Word: stalins
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Though Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (Knopf; 1,081 pages; $35) runs a densely written thousand pages, detailing the two lives stage by stage, not everything comes clear. Most readers willing to take the long journey will hope that Bullock's exhaustive analysis of the biographical literature and newly opened archives might somehow explain what caused Hitler and Stalin. There was something inhumanly dark and cold in both leaders that made them willing to do literally anything to fulfill what they felt was their mission...
Unfortunately, as Bullock writes, "the process by which these convictions took possession of their minds remains a mystery." He generally avoids psychohistory, but observes matter-of-factly that both Hitler and Stalin were paranoid and insensitive to humanity -- that is, unable to accept that other people were as real as they. Both were, in fact, incapable of normal relationships. One word Bullock does not use is "monster," because he sees horror in the fact that they were human...
...Stalin -- rough, conspiratorial, despising authority -- was a natural Marxist revolutionary. While studying at a Russian Orthodox seminary in his native Georgia, he became a convert to Marx and never changed course. His career contrasted with Hitler's because his movement already had a leader, Lenin. Unlike Hitler's public portrayal of himself as a man of destiny, Stalin's style was stealthy, behind the scenes...
...General Secretary of the Communist Party, Stalin appeared, calculatedly, to be simply an organization man. But he was far more than that because he had perfected the technique of using the details of organization to amass political power. Once he became the vozhd, the master, he ruthlessly annihilated all those who once were loyal to Lenin and all who might consider questioning his authority...
Both despots believed utterly in themselves and were indifferent to the ^ suffering and destruction they caused to achieve their ends. Hard as it is to realize it, Bullock writes, "the key to understanding both Stalin and Hitler is . . . that they were entirely serious about their historic roles." In private they were boring and boorish. The mistake their political enemies and would-be partners repeatedly made was to underestimate the men and the extremes to which they would...