![]() ![]() The product of a decade of scrupulous and intrepid research, Stalin contains a host of astonishing revelations. Remarkably, Stephen Kotkin’s epic new biography shows us how much we still have to learn. Where did such power come from? We think we know the story well. Millions will die, and many more will suffer, but Stalin will push through to the end against all resistance and doubts. To stand up to the capitalists he will force into being an industrialized, militarized, collectivized great power is an act of will. Shortly after seizing total power, Stalin conceives of the largest program of social reengineering ever attempted: the root-and-branch uprooting and collectivization of agriculture and industry across the entire Soviet Union. But the largest country in the world is also a poor and backward one, far behind the great capitalist countries in industrial and military power, encircled on all sides. ![]() When the old world is unexpectedly brought down in a total war, the band seizes control of the country, and the new regime it founds as the vanguard of a new world order is ruthlessly dominated from within by the former seminarian until he stands as the absolute ruler of a vast and terrible state apparatus, with dominion over Eurasia. 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 revolutionary and finds a leadership role within a small group of marginal zealots. ![]() ![]() A magnificent new biography that revolutionizes our understanding of Stalin and his world ![]()
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