the boss is a very that it say thing really obvious isn't see anyway, i'm next august. i will go tackles a fresh pressing issue on was a lot of them will be back of the tunnel down the the the

welcome to was a part of it just reading and a hunger for knowledge have a little bit perceived as purchase and homeworks of procedures paving the way to a higher consciousness. but what if i told you that one of history's most of the tory is dictate is joseph stalin is both a developed worshipper of the highest priests of his own library. in fact, this is where he died surrounded by books and manuscripts rather than his loved ones. how did stollins lot of books informed his ruling style or to discuss it? i'm now enjoyed by geoffrey roberts and they're just professor of history at the university college pork. an author of style is library, a dictator and says books, professor roberts, it's great to talk to you in person this time. thank you very much for your time. a frontier for an invitation. now your book style is library. ssl is to explore the intellectual life biography and i would say psychology of joseph stalin, whom you described as the 20th century,

most self consciously intellectual dictator. and i think it's a somewhat controversial undertaking in this day and age because in order to understand the evil one needs to engage for that rather than dismissed it and condemn it out of hand. why did you decide to do it at this point of time? well, what would you come on? the most important thing the trans sounded by my both in the past on 1st that he wasn't intellectual. he was a man, man of ideas, as well as action. he believed in the transformative power. while it is not just in terms of changing people's consciousness, maintenance attracted human nature and as a couple of months, as the socialist, you know, he was committed not just to the transformation of human societies, but the transformation of people including himself so. so in his engagement with books with reading, move up with ideas was a very, it was a very profound guy. somebody comp, i'm sand stone as a person. also because time it has a political right to con, understand all the bad things that we associate with elizabeth stone is brutal

dictatorship of the soviet union without understanding him as an intellectual. and i wrote this book because this seemed to me that this, the source piece is library and the book see rather than how we read them, how we mocked them. it is the most amazing source. it's the most intimate source, the most from time useful source. the most revealing sol, so i feel like it's an expiration of stones intellectual life is life as a reader. but it's also an ex relation of installing as a political actor. he also describe this t shaped table in a, in the room where he died. as fact, with books manuscripts p o, because his personal library was very, very extensive. i wonder if looking at him through these lines has, has changed your own opinion of him as a personality or perhaps a may or your understanding of his ears will make you

a little bit more new ends. yeah, absolutely. i thought it was the wrote, this book actually was okay, i've written a number of books about style and not connected with story by want to write a wide range and book about stormy, but didn't really want to want, right. i, i biography. so the seem to be an opportunity to see other kind of intellectual pull tre, intellectual box using this particular. so let's go to but also very, very personal in the, in a very strange way. sure. yeah, but but, but i went to the reason i went to i wrote wide ranging, but the textbook was i hadn't really fully come to terms was 12 and as a person i see as, as a political back to and so that's why i wrote this particular book and yeah, it, it, well, it was a journey of, of discovered as far as i was concerned, i suppose the most important thing i discovered on that journey was that, okay, yes, you know, style name was the intellectual, a man of i. d is a great read the,

he was a communist, he was a marxist. but the thing our discomfort didn't really understand before was the, he was a feeling intellectual, emotional that some power, all these, all ideology and politics right? next to emotionality, the emotional falls off. he's all i deal with you these postings, which enabled him to actually rule in the particularly father tutorial, whether you did such something emotionality of style and as a, as a dictator. and in such a that, that what that was a crucial revelation. somebody, they also have a point which i'd like to mention it because some actually in the book is that, you know, you might say, well, okay, so he was a feeling emotional intellectual. would that be emotional if you come from? and the last question i think is that it coming from stallings early christian opry, before starting mostly develop monk safety was a deep christian. and i think that this is the transmission of stanley's emotional religion also you haven't really josephine in, so he's marked as a communist,

a socialist. yeah, well i mean, many scholars before, you know that, that the, this a server and attitude towards marxism and socialism was simply, you know, another form of religion for a menu of the leaders or his time. many bolsheviks at least now. uh you, you mentioned that many or stalins books contain extensive markings rich to quote, to you reveal that he valued ideas as much as power. and that he was a true believer in the strength of the word. and it reminds me of the opening verses of the bible in the beginning was the worth, which could also be translated as in the beginning was longer as the meaning making capacity. and i think it already partially answered my question that i want to oppose it. and on the last, do you think there was something religious or newman that's about the way style is related to not just the ward but know which ignore this? yeah. and just to,

to the point you might be the last go. those have noticed the connection between your stallings religious upbringing, ninety's boxes. i think that's true, but i think the thing about the library is, is that you can actually see that in the solstice on the pages you can see solving stories that feet savings. yeah. up, i suppose the other thing is that kind of on a geologically stalling definitively, did you break with pieces? religious upbringing? yeah. stalling. didn't see. okay. is that the magic marxist? he believed in the intrinsic and internal truth of marxism. but that wasn't for him . a mattress size, it was a mattress. what do you consider to be thought so i scientific of absorbs of ation . yeah. so yeah, that does an emotional connection between just on is the question, installing this as a communist, but at the intellectual crew cab uh, connection is much less. it is much more tenuous. now as you write in your book,

like all the bolshevik leaders style and believe that the reading could help transform no just people's ideas and consciousness, but human nature itself, he, sore writers, ends as a engineers and the human soul, which is the subject you have dedicated a separate chapter in, in your book, and when somebody is so eager to transform the human nature or re meg, the human. so i think there's usually something that they cannot accept as this and most likely in themselves. what do you think makes style in so bad on re making their human so, and i'm asking a here not the you, i'm asking you not as a historian, but actually as a human being because it's a very intimate personal notation as a to you, as a really interesting question of a personal question. i'm not going to give you a personal so old about should lead us were intellectuals, right. all of them believe the reading engagement body is all of them had big

library so strongly wasn't unique in that respect. okay. yeah, i guess this question about transform submission stuff. yeah. we got up to why was the cost of what was he and the both is constantly grosse, be in that direction and they're doing that because to their ideas they, you tokens, they genuinely kind of like believe that this transformation of human nature, they say to it's possible, of course, they don't the truth because that's one of the fundamental effect here of the soviet property to solve it socially, the site you get to actually create that utopia that they're striving for. now, personally, i can understand because i will see you type in an idea as myself, as a young man. so i understand that strong thing. and i also understand, you know, the personal emotional thing. if you're trying to process something, which you can't quite get there and you, you understand, you know, the difficulties you have to. so what doubts of skepticism about it. so i have so

there's a little personal insight into this book as well. that goes to the chemist between the install is that still on remind to nadia is given main the utopian he was the rather prospect for this idea of uh our uh, protective team from val issue to some extent. and i'm also an avid student of psychology, and then psychology, idealization mental ization of rationalization in a tendency to make things abstract. they are considered to be a typical psychological defense is. when do you don't want to connect with the, you know, of human nature in yourself? when it seems to, you saw, you know, imperfect or disdainful that you would rather think about something, you know, shiny down the down the line, then address it in yourself. yeah, i kind of agree with that, but let's don't forget the point i'm making the about the emotional basis of storage police. so these are geology i'm, i'm politics, let's know sort and also um let's do it on the site. the importance of kind of the rational for that, this has things so it easy you believe this idea is a new,

a rational grandparent miracle brown. so he's police. no, i'm saying he's right, but i don't you know it or rushing directionality? oh, it's boxes. and so, you know, it is like, it's a combination of this combination of character, personality and emotionality. it's combination of very typical steps. human psychological traits, missiles look at the, are a function of these rationalist audiology and politics as well. can i ask you something because you are, you mentioned in your book that you see him as what we would now call emotional intelligence. you don't believe that he's feelings or, you know, something, abilities are split off from his cognitive capacity. and i wonder if you've been able to track not only he's emotional reading of others, but he's own, i'll send to feelings or maybe even suffering in those uh you know, uh, markings on the sides of the books. i tried to do that as best i county in the book,

but even in a sense, it's impossible for me to actually summarize the actually it basically was the davis inklings in yourself when you felt okay. i think this is a style in writing as a human being rather than as a great leader. he imagines himself to be and terms of these library. yeah, that's the whole point of it. yeah, the whole point stories library has his private reading. yes, he's personal. well yes it is. he wouldn't be read sometime later. yeah. well i think that's probably true. might be towards the end of his life. yes. yeah. he must have been aware that he will become the object of the attention of people like me over our research is just like many a be coming in his ear. so i thought no, no but, but noted the actual quality of these markings. it's very spontaneous. it's very, it's very, very well for very well. thank you. that's absolutely correct. there is an element of performance here, but it's a very, very um, simple and adam and i have a context with a confidential context with style in use,

the key or right to your editor. yeah. then it is much, much more of a performance foot 4 foot for the item. obviously she's putting on the shock. that's not the case. one moment talking about his personal event that's, that's the interest. that's the power of the socially watch. what to do if i try to, you know, tell you this to show showed read how this works for now we have to take a very short break. we will be back to discussing it in a short time. thank you very much. the, the, the,

the, the, [000:00:00;00] the extra ones, the parts van geoffrey roberts, america's professor of history of the university college, of course, and also spellings, library, a dictator and his books. professor roberts, in your book, you suggest the style in div notes recoil from reading the works of his arch avenue is likely on trust. keisha was also very much interested in the history of desires times which soviet propaganda,

the time officials over again to fully dismissed. and in order to engage with that kind of material, you consider a wrong or adversarial one needs to have a degree of uh, flexibility versus affility, and toller ends, which is not how styling is remember? what do you think compelled him to engage with the other? do you think it was primarily his own personal drive or perhaps to come out of the office? i'm not sure the i'd i'd used with color and simulation to stall it, but certainly flexibility. okay. and the sale it's the opposite of us a bit, a so invested to say, yeah, in the context of him being an adult my to him office. yeah. yeah. so it wasn't a big surprise to me when i discovered that the stone has an intellectual red to lot. yeah, he was a learning intellect. that's not such a, not such a big, big a big surprise to what this surprised me was how much you engaged with his political opponents and how much he, he loved the farm is

a political political apartments. yeah. okay. so he was a marxist. he believed in boxes and a lot of his reading was mostly stuff. so obviously stuff, comedy stuff. right. but. but he was prepared to read anything about any one rocks and he was prepared to learn from title ideas from and from that in coming to the case the using the book is, is the study is his prostate process. time was much more in the image of trotsky as an intellectual. yep. for quite a long time. let me quote with what the trust key wrote about style in which you describe him as a gift is the risk practicality? a strong well and persistence in carrying out his aims, but also devoid of creative imagination, restricted in his learning methods and political horizons, and stubbornly empirical in his mind and trust. he also wrote that style, it always seemed to it to humans waste as a man who was destined to play the 2nd or 3rd fiddle of him. playing 1st was not due to silence or who talents,

but the rather the backsliding of the system. i wonder if you detected any sort of intellectual inferiority on the part of style and don't you think he was trying to compensate for something that he saw in trotsky but lacked in himself? no, no, i don't see that so solid. he must supreme lee confident as an intellectual. he was his own mind, his own mouth suggest, you know, his own ptolemy as a person, as a political outcomes. now georgie came from within himself as an end to an intellectual. here he didn't call talk to anyone. i mean, nobody needs to present himself as being the names of people who got the best student of land, but he didn't know he was the father of lennox, but, but he uh, yeah, he wasn't a prisoner of learning, unavailable. his personality called the i think clearly demonstrates that the insurance but yeah, but, but trust because denigration of stallings that you'd like to very, very influential view. and the select shaped perceptions are starting from many,

many, many decades now. yup. especially perhaps in the west se, absolutely but, but that, that perceptions change even in the less than that possibly a function of the fact we felt the collapse of the union city opened up as a rush. all cause the storage and i was a much, much more materials but you know, to work with. and this is your painted a completely different picture. not just a stalling but the house sort system from the one you can get from chelsea and one of the discoveries of the, the post soviet period in the all cause has the, the extent to which talk most of the intellectual, unintended guide people are just a mindful piece is part of that that body of work, but of course i have a particular and a sustained focus on strong st. see actual teen relation to his life as a reader and his and his personal library. as before, now it's done is access to for him, books was limited, not only because of the logistics, but also because he didn't know any other language,

other than russian and georgian and yet to point out. that's telling how the high regard and diligence, interest for he's political contemporaries, like winston churchill or uh, franklin delano roosevelt. do you think that the interest was reciprocated dressing? they, they saw a nickel in him as he saw in them. oh boy, absolutely. i mean, one of my, of the special it is actually because you are, you must know was the stone is, will lead to stalling during the 2nd world war. i'm particularly the relationship between solving a churchill and originally. yeah. and this does know to look like respect to the rules of the contractual hats. don't include respect for stallings no much you know, no, the 2 books and the profundity of a obviously thinking what i found fascinating is that style in started the american constitution. and i think what's almost unknown both in russian in the west was that he was

a keeper sided over and was very much engaged in the works of the of the soviet constitutional commission that was tasked with drafting the soviet constitutional 1936. that's at least in writing, attempting to give a, uh, or a to encourage more active grass roots political participation. and the constitution was passed barely a year before the great terrors which sons millions of people to that depths or to the, to the glove. and one thing that i, as a russian cannot understand, is this either a sink or see between putting so much time and effort it into starting have various societies for a government. because i think that was his key interest in all that he has a reading for, since he has reverting so quickly so ruthlessly to the tyranny of the iron hand. how do you understand that, you know, the patients with books and toto in patients with the imperfections of, of life and what governing stories overriding the pro, to you, was to defense,

socialism, defend the revolution finally signed them. he sent it to wherever he could to contribute to socialism and yep, he needs for pattern engaging all kinds of projects, activities, which he saw us to bring the goals, including your link, you know, this new constitution, the lines 36 constitutional kinds. kinds of other things, but, but in the end, you know, he was prepared to do whatever was necessary to the play. well, funding the revolution at the, uh, the costs to and the huge cost to his side to and he's people. absolutely. because yeah, apps, because he was the utopia. yeah. he believed this action was necessary. believe he said it money funds, this actually is forced upon us by enemies. right? if we don't do this out and it is all going to crosses that, that is the less than history stones or read it. okay. it's times them off as much as it was a big thing. police favorite topic was history and the, and the list especially. yeah,

you mentioned the constitution. i was very surprised about stallings interest in constitutional loan. and if you meant your integration, it's an interest that seems to come when that discussing the new saw the constitution. he thought he's of, he's on, we saw it isn't always very pop punk song, always thought his army such always talk. he's on really preface, a representative the display that i see here, or if he's perceive, is that he puts so much f for the interest in researching those patterns, you know, constitutional uh, governing, etc. but he doesn't have the strength, the capacity, the patience to put it into practice. because if you want to defend the revolution, you can defend it by your actions, you know, putting those ideas into practice and materialize and realizing them. but it's almost like he pursuits them. i'm them, she drops and reverts to the old methods that he's defending against. yeah. well i think keep the system as far as he can. but as i said, you know, he, he's prepared to do what i say. but the kind of argument you've made,

it's kind of argument many people invite it in relation to style. it was just the note, the disjunction between his theory and his practice time. yeah, you know, in this the limitations the limitations are okay of, of him. so as to how does that need to actual, very serious, centrally, to very serious read in song. sometimes it can be quite profound and certainly the very effective but in the end, you know, the piece of limits. it's good for the human being or the geology policy. so deeply full, right is political practice is usually kind of problematic. so the reason you said because of the debate, the impact of these, so he's your disorder role on society. i don't own on i'm, i'm from billions of people folks. yeah. i'm not trying to cover anything off the month of yet for any points on the status. let's go to a force. here's any type of update sites and sees books and for a whole book. i mean,

gauging with the questions your raising about strong is big to, to lower real. i'm trying to reply to some explanation, some of the come on. so to, to, you know, why this kind of look, actually quite sensitive. leading intellectual is in many wise control, this bad stuff as well. now we talked before about this quite a religious attitude. the started had towards the books and knowledge of the nurses . and i wanted to what a center thing the phenomena of stalin was specific to russia is collect the soul. because if we look at the russian history of russian literature of the nonsense or the beginning of the 20th century, with all these painful soul searching, i wonder if the emergence of uh, leaders like styling the whole landing was also an out today. that was the inevitable. yeah. what as far as the roster is concerned, started the closest very kind of look skeptical about this stuff about, you know, the russian sold and the essential. but is it very, in some sense,

a very typical representative american, you know, its own way, just a way out of that. i'm doing things by yourself exploring. i mean, very supper and yeah, i feel good. i don't expect somebody to point to, i mean, i don't think strongly would see himself that way. i don't think he would accept your analysis and i don't think i do of you know, i think i don't think you need to result to those kind of explanations. you know which ones you know, i think, you know, it's much more straightforward and, but to, to actually see stein somebody was because we saw him today. so as a communist, as a marxist, as a political back to us, the products, a child of his society, and that's the side as long history, i'm certain for the elections and patterns, but he would know, but he was fundamentally of product categories. um, did you say it's going to die that was on so if education brought to my office, political, police and commitments, marxism company makes much more sense to locate stones in that context. i think anyway, down it doesn't, you know,

the context of the russian tradition. but maybe maybe that's some mistake, that's me speaking from, from my experience. so as we mentioned earlier in the, into, you know, as the young man, i was very likes dogs except i was a pacification robin. the live by that's but very what very market. the many wise as a political activity, some, some i'm speaking from my experience, right? but maybe from the russian perspective, it's not going to pay a very different. i don't want to get too close to contemporary politics, but i do think that they sort of alter the adapt know sticks down and say, coupled with a sense of rushes, this thing, destiny is very inherent to the russian that issue. and if you look at the right and they put him, he's also out today that he also has a sense of a special way for, for russia, not exceptional, but special way for russia. and i think he's or he's very open about if he reads history books, no whole azure, but for governing in size,

you only think about that there are lots of very interesting um, comparisons to me by between stalling and i, i don't think of, i don't see posting as an intellectual, i have to say in the same step. okay, put anything guides of ideas, but i don't think the, i thought that the impression anyway, there was central, he's to his consciousness to is, is like being that i would stalling. yeah. so, so, yeah, so, so pitney certainly engage, invite is with read a, with literature course of history. yeah, i mean just poking is this for magical about history is the only was actually you know that, that the 2 main comparisons ought to voice free to my why i'm only thinking about styling them to change 2 things. firstly, that was petra is a 2nd lead to the both the voted multinational. and that's the break come to that, the seat between the soviet union, the saw, and the russian federation that both, both scientifically of multinational, multi ethnic studies,

but stalling and polluted committee to defending that in multi that multinational character of all of their respect, respect is respect is that i have one last question and we only have a few seconds for you to answer it. but i wonder if the sense of autonomy is also one of the main underlying reasons for the current confrontation between russia and the west. this argument over lois, over of the wars with capital w, the rights of the worth and the rights you can most with your own thinking in your own way forward for your country. i, i guess i would tend to agree with you in a way, you know, in the west you have to kind of like all the geological stuff that always breaks to my mind. the art is left to prefer both the soviet period to solve. so if it does all the system right, and you know, a good deal at d deal at the logical stuff of fanaticism. i'm done with it, some of stalling that as, as, as, as, as a marxist, a company. so i think that,

yeah, that's a very interesting point that you might have to live in there and thank you very much for your time and thank your congratulations on this very intriguing and very insightful book will fix to print true. very true. you're getting an insightful laugh, pleasure, and hope. hopefully it was also your pleasure. thank you for watching and hope to hear again on walter. part the the,

[000:00:00;00] the the that's all in garza. and is it $23000.00 that these raise flies continue throughout the enclave. we hear from low house near ours was targeted without any prior warnings where civilian, we have no weapons and no connection to the resistance fighters. enough with this injustice, children and elders are dying. where is the international community where the arabs, they should be your god. but anyway, 19 yahoo, a sure so deep fly on thing doza is waiting to take him to, to fix them on the, his government because of the positive feedback problems. we need this deal to be