Stalin's Characteristics

Stalin had a Marxist-Leninist worldview and so he felt that Catherine, like Peter, served the interests solely of the capitalist class. So his admiration for Peter or Catherine was always limited by his class analysis. And this we need to remember he was not only a statist in the Russian tradition. Until Stalin was a figure that we should not underestimate, Trotsky spent his entire life until Stalin had him assassinated from a far belittling Stalin.