Stalin-Waiting for Hitler. (Book notes)

 Stalin-Waiting for Hitler. ( 1929 - 1941)

This is the second of Stephen Kotkin's Magnum Opus on Stalin. As with the first one this is of similar length, running around a thousand pages.

Politician, International relations expert, military strategist, no I am not talking about Stalin but Stephen Kotkin who tries to be all of this with his hindsight glasses.

The book starts in the immediate aftermath of the collectivisation. It covers in detail the famine of the 1932-33 period. Killing of almost 3/4 of the livestock by the rich farmers or kulaks, a failure of the crops, a Typhus epidemic and some questionable decisions all contribute to the immense loss of life. He makes it clear it wasn't the Ukranian Holodomor but a Pan Russian famine. 

In the beginning of the first book, Kotkin refers to Stalin by his name Jugashvili or his nickname Koba, after he becomes the leader of the party he becomes the dictator. In this book he became a despot for little reason. 

In one of his book introduction sessions I saw on YouTube Kotkin shared a stage with the eccentric Slavoj Zizek. Kotkin said something to the extent that Stalin became a dictator in the 20s not because he wanted to but he had to, his surroundings made him, he was a product of his place and time. But Zizek promptly raised his middle finger at Kotkin when he said something like Stalin became a despot in the 30s for no reason. 

True to this, Kotkin keeps vilifying Stalin like he took decisions, alone and for no reason. The Japanese are knocking in the east, Hitler had already started with his anti Judeo-Bolshevism rhetoric, europe was swarming with spies it was only natural the USSR was paranoid. The number of arrests and the killings during the 1935-39 period cannot be justified by any yardstick. But we should also not forget that there were genuine fears of a counter revolution which would have been catastrophic for the existence of the USSR in the looming war. 

Stalin and Kirov's relationship is not explored very well especially with the author's suggestion that Kirov's death was the start of the NKVD excesses.

Surprisingly for me Bhukarin's fate did not evoke the same emotion as with Ordzhonikidze's suicide. That may be because from the beginning of the Stalin period, Ordzhonikidze is involved in every major decision of the state, while Bhukarin seems, at least from the book, to have been in the periphery. 

I would also suggest reading 'Another view of Stalin' by Ludo Martens after this book which explores Tukachevsky and Bhukarin in a lot more detail.

The book also breaks the oft repeated myth about Stalin betraying England and France by getting in to a non agression pact with Nazi Germany. 1. Stalin tries hard to bring france and Britain together into an agreement but fails repeatedly. 2. He borrows as much time, military equipment and technology, as possible from Germany with the pact, delaying the war in the process. 

This book is full of very important events of the 20th century and Stalin himself. The famine, The death of his wife Svetlena, the murder of Kirov, the rise of Hitler, the trials of Kaminev, Zinoviev, Tukachevsky, Bhukarin, and others, Poland and finally Hitler's invasion of the USSR itself. 

Throughout it all, Kotkin builds a terrifying image of Stalin who feels no remorse or emotion whether it is for his wife or Ordzhonikidze or Bhukarin. It helps him that the excesses of the 1935-38 period are humungous. He makes him a villainous super human almost entirely responsible for all the bad that the decade brought upon the USSR. Superhuman he clearly was as we see with the amount of work he had to burden.

Stephen Kotkin is a right winger, closely works with the National Endowment for Democracy and he has the agenda to portray Stalin as he should be for the western world a despot. Despite this it is not difficult to see that Stalin was not just a product of his space and time, but also of Lenin, Marx and of mother Russia.