Kind: captions
Language: en
first of all you've described a
fascinating thought which is Stalin as
having amassed arguably more power than
any man in history she's an interesting
thing to think about but can you tell
about his journey to getting that power
after the Russian Revolution how does
that perhaps echo to the our current
discussion about institutions and so on
and just in general the story I think is
fascinating of how one man is able to
get more power than any other man in
history it is a great story not
necessarily from a moral point of view
but if you're interested in power for
sure it's an incredible story so we have
to remember that Stalin is also a
product of circumstances not solely his
own individual Drive which is very
strong but for example World War one
breaks the Czarist regime the Czarist
order Imperial Russia in the state
Stalin has no participation whatsoever
in World War one he spends World War one
in exile in Siberia until the downfall
of the Czarist autocracy in February
1917 Stalin is in eastern Siberian exile
he's only able to leave eastern Siberia
when that regime Falls he never fights
in the war he's called up briefly
towards the end of the war and is
disqualified on physical grounds because
of physical deformities from being
drafted the war continues after the
Czar's regime has been toppled in the
capital and there's been a revolution
the war continues and that war is very
radicalizing the peasants begin to seize
the land after the Czar Falls
essentially destroying much of the
gentry class Stalin has nothing to do
with that the peasants have their own
revolution seizing the land not in law
but in fact de facto not desert land
ownership so there are these really
large processes underway that Stalin is
alive during but not a driver of the
most improbable thing happens which is a
very small group of people around the
the figure of Lady melanin announces
that had in a seized power now by this
time in October 1917 the government that
has replaced the Tsar the so-called
provisional government has failed and so
there's not so much power to seize from
the provisional government
what Lenin does is he does a coup on the
left that is to say Soviets or councils
as we would call them in English which
represent people's power or the masses
participating in politics a kind of
radical grassroots democracy are
extremely popular all over the country
and not dominated by any one group but
predominantly socialist or predominantly
leftist Russia has an election during
the war a free and fair election for the
most part despite the war at the end of
1917 in December 1917 and 3/4 plus of
the country votes socialists in some
form or another so the battle was over
the definition of socialism and who had
the right to participate in defining
socialism not only what it would be but
who had the right to decide so there's a
coup by Lenin's group known as the
Bolsheviks against all the other
socialists and so Lenin declares a
seizure of power whereby the old
government has failed people's power the
council's known as the Soviets are going
to take their place and Lenin seizes
power in the name of the Soviet so it's
a coup against the left against the rest
of the left not against the provision
government that has replaced the Tsar
which has already failed and so Stalin
is able to come to power along with
Lenin in this crazy seizure of power on
the left against the rest of the left in
October 1917 which we know is the
October Revolution and I call the
October coup as many other historians
call the October Revolution happened
after the seizure of power what's
interesting about this episode is that
the leftists who seized power in the
name of the Soviets in the name of the
masses in the name of people's power
they retain their hold many times in
history there's a seizure of power by
the left and they fail they collapse
they're cleaned out by an army or what
we call forces of order by
counter-revolutionary forces Lenin's
Revolution Lenin's coup is successful it
is able to hold power and not just seize
power they win a civil war and they're
entrenched in the heart of the country
already by 1921 Stalin is part of that
group
Lenin needs somebody to run this new
regime in the kind of nitty-gritty way
Lenin is the leader the undisputed
leader in the Bolshevik Party which
changes their name to communists in 1918
he makes Stalin the General Secretary of
the Communist Party he creates a new
position which hadn't existed before a
kind of day-to-day political manager a
right-hand man not because Lenin is
looking to replace himself he's looking
to institutionalize a helpmate a
right-hand man he does this in the
spring of 1920 to stall and his name to
this position which Lenin has created
expressly for Stalin so there's been a
coup on the Left where by the Bolsheviks
who become communists have seized power
against the rest of the socialists and
the Anna
guests and the entire left and then
there's an institutionalization of a
position known as General Secretary of
the Communist Party right-hand man of
Lenin less than six weeks after Lenin
has created this position and installed
Stalin Lenin has a stroke and a major
stroke and never really returns as a
full actor to power before he dies of a
fourth stroke in January 1924 so a
position is created for Stalin to run
things on Lenin's behalf and then Lenin
has a stroke and so Stalin now has this
new position general-secretary but he's
the right hand of a person who's no
longer exercising day-to-day control
over affairs Stalin then uses this new
position to create a personal
dictatorship inside the Bolshevik
dictatorship which is the remarkable
story I tried to tell so is there
anything nefarious about any of what you
just described
it seems conveniently that the position
is created just for Stalin there was a
few other brilliant people arguably more
brilliant installing in the vicinity of
Lenin why was Stalin chosen why did
Lenin all of a sudden fall ill as
perhaps a conspiratorial question but is
there anything nefarious about any of
this historical trajectory to power that
Stalin took in creating the personal
dictatorship so history is full of
contingency and surprise after something
happens we all think it's inevitable it
had to happen that way everything was
leading up to it so Hitler seizes power
in Germany in 1933 and the Nazi regime
gets institutionalized by several of his
moves after being named Chancellor and
so all German history becomes a story of
the Nazi rise to power Hitler's rise to
power every trend tendency is bent into
that outcome things which don't seem
related to that outcome all of a sudden
get bent in that direction and all the
trends that were going on are no longer
examined because they didn't lead to
that outcome but Hitler's becoming
Chancellor of Germany in 1933 was not
inevitable it was contingent he was
offered the position by the traditional
conservatives he's part of the radical
right and the traditional right named
him Chancellor the Nazi Party never
outright won an election that was free
and fair before Hitler came to power and
in fact it's votes on the eve of Hitler
becoming Chancellor declined relative to
the previous election so there's
contingency in history and so Lenin's
illness his stroke the neurological and
blood problems that he had were not a
structure in history in other words if
Lenin had been a healthier figure Stalin
might never have become the Stalin that
we know that's not to say that all
history is accidental just that we need
to relate the structural the larger
structural factors to the contingent
factors why did Lenin pick Stalin Stalin
was a very effective organizer and the
position was an organizational position
Stalin could get things done he would
carry out assignments no matter how
difficult he wouldn't complain that it
was hard work or too much work he
wouldn't go off womanizing and drinking
and ignore his responsibilities Lenin
chose Stalin among other options because
he thought Stalin was the better option
once again he wasn't choosing his
successor because he didn't know he was
gonna have this stroke Lenin had some
serious illnesses but he had never had a
major stroke before so the choice was
made based upon Stalin's organizational
skills and promise
against the others for in the regime now
they can see more brilliant than Stalin
but he was more effective and I'm not
sure they were very brilliant well he
was exceptionally competent actually at
the tasks for running a governor of the
executive branch rate of a dictator yes
he turned out to be very adept at being
a dictator yes and so if he had been
chosen by Lenin and had not been very
good he would have been pushed aside by
others you can get a position by
accident you can be named because you're
someone's friend or someone's relative
but to hold that position to hold that
position in difficult circumstances and
then to build effectively a superpower
on all that bloodshed all right you have
to be skilled in some way you can't be
just the accident that brings you to
power because if accident brings you to
power it won't last
just like we discovered with Putin he
had some qualities that we didn't
foresee at the beginning and he's been
able to hold power not just be named and
now Putin and Stalin are very different
people these are very different regimes
I wouldn't put them in the same sentence
my point is not that one resembles the
other my point is that when people come
to power for contingent reasons they
don't stay in power unless they're able
to manage it and Stalin was able to
build a personal dictatorship inside
that dictatorship he was cunning he was
ruthless and he was a workaholic he was
very diligent he had a phenomenal memory
and so he could remember people's names
and faces and events and this was very
advantageous for him as he built the
machine that became the Soviet state and
bureaucracy one of the things maybe you
can correct me if I'm wrong with you've
made me realize is this wasn't some kind
of manipulative personality trying to
gain more power
soli like kind of an evil picture of a
person but he truly believed in
communism the the you know as far as I
can understand again you can correct me
if I'm wrong but he wanted to build a
better world by building by having
infusing communism in debt into into the
country and perhaps into the the whole
world so maybe my question is what role
does communism as an idea as an ideology
play in all of this in his rise to power
and the people of the time in the
Russian people actually just the whole
20th century you're right Stalin was a
true believer and this is very important
he was also hungry for power and for
personal power but just as you said not
for powers sake not only for power he
was interested in enacting communism in
reality and also in building a powerful
state he was a statist a traditional
Russian statist in the Imperial sense
and this won him a lot of followers the
fact that they knew he was a hardcore
true believing communist won him a lot
of followers among the communists and
the fact that he was a hardcore defender
of Russian state interests now in the
Soviet guys also won him a lot of
followers
sometimes those groups overlapped the
Communists and the Russian Patriots and
sometimes they were completely different
groups but both of them shared an
admiration for Stalin's dedication
through those goals and his abilities to
enact them and so it's very important to
understand that however thirsty he was
for power and he was very thirsty for
power that he was also driven by ideals
now I don't necessarily think that
everyone around Stalin shared those
ideals we have to be careful not to make
everybody into a communist
believer not to make everybody into a
great status Russian Patriot but they
were widespread and powerful attractions
for a lot of people and so Stalin's
ability to communicate to people those
that he was dedicated to those pursuits
and his ability to drive towards them
were part of his appeal however he also
resorted to manipulation
he also resorted to violence he lied he
spoke out of all sides of his mouth he
slandered other people he sabotaged
potential rivals he used every
underhanded method and then some in
order to build his personal dictatorship
now he justified this as you said by
appeals to communism and to Soviet
father himself as well too to himself
and to others and so he justified it in
his own mind and to others but certainly
any means right were were acceptable to
him to achieve these ends and he
identified his personal power with
communism and with Russian glory in the
world so he felt that he was the only
one who could be trusted who could be
relied upon to build these things now we
put ourselves back in that time period
the Great Depression was a very
difficult time for the capitalist system
there was mass unemployment a lot of
hardship fascism Nazism Japan in period
J pan there were a lot of associations
that were negative with the kind of
capitalist system that was not a hundred
percent not a monolith but had a lot of
authoritarian incarnations there was
imperialism colonies that even the
democratic rule of law capitalist states
had non democratic non rule of law
colonies under their rule
so the image and reality of capitalism
during that time period between World
War one and World War two was very
different from how it would become later
and so in that time period in that
interwar conjuncture after World War one
before World War two communism held some
appeal inside the Soviet Union for sure
but even outside the Soviet Union
because the image and reality of
capitalism disappointed many people now
in the end communism was significantly
worse many more victims and the system
of course would eventually implode but
nonetheless there were real problems
that communism tried to address it
didn't solve those problems it was not a
solution but it didn't come out of
nowhere it came out of the context of
that inner war period and so Stalin's
rule some people saw it as potentially a
better option than imperialism fascism
and Great Depression having said that
they were wrong it turned out that
Stalin wasn't a better alternative to
markets and private property and rule of
law and democracy however that didn't
become clearer to people until after
World War two after Nazism had been
defeated Imperial Japan had been
defeated a fascist Italy had been
defeated and decolonization had happened
around the world and there was a
middle-class economic boom in the period
from the late 40s through the 70s that
created a kind of mass middle class in
many societies so capitalism rose from
the ashes as it were and this changed
the game for Stalin and communism
communism is about an alternative to
capitalism and if that alternative is
not superior there's no reason for
communism to exist but if capitalism is
in foul odor if people have a bad
opinion
a strong critique of capitalism that can
be appealed to alternatives and that's
kind of what happened with Stalin's rule
but after World War two the context
changed a lot capitalism was very
different much more successful not a
non-violence compared to what it was in
the interwar period and the Soviet Union
had a tough time competing against that
new context
you