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There is no “socialism with a human face”, as the cliché had it during the Prague Spring, because it already had a human face — and that face was Stalin’s face.
This week’s Alphachat is an interview with Princeton historian Stephen Kotkin about Joseph Stalin.
Kotkin is in the midst of writing a multi-volume biography of the man who defined how communism worked in the real world. The oustanding first volume — Paradoxes of Power — came out three years ago. (Here’s a post we did to give context for this chat, and here’s the FT review.)
We had a chance to talk with Kotkin about Volume 2: Waiting for Hitler, available at the end of this month. (Kotkin thought Halloween would be a “suitably ghoulish” release date.)
The book starts in 1929 and ends on the eve of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in the summer of 1941. Our conversation focused on Soviet economic policy — particularly the forced “collectivisation” of the peasantry — and the purges of 1936-38.
There is an enormous amount of material in this 1000-page epic we didn’t get to discuss, so if you found our conversation interesting you should definitely take the time read the whole book.
Also, be sure to come back on Monday for a post that will cover some of the other interesting material from Volume 2. We’ll publish the full transcript of the chat once it’s available.
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