"Monumental." -The New York Times Book Review Pulitzer
Prize-finalist Stephen Kotkin has written the definitive biography
of Joseph Stalin, from collectivization and the Great Terror to the
conflict with Hitler's Germany that is the signal event of modern
world history In 1929, Joseph Stalin, having already achieved
dictatorial power over the vast Soviet Empire, formally ordered the
systematic conversion of the world's largest peasant economy into
"socialist modernity," otherwise known as collectivization,
regardless of the cost. What it cost, and what Stalin ruthlessly
enacted, transformed the country and its ruler in profound and
enduring ways. Building and running a dictatorship, with life and
death power over hundreds of millions, made Stalin into the uncanny
figure he became. Stephen Kotkin's Stalin: Waiting for Hitler,
1929-1941 is the story of how a political system forged an
unparalleled personality and vice versa. The wholesale
collectivization of some 120 million peasants necessitated levels
of coercion that were extreme even for Russia, and the resulting
mass starvation elicited criticism inside the party even from those
Communists committed to the eradication of capitalism. But Stalin
did not flinch. By 1934, when the Soviet Union had stabilized and
socialism had been implanted in the countryside, praise for his
stunning anti-capitalist success came from all quarters. Stalin,
however, never forgave and never forgot, with shocking consequences
as he strove to consolidate the state with a brand new elite of
young strivers like himself. Stalin's obsessions drove him to
execute nearly a million people, including the military leadership,
diplomatic and intelligence officials, and innumerable leading
lights in culture. While Stalin revived a great power, building a
formidable industrialized military, the Soviet Union was
effectively alone and surrounded by perceived enemies. The quest
for security would bring Soviet Communism to a shocking and
improbable pact with Nazi Germany. But that bargain would not
unfold as envisioned. The lives of Stalin and Hitler, and the fates
of their respective dictatorships, drew ever closer to collision,
as the world hung in the balance. Stalin: Waiting for Hitler,
1929-1941 is a history of the world during the build-up to its most
fateful hour, from the vantage point of Stalin's seat of power. It
is a landmark achievement in the annals of historical scholarship,
and in the art of biography.
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