Reddit reviews Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928

Playing Sekiro ng+6 no kuro's charm and demon bell while listening to a audiobook of Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928.

I have heard that Stephen Kotkin's new 3 volume Stalin biography, with new access to previously classified documents, shows that Stalin was a true ideological Marxist and a communist. If that is indeed the case, then these "moderate" communists are the real "right-wing" sell-outs.

Bullshit. The USSR was not expansionist, whatever you want to say about it. The countries which became communist after WWII did so because of it. They would not have fallen under Soviet influence without the war. Furthermore, if you read narratives of the diplomatic engagements, Roosevelt, himself, was willing to give Stalin even more, while Churchill was reticent but ultimately willing.

The USSR had more than ten national languages. Stalin was Georgian. Kruschev was Ukranian. Many of the early leaders were Yiddish speaking Jews, Muslim Central Asians & so on. So the idea that they were Russophilic imperialists is also just plainly false.

The USSR was invaded as soon as it was founded by Germany who barreled on to within miles of its capital despite repeated attempts to sue for peace. In addition, the US invaded the USSR on its founding (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force_Siberia) as did Greece, France, England & Japan (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_intervention_in_the_Russian_Civil_War). That is an all out assault, before it was ever even a unified state, before one could level any critique of it, before any policy. It was never given a chance. Had it been, they would have been less paranoid & militaristic. Many accounts of it describe this (https://www.amazon.com/Stalin-Paradoxes-1878-1928-Stephen-Kotkin/dp/0143127861

https://www.amazon.com/Ruling-Russia-Authoritarianism-Revolution-Putin/dp/0691169322

https://www.amazon.com/Soviet-Fates-Lost-Alternatives-Stalinism/dp/0231148976

https://www.amazon.com/October-Russian-Revolution-China-Mi%C3%A9ville/dp/1784782777/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1502913444&sr=8-5&keywords=russian+revolution)

The USSR repeatedly called on Western powers to ally to defeat the Nazis as well as support the Spanish Republic. The Nazis wanted to rule the world & eliminate the entire Russian subcontinent.

God forbid we read books to understand history better and not make caricatures out of people.

https://www.amazon.com/Stalin-I-Paradoxes-Power-1878-1928/dp/0143127861

https://www.amazon.com/Origins-Totalitarianism-Hannah-Arendt/dp/0156701537

http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/166566.The_Opium_of_the_Intellectuals

Let me pose it this way, why do you think Stalin did what he did? Because he's an evil statist? Grow up.