Stalin pt. 1: The Long Road to the Red Inquisition

Donald, Christian, and Connor sit down and discuss the man of steel: Joseph Stalin. Less of a focused biography, we put Stalin in his historical context. In this episode we focus primarily on his ascension to power over the course of 1920s and the road to the Great Terror. Other important topics covered include the Agrarian Question, the First Five Year plan, along with a brief detour into the adventures of a young Stalin and  the Russian Civil War. 

We end the first part here because of the important historical lessons to be drawn from the logic of the purges. A second episode will cover Stalin through World War 2 up to his death.

References:Farm to Factory: A Reinterpretation of the Soviet Industrial Revolution - Robert C. Allen Soviet Fates and Lost Alternatives: From Stalinism to the New Cold War - Stephen F. Cohen Everyday Stalinism: Ordinary Life in Extraordinary Times : Soviet Russia in the 1930s - Sheila Fitzpatrick The Road to Terror: Stalin and the Self-Destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939 - J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov Let History Judge - Roy Medvedev Russian Peasants and Soviet Power: A Study of Collectivization - Moshe Lewin Stalinism and the Politics of Mobilization: Ideas, Power, and Terror in Interwar Russia - David Priestland Stalin's Library: A Dictator and his Books - Geoffrey Roberts Factory and Community in Stalin’s Russia: The Making of an Industrial Working Class - Kenneth M. Straus Stalinism: Essays in Historical Interpretation - Robert C. Tucker Stalin in Power: The Revolution from Above, 1928-1941 - Robert C. Tucker