Why Does Joseph Stalin Matter? 

If I close my eyes , I can imagine that Joe Pesci is an Historical Genius.

“Political crimes for speaking the truth”.....sounds familiar.

This guy would need a 10 hour interview.

Greetings from Quito, Ecuador. I will never stop being amazed by the supreme interviewing gifts of Peter Robinson. Lean, well informed, and above all, lets us live the wealth of his fantastic guests.

Kotkin's perfect delivery of his responses are disconcerting - not because of the content, but because of his lack of mistakes, ums, ahs, and inconsistent cadence. I think he self-corrected exactly one time. This dude is a machine. He's the academic Terminator. You know he's reading the back side of his retina.

We heard about Hitler all the time, but not so much about Stalin, in school.

His two books on Stalin are the most exhaustive yet engrossing biographies I've ever read, they're truly amazing.

Peter must be quite happy at how many young people these days are interested in this kind of content. Great stuff.

I'm amazed that in this day and age, when long format theatrical documentaries are so popular, that no one has made a multi-part movie explaining what happened in Russia much in the same manner as Band of Brothers and From the Earth to the Moon.

Joe Pesci is my favorite Stalin scholar.

Beautiful talk. I also love the talking pace of the guest.

Very interesting stuff. Do they even teach this in school anymore? I suspect the answer is no.

I once asked a man whom I knew was an intelligen fellow and a historian what would he most like in life... "To remember everything I read" he said. Wise man I thought!

This is such a great explanation of a type of political thinking that is extremely dangerous and I wish more people knew about this history. It is so fascinating, I don’t know why people don’t study it more

When Stephen Kotkin speaks, a wise man shuts up

Why do I matter? You're going to Siberia

This is amazing. Was he crying at some point? 20:30 Robinson appeared to pick something up. This guy speaks with emotion. I can listen to him for days

this should have 500,000,000 views and every university professor should see this

This is ABSOLUTELY fascinating. Thank you for uploading.

"...someone who knows more about the life of Joseph Stalin than Joseph Stalin knew about the life of Joseph Stalin." 1) That's a bold claim, given how much truth was buried in the Soviet Union, even in post-Stalin era. 2) Don't ever speak that sentence again... It took me a half hour to uncross my eyes.

The irony of Stalin's collectivization and industrialization drive is that it was only possible due to the importation of machinery and skills developed by capitalism, particularly in the United States. Stalin purchased huge amounts of physical capital from the USA in the 1930s. I don't know if the Bolsheviks would have seen it as irony, though...they might have seen it as a way to go directly from a peasant society to a communist one and skip over the capitalist stage entirely in the outline laid down by Marxism.

Should we feel nervous when we hear government officials talk about class warfare, pitting the haves with the have nots and etc.

Thank you for this great interview.

"He always brings up Stalin" - Norm Macdonald

Excellent as always, glad to have had a chance to attend his lecture in Tbilisi back in 2015

Concise and to the point. Explores the raw notion of power. Accumulation of raw power, independent of anyone else's views. Personal loyalty above all else. Of perennial significance.

Would really like to hear an episode or series of Hardcore History with Dan Carlin featuring Stephen Kotkin; or perhaps just an Uncommon Knowledge special with a similar setup. A subject like this needs more time to unfold the necessary nuance to properly explain the mechanisms behind the events.

Many, many thanks for this great content!

First time I've seen Kotkin sitting quite still. Used to watching him rove on stage and into the audience. Socialism in the cities and capitalism in the countryside. A little like Americas fly-over country and progressive cities?

Great Interview. Cannot wait for the next part.

As always, great interview giving great insights. And you are certainly reaching curious Millennials! Peter Robinson is a formidable interviewer. Going strong since decades!

learned more about Russia in this talk than the whole history lessons in high school.

Wish I could take all of this guy's classes.

Would love another video with Kotkin - he's brilliant

Masterful - Joe Pesci look alike/sound alike is the bomb!

As far as the obsession with Trotsky goes and the coerced confessions, I think it just means Stalin was deeply insecure. He needed affirmation that what he was doing was sound and tortured confessions from people to pad that insecurity.

Min 13-16 gave me chills.. History repeating itself.

This is so great, thanks a lot. I only wish it lasted forever. Thanks for letting him explain it properly.

Millennial here. Avid viewer of Hoover Institutions. Please post more content!

Absolutely fascinating history.

It is sad that I am rewatching this and realizing that the same collectivism he said Stalin did with the term "kulak" is the same thing we have been doing recently here in the US with terms like "racist" and "transphobic". Turning the people against each other while drawing everyone to the obedience of the government, who pushed the agenda for that very reason. It truly is a fact that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

Stephen Kotkin is the most impressive scholar and speaker I have ever listened to. (And I had Pearce Williams at Cornell and Spence at Yale.). Mastery over a vast catalog of sources, acute judicious use of them, perception into character beyond the page and clear expression of conclusions. I've watched many hours of his talks and am eager to learn from him.

I know that after my death a pile of rubbish will be heaped on my grave, but the wind of History will sooner or later sweep it away without mercy. - Joseph Stalin (1943)

Wow, what an amazing interview. Thank you Dr. Kotkin for your incredible scholarship!

you folks should put the author's amazon link in your description.

absolutely fascinating interview and yes i am a millenial. thank u!

Excellent documentary, a must read ...thank you!

great interviews!

I am a millennial who used to be a marxist and crypto-stalinist some years ago. Thanks to Hoover Institution for constantly putting out this kind of quality content, it really helps! There is so much neo-marxist propaganda out there that voices of reason are desperately needed.

look forward to reading your books.

Brilliant mind, fascinating discussion

Ive read robert service stuff, and stalin by montefiore (amazing!!!), but heck this guy sounds like he may have a book too top them all. Very astute analysis, great interview

Always great to hear from Stephen Kotkin!

This guy is brilliant.

Interesting that Trotsky survived so long. Were all of his supporters Jewish? Did Stalin see Jews as a power block? Did that motivate his actions? Why do Peter and Kotkin not discuss this?

so thankful for this

The term useful idiots was coined by Lenin. This is what your leaders think of you.

I think Stalin's personality disorder issues are seen in his bizarre actions. He sees everyone as either a good friend or a bitter enemy. There's no in between. Like people with personality disorders, he's always afraid of betrayal and abandonment. He can't take criticism of any kind without feeling he's being personally attacked. There's a lack of empathy and a strong sense of objectifying people for his own ends regardless of the consequence to them. Manipulation, superficial charm when it serves his purpose, pathological lying, etc.

AMAZING VIDEO LOVE YOU ❤❤❤

Stalin, hero of the left.

When Kotkin refers to the murder of 300 Red Army officers, he is not speaking about the Purge - these deaths occurred in the first month after the German invasion, and these officers were scapegoated and executed during the Battle of Moscow in 1941. While may officers were indeed arrested and executed during the previous years, the idea that a depleted officer corps contributed to the poor performance of the Red Army in the early days of Operation Barbarossa is mostly a story spread by Red Army apologists, to present a clean story. In fact, many commanders understood what was happening along the new German border, and before and during the start of the invasion they had warned Stalin - who told them that they were lying. The reality is that Stalin's own incompetence and paranoia had a greater effect at sabotaging the Red Army in the first month of fighting; along with, of course, the devastating operational surprise and tactical superiority achieved by the Germans (the Nazi blunder, of course, being to have underestimated Red Army strength to be 50 full divisions smaller than it was, thanks to poor intelligence).

While I do love the closing music, it seems a bit... too cheery after that closing statement lol.

Interviewer is heavy handed in his restatements. If it's Stanford students in the audience surely such heavy handed and paternalistic statements undermine the very the very valuable and clear concise presentation by the author.

FASCINATNG interview!! Very revealing.

This is wonderful

Hello, is Kotkin's biography of Stalin more reliable than of Robert Service?

THANKS FOR THE VIDEO ❤❤❤❤

Wonderful interview. Stephen Kotkin speaks with such calm and eloquent authority. Thanks for posting this video.

I must buy this book

Refreshing to hear _enormity_ used correctly (notwithstanding its awful significance) and within the proper context.

Great interview, very clear answers.

That was great. Peter is an excellent interviewer

AMAZING VIDEO BRAVO ❤😍❤

The most important point missing here that Stalin had great deal of experience in internal dealings of gang of bandits he acquired from his bank robbing years. Non of his rivals in bolshevik gang could beat him at that in their internal power struggle.

I could listen to this guy all day. Gotta love Bach, too.

Excellent interview

I recommend watching some of Yuri Maltsev's lectures here on RU-vid. Viva Mises.

Stephen Kotkin is one of the most interesting persons I've heard. I'm transfixed.

Well done. The professor makes the key point that ideas matter. If you take Marxism or Adam Smith seriously and put their principles into action you can get very different outcomes.

Thank you

clear good speaker

Joseph Stalin, Soviet dictator, creator of great power, and destroyer of tens of millions of lives …” And a friend of Franklin Roosevelt, may I remind you all!

I love listening to intellectual conversation in my own New Yawk accent!

where's part two

“Even though it was working””.......reminds me of people who would rather a recession than see Trump succeed......

"It was necessary to modernize argument" really runs into trouble when you consider that almost all countries, even the rich ones, were peasant countries and rose out of that without totalitarianism. And no, it's not a matter of size, majority of Russians live(d) in the European section of the country, in area similar to combined France, Germany and Poland. Wast majority being very low population density area.

Can you imagine American teachers teaching this? No way

Incredible talk. Is anybody else getting a little Joe Pesci vibe from Kotkin?

Dear Mr. Robinson, estimated Sir, i have for you, besides the most emphatic praise for what you have already accomplished on your show, an extremely urgent and important proposal. Both Mr Victor Davis Hanson and Mr. Stephen Kotkin are members of the Hoover Institute. They are both exceptional men of proven quality and accomplishment. They are excellent debaters and expositors of complex ideas in very comprehensive schemes of thought. Yet, yet, as i am since some time now trying to get a hold on what is happening in the world and especially in the US, listening very carefully to these true luminaries (the best show in town, you said yourself about Mr. Kotkin) it so happens that i cannot help noticing an unmistakable and potentially very deep rift in their estimate of things national and international. This comes out abundantly clear when they discuss anything to do with what Trump stood and still stands for. This issue is the biggest issue on the table now, for the US itself but also for the world at large (see the 3rd Lecture on "Sphere of influence" held by Mr Kotkin in Vienna in 2017). I beseech you, dearest Sir, to put them together as soon as possible with you at your table and have them talk about these issues, each one clarifying himself in debate. Both are civilized men, of good cheer, wellintentioned, and modest men. You must have them talk with you together, please, you cannot not do this. I think such a debate could be of the most extreme importance in sanitizing the republican party's grip on things. Because the Us and the world must get beyond what the Trump phenomenon means and has still in store it seems. Only those speakers, together with you monitoring, can vastly and in one go contribute to this as no other team of public intellectuals could. PLEASE, consider my proposal and most vehement request at lenght. Many thanks and loyal greetings from Belgium

Thank you for this great content. Highly intellectual and stimulating.

Thank You.

"No one can receive anything unless it has been given to him from heaven". The Almighty uses the wicked to destroy the wicked.

Stalin's Big Idea. Modernise the peasantry by taking them back to serfdom.

Remember the words of Israel’s first prime minister David Ben Gurion, “ I am a Bolshevik . “

whoever added the noise-gate ruined the flow and sound quality to this video.

What camera do you shoot this show with?

Kotkin is cool, calm, collected and knows his brief. He is the Cool Hand Luke of college professors.

BEST INTERVIEWER IN THE BUSINESS!!!

You guys at Stanford, give your guests better chairs. It’s unacceptable that you give grown men those uncomfortable chairs without arm rests. Steven Kotkin also clearly has back problems. I can tell because of my own and I can immediately notice others with it.

Dr. Kotkin probably does a great Joe Pesci impression