half Stalin emerges from the background and his role in the revolution and his rise to power with the paradoxes that accompanied it are the focus. Stalinism was, in this way, as much enabled from below as imposed from above. Stephen Kotkin’s Stalin: ... its focus constantly shifting from the tiniest personal details to the grand sweep of international strategy. David Brandenberger writes, "According to Kotkin, Stalin was the paradoxical embodiment of the Bolshevik Revolution: an upstart driven by a fusion of Leninist vanguardism, political realism, and bureaucratic savvy. Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 is the first volume of an extensive three-volume biography of Joseph Stalin by American historian and Princeton Professor of History Stephen Kotkin.Originally published in November 2014 by Penguin Random House: Hardcover (ISBN 978-1594203794) and Kindle and as an audiobook in December 2014 by Recorded Books. Paradoxes of Power can be viewed as having two halves: the first half where the world Stalin developed in is explored, the state of Russian society, the Russo Japanese war, World War I, and other forces changing Russia. He directs Princeton's Institute for International and Regional Studies and co-directs its Program in the History and Practice of Diplomacy. [9], Transitioning into the second half of the work, which is more biographical, but still fundamentally more history than biography, Kotkin provides the reader with a view of how Stalin both worked within and transformed the Bolshevik party after the October Revolution and mastered the regime’s ever evolving power structures. The Independent writes in its review, Kotkin's biography "tends to history rather than biography. "[6], In the first part of the volume, Kotkin explores the world that Ioseb Jugashvili developed in and details how this world was the primary force that transformed him into the person of Joseph Stalin. Stalin's personal life, family, and education receive only the minimal attention needed to place him in the world Kotkin describes. 1 by Stephen Kotkin", "Book Review: Persecution Complex, Stalin: Paradoxes of Power", "Review: A Georgian Caliban. After Hitler refused to withdraw them, Stalin dispatched the Red Army to … [6][7] Mark Atwood Lawrence quotes directly from Kotkin, "The dictator believed, Kotkin contends, that the world’s most powerful countries "achieved and maintained their great-power status by mastery of a set of modern attributes: mass production, mass consumption, mass culture, mass politics. The man whom Trotsky once foolishly (and inaccurately) named ‘the most blatant mediocrity on the Central Committee’ did annihilate all his rivals. Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 is the first volume of an extensive three-volume biography of Joseph Stalin by American historian and Princeton Professor of History Stephen Kotkin. In his introductory chapter, he makes the lofty assertion that a life of Stalin … Vol. Kotkin’s project is the War and Peace of history: a book you fear you will never finish, but just cannot put down. 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. Suspicious of ‘fancy-pants intellectuals’, he was an omnivorous reader whose success in getting the Russian creative intelligentsia into line was ‘uncanny’. In part two, Stephen Kotkin, author of Stalin: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941, discusses the relationship between Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler leading up to and throughout World War II. He is also a fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University. [11][12] He shows Stalin to be a true student of Lenin method of leadership: an uncompromising class warrior with a complete lack of willingness to compromise with resolute ideological conviction. Stalin Professor Stephen Kotkin continued his multi-volume biography of Joseph Stalin, with a focus on Stalin’s leadership of the Soviet Union in the years leading up to World War II. The work is both a political biography recounting Stalin's life in the context of his involvement in Russian and later Soviet history and to a lesser degree a personal biography, detailing his private life, connecting it to his public life as revolutionary, leader, and dictator. Kotkin describes what motivated Stalin to make the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact with Hitler and the consequences of his decision. Maps. Inclined to paranoia, he was still able to keep it under control. Review of Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878–1928 and Stalin: Waiting for Hitler: 1929–1941, by Stephen Kotkin Kotkin’s Stalin was supremely capable, while at the same time firmly rooted in the Bolshevik ideological experience, a depiction that avoids the mistake made by many of the general secretary’s would-be biographers who portray him as standing somehow outside of his historical place and time. Two of the more personal episodes Kotkin covers are the deaths of his wife Nadezhda Alliluyeva in 1932 and his best friend Sergei Kirov in 1934, both events which had a major psychological impact on Stalin. Agent: Andrew Wylie, Wylie Agency. However, the author does not fail to connect these events to the larger political world of the Soviet Union and specifically the intraparty conflicts and the final purges of the Old Bolsheviks that would follow. This first volume details Stalin's life from his birth through his rise to power within the Bolshevik party in 1928. . It is the night of Saturday, June 21, 1941. [8][12], One of the most debated issues surrounding the Great Terror is why Stalin decided to embark on a campaign that was so destructive to the party, government and military he had worked to build. "[3], Addressing the veiled comparison between Hitler and Stalin, an unspoken theme that runs through the book until it bursts into the open at the third section of the book,[3] Vladimir Tismaneanu writes, "This book is not only about Stalin and his rivals within the Bolshevik elite and neither is it limited to the impact of international crises on Stalin's choices. "[4] In writing about how Stalin's development and the development of the early Soviet Union were inextricably linked, Gary Saul Morson writes, "How was all this carnage possible? II: Waiting for Hitler, 1929–1941 by Stephen Kotkin. When the band seizes control of the country in the … 1184 pp., October 31, 2017, Penguin Random House, 1st hardcover edition; 49 hrs and 44 mins, Recorded Books audio edition. 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