This is Niall last autumn. And yes, it's kicking and screaming and promising and not delivering. Peter Robinson: "New technologies mediate our experience of the world and our acquisition of information. Let the Japanese take care of themselves. Stephen Kotkin: How to answer that excellent question? The Menshevik faction possessed a majority. So, we gotta turn the mirror to ourselves here on this problem. Peter Robinson: Battalion of Abrams tanks, which numbers 30 as I read. People are talking about 350 billion as the estimated cost of rebuilding Ukraine right now. And so, what some people are calling expenditure is actually an investment in our prosperity and security, because you're a lot stronger with friends and allies than you are when your friends and allies are moving in another direction. How do you win a war of attrition, which is what we're in in Ukraine? You're, as usual, very well prepared here. They don't know any history, but why? My answer is an armistice, which has to be forced on the Russians now. He was a visiting scholar at the USSR Academy of Sciences (1991) and then at its descendant, the Russian Academy of Sciences (1993, 1995, 1998, 1999 and 2012). That is a strength that other systems do not have and can never have. Stephen Kotkin: I'm sorry you put me in that sentence. Russia's war marks the definitive end of America's unipolar moment and returns the world to a state best explained by realism. What are the possibilities that reality gives us? So what's on Xi Jinping's mind? It looks like that's how the war's gonna continue. A panel has discussed the merits of pursuing in-house investing and how executing the right strategy can make the exercise a net benefit for an advice practice. The European's Olaf Schultz, the Chancellor of Germany, after the Ukrainian invasion, he gives a big speech. Kotkin logs a blow-by-blow account of Stalin maneuvering daily to build his dictatorship within the Bolshevik dictatorship. But this time it didnt work. Let's discuss that on our next show. I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928, part of a three-volume history of Russian power in the world and of Stalin's power in Russia. Okay. Is that a good solution? They need some type of guaranteed contracts to invest in massive expansion of their production capacity. Stephen Kotkin: Right, and so that's the first and most important point is, is history is about humility. No, of course it doesn't mean that. And the answer is that's probably true. No one recognized then and most today still dont a crisis of agricultural underproduction built into the peasant way of life, not in the heads of Kremlin policymakers. Didnt Stalin have personal attributes similar to Stolypins? that too many books about Russian foreign policy arrive instantly obsolete because they lack a foundation in history or political . And then a couple of things happen. Stephen Kotkin: the Russian thing. He is the author of nine works of history . Peter Robinson: I include myself in that group. If the two mesh then we are at, or pretty close to, the truth. Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 18781928, is the first of a projected three-volume biography of the Soviet despot written by Stephen Kotkin, John P. Birkelund Professor of History and International Studies at Princeton University, and Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution. They're as populous as we are, they're as rich as we are, and they cannot pull themselves together. Stephen Kotkin: And planes, and of course we fought the Japanese in the Pacific simultaneously. Correct. Sure, there was a lot of surveillance equipment on it. Peter Robinson: Yeah. The DMZ is there. Kotkin identifies the "historical "hinge" of today's geopolitics in 1979-81, with China's normalized relations with the United States, Islam's rise to state power in Iran, and a "revived West" under the Anglo-American leadership of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. In a sweeping discussion at FIS Maastricht, Professor Stephen Kotkin argues that Ukraine still has a long fight ahead, China has learnt economic strangulation and diplomatic coercion are a better strategy than invasion in Taiwan - and the west must invest more in its financial systems . Stephen Kotkin's work has played a special role in framing the kind of scholarship this category has enabled and the kind of modernity it has assigned to twentieth-century Russia. Stephen Kotkin: And so I've been saying that his threats are empty from the beginning. Could he try that? But Kotkin mischaracterizes Stalins political choice at that point, just as he does with the earlier one. Kotkin is adamant that "Stalin cannot plausibly be portrayed as a clear-eyed realpolitiker abroad and unhinged mass murderer at home; he was the same calculating, distrustful mind". And then General Minihan has a point. What's the policy gonna be? "There is no historical basis for the idea of Ukrainian people as a nation separate from the Russians." That story is also still unfolding. Stalin said a few words about the agrarian question. Am I gonna cut you off? Why did we get to where we are? There's more, there's this. It's great to be back and it's great to be here full-time. Or are these professors that don't have anybody in their classes to blame? The Center's first distinguished guest was Stephen Kotkin - a renowned historian of the Soviet Union who holds appointments at Princeton University in the Department of History and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. And it continues to do that. That's the only way to solve any issues. In domestic affairs, every left tendency advocated accelerated economic development, not forced collectivization and industrialization, and was thus in constant opposition to the really existing alternative: the go-slow program of economic recovery and unhurried economic advance favored by the minimalist policies of the Stalin-Zinoviev-Kamenev leadership of 192324, and by the Stalin-Bukharin duumvirate of 192527. There are things in Henry's career, Dr. Kissinger, excuse me, which are just, you marvel at and then there are some other things which you wonder, did he really do that? They love trade. The quality goes by many names, erudition, learnedness, serious and independent thinking. The West is distracted, Taiwan is provocative, maybe we move. By 1903, whether or not to agitate in the mass workers movement was no longer an issue for Social Democrats like Stalin, as it had been for them in 1900. Historian Stephen Kotkin became the Kleinheinz Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution in 2022. I don't know how it's gonna change. Kotkin is one of the nation's most compelling observers of foreign affairs, past and present, and is now working on the third and final volume of his definitive biography of Josef Stalin. Florida International University, a public institution, has adopted a radical "diversity, equity, and inclusion" program that condemns the United States as a system of "white supremacy . It has to be, "I can't have it, nobody can have it.' We can live with this. Whilst he was a masterful intriguer who crafted a personal as well as political dictatorship, it turns out Joseph Stalin was a true believer . Kotkin dedicates his Stalin to John P. Birkelund businessman, benefactor, fellow historian. I had never heard of Mr Birkelund before, so I looked him up. On this week's episode of my podcast, I Have to Ask, I spoke with Stephen Kotkin, a historian of Russia and the Soviet Union who has just published the massive second volume of his Joseph. The second point is, there's a lot of junk history in the policy world. These regimes, they don't always know what they're doing and the leader doesn't always know, let alone the leader's minions. This brings us to Henry Kissinger. The beauty of Xi Jinping's strategy, which he inherited, was that there was a wedge between Europe and the United States on China policy. Russia would conquer Ukraine. We began with the idea that the pivot to Asia was a bad phrase. When we make a mistake and we make some doozies, and we've made some doozies recently and we'll make more mistakes, we can correct them. The vaccines, which work, that we're, I hope, justifiably proud of. . And you can't call Raytheon and say, "Next month I wanna have triple the production," or Lockheed Martin or fill in the blank, one of our great companies that produces for the Pentagon in a very complex, broken procurement system. And the totalitarians were great at radio. Stephen, question three, Taiwan. China is a breathtaking civilization. The Wall Street Journal, January 31st, did a brilliant article about the fact that Ukraine has expended 13 years of Javelin production. Russia doesn't win anything. That was the pessimistic thinking. Review by Stephen Kotkin. Your howitzer and other munitions. You know, let's talk about the 2% for a second. Wouldn't the whole tone of the relationship be better if those countries had not, over the last six decades, been infantalized by our taking care of them? That America has to bear all of the burdens or most of them? It's the end of democracy. And so they are a success. And in fact, they can be entertained, but they can also understand what they're doing. And yes, that's the world we live in. A, that he knew to do that and B, that they pulled that off. It's about rule of law, constitutional order, open, dynamic market economies, free societies, right? They're fully capable. Review of Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 18781928 by Stephen Kotkin (Penguin Random House, 2015). Kotkin sees in Stolypin the would-be Bismarck of Russia. This comes from a memorandum that US Air Force General Michael Minihan sent to his officers last month that got leaked. We were successful in enabling, facilitating the Ukrainian's defense of their country. Located on the campus of Stanford University and in Washington, DC, the Hoover Institution is the nations preeminent research center dedicated to generating policy ideas that promote economic prosperity, national security, and democratic governance. And in the fullness of time, we could maybe re-evaluate that differently. And so, we think that there are these well oiled machines and they have a strategy and they communicate it down the chain of command and if you don't fulfill your orders, you're toast, right? Peter Robinson: So Stephen, I said five questions as if I could limit myself to five questions when I've got you at the table. [6] In 2017, Kotkin wrote in The Wall Street Journal that Communist democide resulted in the deaths of at least 65 million people between 1917 and 2017, stating: "Though communism has killed huge numbers of people intentionally, even more of its victims have died from starvation as a result of its cruel projects of social engineering. This snapshot of Stephen Kotkin's life was captured by the 1940 U.S. Census. "In this lively and fast-paced study, two distinguished Princeton historians, Stephen Kotkin and Jan Gross, analyze the 1989 revolution in Eastern Europe as a product of the political bankruptcy of 'uncivil society,' meaning the communist elite. You tell me. So maybe it is the end of the world. So here's the lesson of history. Every hegemon thinks it is the last; all ages believe they will endure forever. And our colleague, General McMaster, H.R. Peter Robinson: We agreed with Putin. He is now completing the third and final volume. So that war of attrition where you think the other guy's willpower is collapsible, can continue indefinitely. And this is possible because Kennan has read widely. What if the war is over by then? The Crimea has been Russian since five years before we ratified the Constitution. Without the support of the working class, the victory of the Bolsheviks in the Civil War over an array of counter-revolutionary White armies, led by antisemitic cutthroats and supported by English, American, French, and Japanese imperialist freebooters, would have been inconceivable. In 1912, Stalin wrote a major work, Marxism and the National Question, a polemic against Austro-Marxism much praised by Lenin. The famous Order No. Those are the headlines, here's the quotation. It's nothing but atrocity. With its eminent scholars and world-renowned library and archives, the Hoover Institution seeks to improve the human condition by advancing ideas that promote economic opportunity and prosperity, while securing and safeguarding peace for America and all mankind. We haven't ramped up the production on our side. I don't know in what direction it's gonna go. It was a change in strategy one, moreover, that was opposed by other Marxists. Of the many questions that can be posed, let me pose this one: who was the authentic Marxist? . Stephen Kotkin: They're getting easier and easier, Peter, as always with you. There was a lot of sophisticated tech on it because he didn't have other balloons for the birthday. In times of revolution Bolshevism incarnates bedlam its zealots are obsessed.. If you're our commander-in-chief, you're dealing with an ally who wants to take back the Crimea, and there's just a little historical fact about the Crimea. Stephen Kotkin, Stalin: Volume I: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928 12 likes Like "What we designate modernity was not something natural or automatic. How in the world did that happen? So we're in a war of attrition where we're not destroying, as we did in World War II, their production capacity the way we did to the Germans and the Japanese because we're not hitting Russian territory. So some general has a birthday party for his kid and he blows up a balloon for his kid and the balloon gets outta hand and it ends up over Montana. Imitating the Okhranka, Kotkin follows Stalins shadowy comings and goings and daring-dos minutely. He founded and co-edited a book series on Northeast Asia that published six volumes. Even if you're doing well in a war, they have to be rebuilt or fixed in some way. Stalin was elected general secretary in 1922. In "Realist World," Princeton University Professor Stephen Kotkin writes: "Now as ever, great-power politics will drive events, and international rivalries will be decided by the relative . Sure, we get that. There're a lot of countries that became our friend and there are a lot of other countries that would like to become our friend. On the other hand. Maybe, in other words, this is a wake up call." The character of Stalin emerges as both astute and blinkered, cynical and true believing, people oriented and vicious, canny enough to see through people but prone to nonsensical beliefs. But Kotkin's political outlook, neglect of ideas, and addiction to hindsight warp his presentation of Russian and Soviet history, undermining his entire project. And as usual, on one of your answers, I can't even find a handhold. Kotkin tells it deftly, with a remarkable understanding of the social and political system, as well as a keen instinct for the details . Maybe we're adaptable and resilient. That was not even one-10th of our GDP, and a lot of it vanished. Niall says the Ukrainians are willing to fight and capable of fighting. Stephen Kotkin: Had a vaccine. And this makes many people angry. It's a club of very successful countries and its dynamic is shifting a little bit because of its enlargement, and the same goes for the NATO story. What did we discover? And so this is why I've said from the beginning that despite the prevention of conquest, right? "The time is approaching to achieve peace through negotiation." Peter Robinson: We're not permitting the Ukrainians to go over the border. Blow-By-Blow account of Stalin maneuvering daily to build his dictatorship within the Bolshevik dictatorship bedlam... 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