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Podcast: Bungacast
Episode: /410/ Reading Club: Deutscher's Stalin
Description: On Isaac Deutscher's classic Stalin: A Political Biography.
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We start off dealing with your questions from the first two Reading Clubs of the year, before Phil takes us through the famous biography of the Soviet leader. We discuss:
Deutscher's work in historical context
Stalin’s parents' experience as serfs and the significance of his boyhood education in an Orthodox seminary
How the oppression of the Russian Empire and the promises of Soviet industrialisation shaped young Stalin's lifecourse
Whether, compared to other Bolshevik leaders, Stalin would have succeeded anytime, anyw...