Stephen Kotkin, "Stalin: Volume I" 

Kotkin is my new addiction. Love listening to him lecture.

He wears his considerable knowledge lightly and is a riveting speaker.

He's a lot more funny and charming than I would have expected. I really really like the way he speaks

A.J.P. Taylor (the great British historian) wrote that "the best history is when the reader turns the pages wanting to know what happens next". Stephen Kotkin easily meets that criteria. (UK)

he's got a good sense of humor, refreshing to see in this type of lecture

Absolutely remarkable. Without doubt, Stephen Kotkin is one the great historians of our, perhaps all, times because of his devotion to archival sources, his resistance to second hand information, and therefore his determination to analyze history from all sides and come forward to wherever the truth, as he knows it at that moment, may lead. Thank you for making this talk, and many others, available on You Tube.

This guy's hilarious. I don't know how his students listen to his lectures without cracking up.

Its not just a monumental work, but certainly a candidate for the best biography ever written and we are only now at volume 2. He brilliantly contextualises Stalin, acknowledging his achievements and his frightening brutality. Waiting for volume 3 is like waiting for the next season of Game of Thrones. It's utterly enthralling.

Kotkin knows his stuff. He also does the best Joe Pesci impression this side of Jim Bruer.

I think of Breaking Bad in connection with Stalin. Was Walter White always fated to become a mendacious, power mad killer? There are hints throughout the show that he had a difficult childhood, that he holds deep resentments against certain people from his early life, but in the end that was not the explanation. It was the business of creating and sustaining a meth empire that made it necessary to rule with an iron fist, to manipulate people, to be ruthless, to eliminate any obstacles in the way. So it is, at Kotkin says, with Stalin. It wasn’t the beatings he received from his father or any other singular episode that set him on the path to becoming a murderous tyrant. It was the circumstances involved in running a regime, a dictatorship, a communist revolution in Russia of the early twentieth century, that brought it out of him.

Very good stuff. A lot of background & context on important history.

"Mao basically spits in Khrushchev's face". Professor Kotkin

He keeps telling the audience what it doesn't really want to hear about Stalin. It's amazing.

Prof. Kotkin is not only a great author. He's the best expert on Stalin. besides that, as seen here, he's a versatile guy with humour. We are very lucky to have him. He's world class. He is a giant amongst men.

This is such a great lecture series, I've watched it several times. As many have said, I love Kotkin's humor and insights.

I heard a scholar say once, with regards to Saddam Hussein, "Is Iraq the way it is because of Saddam, or is Saddam the way he is because of Iraq?" I think one could ask the same thing about Russia and Stalin.

This video introduced me to Kotkin. Thank you P&P!

Imagine, getting into a NYC taxi-cab and have the driver start talking like this? The only response: Take me to L.A.

I have just discovered Professor Kotkin, wonderful! My new favorite.

Thank You

Definitely adding these books to my wish list.

fascinating presentation

This is a great historian. (UK)

I REALLY want a round table at the Hoover Institute, moderated by Peter Robinson of course, with him, Dikotter, VDH, and Naimark!!!!

that was awesome

Kotkin is amazing! I’m not in his league but as a person takes a subject and just studies the heck out of it, such as he has done, so many insights become available. Kotkin does it over and over; the true fruits of scholarship. I’ve watched this several times and have started reading his first volume on Stalin. It’s a lot of fun!

His second volume is now available. Great reflective and eloquent intellect.

Kotkin is brilliant in simplifying the complex phenomenon of WW2, cold war, totalitarian USSR, and a gold standard portrait and power of dictator Joseph Stalin.

The greatest historian and one of the most important scientists of our time. No less, Maybe more. Kotkin is a Voice of critical reason THAT remins U.S. ALL THAT ALL american arent hating Russia.

I just noticed what "wrap your head around" means literally and I'm shocked

He never misses a stroke. Unlike most, he has done the hard work and it shows. Read his two volumes on Stalin and you will understand from the beginning it is serious and no funny business.

I need to read these books...asap

Stalin, for all his ends justifying the means, in his drive for eventual communism, and his clear sociopathy, had to have felt his sins crawling on his back. If not the sins on his back, the feeling that no one really trusted him. He held life and death power in his hands, and showed that he didn't care if that power slipped and others paid the price. Everyone had to know the cost collectivization took. No one was left unscathed. 60 - 80% of the Soviet Union starved to death or near death. Kotkin in part 2 argues that the terror was used to break his inner circle, reduce them to minions. It drove one to suicide at least. Was it that Stalin saw the breaking power of the famine, an unintended side effect of collectivization, and seek to purposefully put the boot down? Stomp on a neck long enough, you're thanked for eventually letting them breathe. I think the Terror was a deliberate act to enslave Eurasia once and for all, a lesson Stalin learned from his experiments with his power. In the book as well, Stalin, as recorded by his daughter's nanny, spoke at least twice on the 'need of a Tsar' in Russia. Stalin, in the state atheist Soviet Union, could not rule by the divine right of kings, but could forge his own divinity through lead and leather. Who can argue with the man who can, and probably will, have your whole village deported to concentration camps in Siberia for being Kulak henchmen? And do it by the stroke of not a pen, but a simple colored pencil.

wow SK is so very good a genius at writing and presenting. At first I thought his voice was hard to listen to but soon i could not stop listening to him. a truly amazing historian that should be in Bidnes cabinet or at least on Biden's speed dial

I love your bookstore!

LOVE YOU ❤

Thank you for posting this presentation. I have just discovered Dr Kotkin, thanks to the Hoover Institution channel, but was looking for a talk on the early part of Stalin's life. I really enjoyed how much time was set aside for questions, and especially how Dr Kotkin addressed the young audience member who believes that Stalin's aims and projects were merely about "social control", but don't represent "real communism". Amazing how long the dream of the perfect society persists, even in those far too young to remember the terrifying realities of the USSR.

Great lecture. Thank you Professor Kotkin.

Yea, dude rocks

So important to have a book based on actual documents.

Great presentation - thanks.

Kotkin is the Master Source for anything Stalin related!

Only 177k views?! And I've watched this one 150k times myself. ❤

would have liked to have been in his classes when he was teaching

I've got goosebumps from kotkins talk!

44:10 and now, a question from Microsoft Sam

Here on RU-vid I've watched Stephen Kotkin give about ten different versions of these presentations about his books and they're always great. 36:45 This guy has been in attendance for almost all of them and he always asks questions. Surely Kotkin must recognize him each time, I wonder why he doesn't address it? Does anyone know who he is?

So great to hear a smart guy dismantle the 'he had a difficult childhood' line. It's usually lazy thinking even to explain normal people. To explain exceptional people, it's just embarrassing.

To be great, one has to be obsessed and passionate .

Thank you very much for your dedications to history of the world and the political processes or styles of influence and rules. Your talks have taught me so much. I like to hear your opinion on “ can American resist the lure of totalitarian style governing now that it has the technical capacity to rule it’s people, namely AI and mass surveillance apparatus

Amazing lecture.

I'm laughing at all his jokes and the audience looks like they are there and against their will and they find him insufferable.

Great insight

Joe pesci's younger brother made the right choice leaving the mob to start giving lectures about stalin.

I hope this is good

This is great

lol ! I have the Rodin book that is over his right shoulder.

I wonder what or who caused Stalin to turn away from serving God in his youth to becoming a revolutionary for 20 years before 1917. Stalin is a fascinating villain. Kotkin's best work.

Stephen Kotkin is amazing. Finally nuance applied to Soviet Union.

The book is very readable. I’m enjoying it!

I went right into the second volume in early Dec. 2019. Will hit that first volume. But this second volume is fascinating. I was a bit disappointed in the collectivization in that the author didn't really portray the horror from the peasant view, but my goodness, when he gets into the Great Terror, the book is mesmerizing. Stalin would invite the next high official to be arrested and executed, often handing him a high medal, a new dacha and share a fantastic meal, together with the officials who had followed Stalin's orders to build a case against him. Just getting into the third part of the Hitler-Stalin duet. The detail is intense but wonderful. Get these books if Russian history or the evil of Stalin fascinate you.

Gran escritor!!!!🤝❤🖤❤

I now see Stalin in four dimensions

His knowledge base is amazing!!!!

10:30 The environment shapes the person.

Joe pesci suddenly knows about russia

Sad that such lectures do not attract young people

Totally, same with Montefiore and Brent. They all agree these Soviet monsters were not madmen but total loyalists to the cause to monopoly of the Soviet state.

Tough crowd

My grandad fought in the Spanish civil war and apparently the Russian equipment was faulty AF. Most of the guns didn’t fire, so if that’s “top” Russian technology then what does their average stuff looks like.

PLEASE CONSULT WITH MR. GERALD HOME

Hola !!! 🕵️‍♂️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🏃‍♀️🙋‍♂️🙋‍♀️🙆‍♀️🙍‍♀️

Impressive man

Very impressive for Stalin push to collective farm.That’s the same as Peter the Great built the Petersburg

Some consider trying to explain an evil person as being an apologist for him. Kotkin, however, calls collectivization the great crime with millions of deaths. Also, this is the first volume. From what I've heard Kotkin say, he does not credit Stalin with any ideological purpose in the terror of the 1930s, which is in the next book.

I always love when amateurs in the audience believe they know more than the historian. I'm not saying historians infallible. But it's absurd to be so close minded

It wasn't a personal dictatorship. It was, at least in the minds of the communists, a 'dictatorship of the proletariat'. Which come from Marx.

🏃‍♀️Soviet Unión.. Un cariño a EEUU y a este escritor tan respetuoso.

Finally a professor that *KNOWS* the truth about communism .

27:47 "What they do say, however, is 'We can't do it. We can't win. We can't succeed. We'll ruin everything. We'll destroy everything...'" "so Stalin does it anyway..."

at 47:10 that was pretty funny.

"...Are we done?" -- great ending 🤣 Listen, the guy has shit to do, get out of his way.

You sure Menzhinsky wasnt Felix Dzherzhinsky?

Joe Pesci has become a professor? Great talk!

Kotkin is great

Joe Pesci is my favorite historian

5:55 agree with the opinion of the author who has studied the issue for many years

He's got a Slavic accent.He is not originally from US

Amazing, Joe Pesci is talking over an hour and not even one swearing.

Finish volume 3!!!

If Joe Pesci became an academic 😂

This was not germany, it EU vs ussr and EU got hammered in the war. EU population is four times the russian population.

Stalin was only Stalin because civilians did without asking questions. Same for Hitler. Neither would have been either without the participation of the people.

I absorb every of his words. But half of the audience looks like have been dragged by the other half to this lecture.

Forgot about Stalin being a poet and his poems being published in Georgian ABCs to this day, and about his personal library in Kremlin consisting of 50,000 volumes

If I had teachers like this at the university I would have been phi beta kappa

Stalin learn how to develop informants in the Eastern orthodox Seminary

Now that is a high pitched voice

🏃‍♀️❤🖤❤

Bottom line:stalin was the demand of that time