5 ms·

Yea I’ve read it - it’s one of the best books I’ve read in my life, period. Stalin comes across as a total sociopath - as you’d probably expect - but what stru

Yea I’ve read it - it’s one of the best books I’ve read in my life, period. Stalin comes across as a total sociopath - as you’d probably expect - but what struck me was how cruel he was to his close ones, whether family or political lieutenants. He had the occasional moment of softness but he was otherwise a bully who minced no words in making others feel minuscule. Another idea that struck me is how all the Soviet top brass were absolute workhorses who squeezed every living hour out of the day, to the point of mental and physical exhaustion. Stalin himself seemed to sleep from 4am to the late morning, which I found curious. Overall there are clear insights on how they won the war and lifted the Soviet empire, other than through despicable actions. I think the book still makes me think nowadays about the “noble communist” that claims that their version of communism would not be like that, and how they would be the first to be purged. Overall its an excellent read. It’s exquisitely documented and Sebag Montefiore deserves mad props for developing a fine, subtle sense of humor in the narration of stories that span from the kafkaesque to the satanic - the book would’ve been very hard to digest otherwise.

baybal2 8y ago
The point of him only sleeping 4 hours, is surely a part of propaganda. Stalin lived slow life in opulent luxury, often sending off his generals during the war so he can finish his meal and have tea.
- arcturus17 8y ago
  Not 4 hours, 4am til late morning - noon. He had his dachas and opulent dinners but he was relentless at work - no way he lived a slow life. The book is written by a Cambridge-trained historian who did a painstaking work of documentation, including reviewing previously inaccessible Russian archives and interviewing just about every possible Stalin relative and survivor at the time of writing.
  - baybal2 8y ago
    > Cambridge-trained historian Cambridge historian will he be, but he just reverberates the commodity propaganda. Stalin was closing on the godhood in just every written source. I'll give you an analogy: if some super secret North Korean state archives claim that Kim had no anus, would the Cambridge trained historian claim the same just because of that? Common sense would be lacking there, as it is in popular Western depictions of Stalin. I would not be surprised that people were flattering the guy even in their private notes, for the fear of them being found not doing that enough. Any well schooled Russian person has a more or less complete idea of who he was as a person. Now, would somebody be a Cambridge-trained historian or not, would he know more of how such type of people live without "feeling and breathing" their will and presence? I'll trust the popular hearsay more than work of acclaimed historian then. Almost every Western account of Soviet despots made me laugh, trying to find some fine, intriguing, sophisticated persona, where there were none. Why are they trying so hard at that? To me, it feels that Western historians often pull more effort to rehabilitate the soviets than the contemporary revisionist propaganda.
- ethelward 8y ago
  No offense meant, but if you are going to dispute a book written by one of the internationally recognized experts of the subject who has access to far more archive material that you or I will ever have, something more substantial that “surely [insert opinion here]” would be most welcome.
  - apostacy 8y ago
    But that does sound an awful lot like propaganda. They say the same thing about Trump actually. And basically every dictator is said to have some sort of super human abilities and determination. Not needing much sleep is a very common one.
    - dralley 8y ago
      Stalin and Trump aren't known for their good judgement and rationality. Just because they're capable of physically staying awake without much sleep, doesn't make them so superhuman as to remain unaffected by doing so.
rjf72 8y ago
A general problem with ideology is that people, naturally, only view themselves as the 'winners' in a system. In socialism come communism everybody is going to be a Marx living off a metaphorical Engels writing and indulging their intellectual and philosophical curiosities with no constraints whatsoever. Of course nobody sees themselves as the ones toiling in the fields or industry giving 100% of their labor back to the state, or the 'community' should you prefer to imagine a stateless system, invariably under threat of brutal 'reeducation' to ensure everybody can be 'equal'. The same is true of extreme laissez faire views. Everybody again sees themselves as those now freed to finally earn and achieve greatness. Nobody sees themselves as those being left trapped under oppressive and aggressively (and completely legally) entrenched forces using every single dirty trick in the book to undermine competition and coercively squeeze every penny they can out of everybody.
- claudiawerner 8y ago
  It seems from the way you're writing this that you view yourself as non-ideological, but I fail to see how belief in the liberal democratic capitalist state is not also ideological. You make several mistakes about the nature of labour under socialism, for instance, it entails giving labour to the community only insofar as capitalism entails giving it to your boss - and in fact less than this, since even Marx's theory of socialism posits a great reduction in working hours. You also mistake the nature of equality, one which Lenin refuted personally more than 100 years ago[0]. You must first understand what labour means to a human and indeed man's position in relation to his society not only from a capitalist standpoint but from a pre-capitalist (using the tools historical analysis gives us) and post-capitalist viewpoint. The notion of private and individual labour is very new, as is the moral and legal system constructed around it. It's funny that your stated problem with a laissez faire view is merely the idea of competition squeezing money out of people rather than the much more fundamental one of people being unable to achieve the greatness you speak of because they are too busy working for someone else. It's not a trick to undermine competition, it's the nature of the capitalist system to be trapped so aggressively under these forces. (Is it just me or is it curious that this post has a downvote and flag within less than one minute of me posting it, which is not enough time to read and assimilate its contents? Boring reading or not, it speaks volumes that someone with 500+ karma, someone given the power by the site to downvote, would rather click the button than make even a name-call response[1] even after spending so much time on HN that the have themselves racked up "insight points".) [0] https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/mar/11.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/mar/11.htm [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_D...
pvg 8y ago
who squeezed every living hour out of the day Most of his contemporaries record night after night of hours-long boozing sessions. Overall there are clear insights on how they won the war They had, and wantonly threw 10x the people the Germans had into the meatgrinder. It's not like it happened through some particular efficiency.
- arcturus17 8y ago
  Not only 10x people but also advanced machinery like the T34 which ended up being the best mid-sized tank of the war. Mind you, before 1930 Russia was pretty much 100% agrarian. So yes it took a lot of blood - not only on the battlefield, but also in the farms, where the lives of peasants were ruthlessly traded for machines - but also an astoundingly focused effort at the highest echelons. None of this was organized by people chilling with their feet on the table, casually dispatching orders. More broadly, the idea that they partied a lot - which is also one of the great story arcs in the book - does not detract from this. Think Wall Street, the Valley, etc.
  - pvg 8y ago
    Not only 10x people but also advanced machinery like the T34 The egregious waste of human life was ok because of advanced machinery? the idea that they partied a lot - which is also one of the great story arcs in the book - does not detract from this. Think Wall Street, the Valley I dunno, I did a fair bit of partying in Silicon Valley and I think the the fact that, however ill-advised and harmful, this didn't exterminate millions of people tends to detract from whatever 'this' is supposed to be quite a bit.
    - dEnigma 8y ago
      The parent never said that the development and successful use of the tanks made the human losses okay, only that the Soviet victory wasn't solely due to overwhelming numbers. I dunno, I did a fair bit of partying in Silicon Valley and I think the the fact that, however ill-advised and harmful, this didn't exterminate millions of people tends to detract from whatever 'this' is supposed to be quite a bit. Again, the parent only explained that partying and hard work aren't mutually exclusive, not that this somehow makes Stalin's actions okay.

baybal2 8y ago

The point of him only sleeping 4 hours, is surely a part of propaganda. Stalin lived slow life in opulent luxury, often sending off his generals during the war so he can finish his meal and have tea.

arcturus17 8y ago
Not 4 hours, 4am til late morning - noon. He had his dachas and opulent dinners but he was relentless at work - no way he lived a slow life. The book is written by a Cambridge-trained historian who did a painstaking work of documentation, including reviewing previously inaccessible Russian archives and interviewing just about every possible Stalin relative and survivor at the time of writing.
- baybal2 8y ago
  > Cambridge-trained historian Cambridge historian will he be, but he just reverberates the commodity propaganda. Stalin was closing on the godhood in just every written source. I'll give you an analogy: if some super secret North Korean state archives claim that Kim had no anus, would the Cambridge trained historian claim the same just because of that? Common sense would be lacking there, as it is in popular Western depictions of Stalin. I would not be surprised that people were flattering the guy even in their private notes, for the fear of them being found not doing that enough. Any well schooled Russian person has a more or less complete idea of who he was as a person. Now, would somebody be a Cambridge-trained historian or not, would he know more of how such type of people live without "feeling and breathing" their will and presence? I'll trust the popular hearsay more than work of acclaimed historian then. Almost every Western account of Soviet despots made me laugh, trying to find some fine, intriguing, sophisticated persona, where there were none. Why are they trying so hard at that? To me, it feels that Western historians often pull more effort to rehabilitate the soviets than the contemporary revisionist propaganda.
ethelward 8y ago
No offense meant, but if you are going to dispute a book written by one of the internationally recognized experts of the subject who has access to far more archive material that you or I will ever have, something more substantial that “surely [insert opinion here]” would be most welcome.
- apostacy 8y ago
  But that does sound an awful lot like propaganda. They say the same thing about Trump actually. And basically every dictator is said to have some sort of super human abilities and determination. Not needing much sleep is a very common one.
  - dralley 8y ago
    Stalin and Trump aren't known for their good judgement and rationality. Just because they're capable of physically staying awake without much sleep, doesn't make them so superhuman as to remain unaffected by doing so.

rjf72 8y ago

A general problem with ideology is that people, naturally, only view themselves as the 'winners' in a system. In socialism come communism everybody is going to be a Marx living off a metaphorical Engels writing and indulging their intellectual and philosophical curiosities with no constraints whatsoever. Of course nobody sees themselves as the ones toiling in the fields or industry giving 100% of their labor back to the state, or the 'community' should you prefer to imagine a stateless system, invariably under threat of brutal 'reeducation' to ensure everybody can be 'equal'. The same is true of extreme laissez faire views. Everybody again sees themselves as those now freed to finally earn and achieve greatness. Nobody sees themselves as those being left trapped under oppressive and aggressively (and completely legally) entrenched forces using every single dirty trick in the book to undermine competition and coercively squeeze every penny they can out of everybody.

claudiawerner 8y ago
It seems from the way you're writing this that you view yourself as non-ideological, but I fail to see how belief in the liberal democratic capitalist state is not also ideological. You make several mistakes about the nature of labour under socialism, for instance, it entails giving labour to the community only insofar as capitalism entails giving it to your boss - and in fact less than this, since even Marx's theory of socialism posits a great reduction in working hours. You also mistake the nature of equality, one which Lenin refuted personally more than 100 years ago[0]. You must first understand what labour means to a human and indeed man's position in relation to his society not only from a capitalist standpoint but from a pre-capitalist (using the tools historical analysis gives us) and post-capitalist viewpoint. The notion of private and individual labour is very new, as is the moral and legal system constructed around it. It's funny that your stated problem with a laissez faire view is merely the idea of competition squeezing money out of people rather than the much more fundamental one of people being unable to achieve the greatness you speak of because they are too busy working for someone else. It's not a trick to undermine competition, it's the nature of the capitalist system to be trapped so aggressively under these forces. (Is it just me or is it curious that this post has a downvote and flag within less than one minute of me posting it, which is not enough time to read and assimilate its contents? Boring reading or not, it speaks volumes that someone with 500+ karma, someone given the power by the site to downvote, would rather click the button than make even a name-call response[1] even after spending so much time on HN that the have themselves racked up "insight points".) [0] https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/mar/11.htm https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1914/mar/11.htm [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_Disagreement.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Graham%27s_Hierarchy_of_D...

pvg 8y ago

who squeezed every living hour out of the day Most of his contemporaries record night after night of hours-long boozing sessions. Overall there are clear insights on how they won the war They had, and wantonly threw 10x the people the Germans had into the meatgrinder. It's not like it happened through some particular efficiency.

arcturus17 8y ago
Not only 10x people but also advanced machinery like the T34 which ended up being the best mid-sized tank of the war. Mind you, before 1930 Russia was pretty much 100% agrarian. So yes it took a lot of blood - not only on the battlefield, but also in the farms, where the lives of peasants were ruthlessly traded for machines - but also an astoundingly focused effort at the highest echelons. None of this was organized by people chilling with their feet on the table, casually dispatching orders. More broadly, the idea that they partied a lot - which is also one of the great story arcs in the book - does not detract from this. Think Wall Street, the Valley, etc.
- pvg 8y ago
  Not only 10x people but also advanced machinery like the T34 The egregious waste of human life was ok because of advanced machinery? the idea that they partied a lot - which is also one of the great story arcs in the book - does not detract from this. Think Wall Street, the Valley I dunno, I did a fair bit of partying in Silicon Valley and I think the the fact that, however ill-advised and harmful, this didn't exterminate millions of people tends to detract from whatever 'this' is supposed to be quite a bit.
  - dEnigma 8y ago
    The parent never said that the development and successful use of the tanks made the human losses okay, only that the Soviet victory wasn't solely due to overwhelming numbers. I dunno, I did a fair bit of partying in Silicon Valley and I think the the fact that, however ill-advised and harmful, this didn't exterminate millions of people tends to detract from whatever 'this' is supposed to be quite a bit. Again, the parent only explained that partying and hard work aren't mutually exclusive, not that this somehow makes Stalin's actions okay.