Title: Stalin
Description: In his biography of Stalin, Kotkin rejects the inherited wisdom about Stalin's psychological makeup, showing us instead how Stalin's near paranoia was fundamentally political and closely tracks the Bolshevik revolution's structural paranoia, the predicament of a Communist regime in an overwhelmingly capitalist world, surrounded and penetrated by enemies. At the same time, Kotkin posits the impossibility of understanding Stalin's momentous decisions outside of the context of the history of imperial Russia.--
Subjects: Politics and government, Political culture, Psychology, Biography, Heads of state, Dictators, History
Places: Soviet Union
People: Joseph Stalin (1878-1953)
Time periods: 1917-1936, 1925-1953, 1936-1953