"NYT lauds newest biography of Stalin. " Topic

"Two contrasting pictures emerge from the appraisals of Joseph Stalin written by his revolutionary colleagues and competitors. On the one hand, there was, for example, a fellow Georgian who knew Stalin in his early years as a Bolshevik organizer and who describes "his unquestionably greater energy, indefatigable capacity for hard work, unconquerable lust for power and above all his enormous particularistic organizational talent." On the other, there are the unflattering judgments of his most virulent opponents in the Bolshevik hierarchy, from Leon Trotsky, who thought Stalin the "outstanding mediocrity of our party," to Lev Kamanev, who considered the man who came to preside over the vast expanses of the reconstituted Russian empire "a small-town politician."

For Stephen Kotkin, the John P. Birkelund professor in history and international affairs at Princeton University, it is clearly the first assessment that comes closer to the truth. In "Stalin. Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928," a masterly account that is the first of a projected three-volume study, Kotkin paints a portrait of an autodidact, an astute thinker, "a people person" with "surpassing organizational abilities; a mammoth appetite for work; a strategic mind and an unscrupulousness that recalled his master teacher, Lenin."…

See here
link

Amicalement
Armand

"A people person" is not really the first thing that comes to mind when he's mentioned.

Ruthless, human butcher perhaps…….

Gotta love the spin some try at revisionist history.

Well, the New York Times is lauding it, so…

…Erm, never mind.

Rob

A bit of minor revisionist history here. They must have some really good weed.

Not surprising. I believe it's a Princeton professor who believes you should have the right to abort a child up to the age of two.

DM

Damm, Raul! Now I have bought it!

By the way, when professor Kotkin refers to Stalin as a "people's person" he doesn't mean that Stalin loved people, but he was good at reading them and manipulating them for his own interests.

I'm in agreement basileus66. By "People's person" it is meant demagogue. It was kind of the trend of the time. Italy, Germany and the U.S. also had leaders who were demagogues.

he was good at reading them and manipulating them for his own interests

Exactly. When it came to bending people to his will he was without equal.

Gotta love the spin some try at revisionist history.

Being a butcher and having high amounts of charisma are not mutually exclusive. It's how people like Jim Jones can attract people to cults, or how politicians like Hitler can create a persona and gain power.

So sorry Antonio!. (smile)

Amicalement
Armand

I do not understand the vicious attacks on this book posted here. Anyone read it?

"I do not understand the vicious attacks on this book posted here. Anyone read it?"

Many Americans feel they don't need to know anything to have an opinion on everything.

Sad, but often true.

"Many people</> feel they don't need to know anything to have an opinion on everything."

Fixed that for you.

No idea about the book but my co-workers of Ukrainian and Polish heritage never use the word Russian/Soviet without an "adjective" i front of it even after two generations of being born here. I suspect Stalin's "People (culling) skills" have left vivid or even lurid impressions passed down over time.

High Charisma doesn't lessen the horror of the victims.

"… he was good at reading them and manipulating them for his own interests…" works for both Good and Evil and all of us somewhere in the middle…

Actually, knowing the source of the review is a significant piece of information as to the quality of the book.

Just as a significant number of Europeans might discount the credibility of a report broadcast on Fox News (or a local newspaper of the 'wrong' political slant), Americans of a certain worldview will automatically distrust the opinion of the NYT.

Doesn't make them any less ignorant…

Perhaps, if the author had lead with, "sure, he was responsible for the deaths of 20 – 60 million plus people, from his own country", but, he was also "…an astute thinker, "a people person" with "surpassing organizational abilities; a mammoth appetite for work; a strategic mind….", some people wouldn't take such exception to the article.

Mako11

Since the 90s, historians have researched Soviet' State murderous policies. Dozens of outstanding books have been published. Timothy Snyder's "Bloodlands", Anne Applebaum's Gulag, Karl Schlöger's "Moscow 1937", to mention just a few. You do not need to qualify Stalin as a murderer. Not as a historian, at least. It is not your job to act like an attorney in a courtroom. You do not need to convince a jury of the guilt of the defendant. What you do need, though, is to proportionate an explanation. Or several, actually. You need to explain how it was possible that a person was able to control and dominate the repressive apparatus of a State which, in theory, was based on a collegiate power. You need to explain how that person manipulated the system to transform it into a individually based dictatorship.

Truth be told, I feel uncomfortable with those historians that try to remind me that genocide or mass murder are the action of "ruthless" "murderous" individuals. I feel like they don't trust my own moral compass and that they have the need to remind me those actions were perverse. Do you really need to be said that mass murder is morally wrong? Wouldn't you prefer to be treated like an intelligent reader capable of reaching that conclusion without the author telling you that you need to feel horror and disgust?

If Pravda, er, the NYT likes a book on Stalin, why am I not the least bit surprised?

Pretty simple really, basileus66.

Just kill, threaten, or incarcerate anyone, and their families that opposes you, and/or that you even suspect might be considering opposing you. After the first few 100,000, or million examples, people take notice.

The rest will fall all over themselves to get in line.

My point is that the article writer puts all this glowing stuff in it, and many people today can't even tell you who is in charge of their current government, so they probably have no idea about Stalin's horrific past.

I guess the socialists/communists need their heroes too, so they tend to gloss over "minor issues" of mass murder, with Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, etc.

so they probably have no idea about Stalin's horrific past.

I'm pretty sure that (1) most people know about Stalin, (2) the handful of people who don't know about him probably do not read New York Times and most likely do not read academic history, and (3) an academic historian doesn't need to waste time rehashing information his target audience already knows, and a book reviewer writing for a printed newspaper has space limitations and cannot add in footnotes with already known information. You do know that the linked article is a book review written by an academic historian about a book written by an academic historian, right? Not the actual book? And printed newspapers have to keep character and word limits in order to fit other articles and ads. They cannot just toss in information irrelevant to a book review just to suit your desires.

Mako11

Rebelyell has beat me to the answer. His points are valid. I would add that without reading the book -a 900+ biography, covering the years before Stalin controlled all resorts of power in the USSR- and basing your opinion just in a short review, you are reaching conclusions a little too far fetched. I have ordered it from Amazon (will receive it in January 7th) and once I read it, I will post a review here and tell you if you are right and professor Kotkin has written a hero-worship biography or not.

saying the NYT is the equivalent of Pravda says way more about the poster than the NYT.

Yep.

Rather the same as with saying that the NYT is a credible source…

Don't underestimate evil people just because they are evil people. It is best to understand exactly what you are up against.

B

"There once was an evil man. He did evil things. The end".

11/10, would not be educated again.

"Rather the same as with saying that the NYT is a credible source"

I'm going to guess you get your news from talk radio.