I've been reading a series of biographies by Stephen Kotkin covering Stalin (he has 2 so far, with the third coming this year), and it is so fucking fascinating. This is one of the most interesting and extraordinary people to ever live. There's a lot of criticism of the historical theory of the "Great Man" determining the course of history, but he really was a singular presence that shifted the events of the 20th century towards a direction with ripples we are still feeling to this day.
Not only was he the most important single person in the 20th century, he's also the most misunderstood. People get that he's a bastard, but they have this completely incorrect view of him. The prevalent belief is that he was evil because he was cynical and power hungry and used the noble ideology of socialism to control people, when the truth was that he believed in his convictions and Marxism so strongly and zealously that he was willing to destroy countless lives to see "heaven brought to Earth".
Just a few highlights on Stalin's life:
1. While it's been exaggerated in recent years, Stalin was a bank robber and a pirate in his early years, gathering money for the revolution and made actual prison escapes. Although, he was more of the guy planning the robberies than actually participating in them as some swashbuckling accounts would have it. Unlike Trotsky's (largely incorrect) account of him, Stalin wasn't so much a brute, but a manipulator. He's a person that got ahead by understanding and using people, not purely with violence.
2. The famines his collectivization policies caused and the entire project of forced collectivization wasn't motivated by a genocidal hatred of Ukrainians or was a Machiavellian play to gain more power. It destabilized his regime and lost him the confidence of many of his closest followers, it was an enormous risk with little practical benefit. It was purely done for ideological reasons and was even more extreme than Lenin who allowed markets in the rural areas to avoid this exact thing. To Stalin, it was anathema to have socialism in the cities and markets in the country side so he upended his own nation and partially caused an enormous famine that killed millions against the wishes of everyone that worked for him.
3. The Great Purge is unbelievable. Historians still don't 100% understand it or how it happened or why. Imagine if Hitler killed 90% of his officer corp, the people that worked for him, wiped out the German elite and sent hundreds of thousands of people into prison camps in a cold tundra. Now imagine if he had the SS do this, and then employed a new generation of SS officers to kill off the guys who were originally doing the killing. It's unbelievable, it could never happen, and yet Stalin did that and as it was happening, German spies actually told Hitler this and even he thought it was insane. No one in modern history has ever excercized dictatorial power like that.
4. There was an incident during Stalin's "alliance" with Hitler where he and the Nazis divided up the land in Poland, and Stalin had his men shoot and kill Nazis off land that contained oil. He then sold that oil back to Hitler in exchange for weapons and technology. At first, the pact was hugely beneficial to Stalin, because it had the "capitalists" fighting each other, and his ambition was for them to turn to socialism when they were brought low and ripe for his influence. He didn't understand fascism and Hitler, he could only see him as a "capitalist and an imperialist", he didn't understand the depth of hatred Hitler held for socialism, Russians, and what he called 'Judeo Bolshevism'. Their eventual conflict is the one that was central to WW2.
Here's an interesting video on him during the WW2 and his war with Hitler.
Long story short: All of this material is ripe for a genuinely riveting drama on the life of this man. Not just because it's so interesting, but also because the general public knows so little about probably the most significant figure of the 20th century.
Not only was he the most important single person in the 20th century, he's also the most misunderstood. People get that he's a bastard, but they have this completely incorrect view of him. The prevalent belief is that he was evil because he was cynical and power hungry and used the noble ideology of socialism to control people, when the truth was that he believed in his convictions and Marxism so strongly and zealously that he was willing to destroy countless lives to see "heaven brought to Earth".
Just a few highlights on Stalin's life:
1. While it's been exaggerated in recent years, Stalin was a bank robber and a pirate in his early years, gathering money for the revolution and made actual prison escapes. Although, he was more of the guy planning the robberies than actually participating in them as some swashbuckling accounts would have it. Unlike Trotsky's (largely incorrect) account of him, Stalin wasn't so much a brute, but a manipulator. He's a person that got ahead by understanding and using people, not purely with violence.
2. The famines his collectivization policies caused and the entire project of forced collectivization wasn't motivated by a genocidal hatred of Ukrainians or was a Machiavellian play to gain more power. It destabilized his regime and lost him the confidence of many of his closest followers, it was an enormous risk with little practical benefit. It was purely done for ideological reasons and was even more extreme than Lenin who allowed markets in the rural areas to avoid this exact thing. To Stalin, it was anathema to have socialism in the cities and markets in the country side so he upended his own nation and partially caused an enormous famine that killed millions against the wishes of everyone that worked for him.
3. The Great Purge is unbelievable. Historians still don't 100% understand it or how it happened or why. Imagine if Hitler killed 90% of his officer corp, the people that worked for him, wiped out the German elite and sent hundreds of thousands of people into prison camps in a cold tundra. Now imagine if he had the SS do this, and then employed a new generation of SS officers to kill off the guys who were originally doing the killing. It's unbelievable, it could never happen, and yet Stalin did that and as it was happening, German spies actually told Hitler this and even he thought it was insane. No one in modern history has ever excercized dictatorial power like that.
4. There was an incident during Stalin's "alliance" with Hitler where he and the Nazis divided up the land in Poland, and Stalin had his men shoot and kill Nazis off land that contained oil. He then sold that oil back to Hitler in exchange for weapons and technology. At first, the pact was hugely beneficial to Stalin, because it had the "capitalists" fighting each other, and his ambition was for them to turn to socialism when they were brought low and ripe for his influence. He didn't understand fascism and Hitler, he could only see him as a "capitalist and an imperialist", he didn't understand the depth of hatred Hitler held for socialism, Russians, and what he called 'Judeo Bolshevism'. Their eventual conflict is the one that was central to WW2.
Here's an interesting video on him during the WW2 and his war with Hitler.
Long story short: All of this material is ripe for a genuinely riveting drama on the life of this man. Not just because it's so interesting, but also because the general public knows so little about probably the most significant figure of the 20th century.
