devout worshipper of the highest priests of his own library. besides, this is where he died, surrounded by books and manuscripts rather than his loved ones. how did stalins love of books informed his ruling style of to discuss it? i'm now enjoyed by geoffrey roberts managers, professor of history at the university college park, an officer of sullens library. as a dictator and his books professor rober it's, 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 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 with 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 12 sounded by my book 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, but in terms of tracking human nature and as a couple of months as the socialist. you know, he was committed not just to the transformation of he was the thought is, but the transformation of people including himself. so. so is it, his engagement with books, with reading, move up with ideas, was a very, it was a very profound you guys were on the comp. i'm sandstone as a person. also, because time as a political back to con, understand all the bad things that we associate with, with, with style is brutal dictatorship of the soviet union without understanding english and 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 tying his full source, the most revealing soul. 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 uh 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. your understanding of he's evil makes you a little bit more new on. yeah, absolutely. i recently wrote this book as she was okay. i've written a number of books about style and not connected with story by what to write a wide range in book about stormy. but i didn't really want to want, right i, i biography. so it does seem to be an opportunity to see other kind of intellectual

pull tre, intellectual box using this particular. so what was the actual but also very, very personal in the, in the various chain way. sure, yeah, but, but, but i want to wish i went to, i wrote wide ranging, but the textbook was i haven't really fully comes terms with stalling as a person though i see as, as a political actor. and so that's why i wrote this particular book and yeah, it, it was, it was a journey of, of discovered as far as i was concerned. and i suppose the most important thing i discovered on that journey was that, okay, yes, you know, style name was an intellectual, a man of ideas, a great read the. he was a communist, he was a marxist, right? but the thing our discounts i didn't really understand before was the, he was a feeling intellectual, emotional that from power all these audiology and politics, right? and it's not emotionality. the motional falls off. he's audiology these politics,

which enabled him to actually rule in the particularly father and to take tutorial, whether you could do something emotionality of style and as a, as a dictator and insulation that, that what that was the crucial revelation. somebody, but it was on of a point which i'd like to mention, it'd be crucial actually in the book, is that, you know, you might say, well, okay, so he was a feeling emotional intellectual. would that be emotionality? comfortable? and he asked that question, i think is that it coming from stallings early christian upbringing before starting mostly developed monk 16 was a deep christian. and i think that this is the transmission of stallings emotional, really just so you haven't really deals to feed into his mouth as a communist the socialist. yeah, well i mean, many scholars before, you know that this a server and attitude towards march says, and then the 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 reached to quote, to you reveal that he valued ideas as much as power and up. 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, but 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 the truth of the point, you might be the last go. those have noticed the connection between your stallings religious upbringing on these boxes. i think that's true. but i think the thing about the library is, is that you can actually see that in the soul says on the page is you can see solving spelling, 6 feet, savings. yeah. up. i suppose. the other thing is to kind of on

a geologically stalling definitively, did you break with pieces? were they just operating? 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 thoughts so scientific of absorbs of ation. yeah. so yeah, that does an emotional connection between just on is a question, installing this as a communist, but at the intellectual crew, a 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 contrast those 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? and so bent on re making their human so, and i'm asking a here not the you, i'm asking you notice the historian, but actually is 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 with intellectuals, right. all of them believe the reading, engagement of ideas. all of them had a big library so strongly wasn't unique in that respect. okay. yeah, i guess it this question about transform submission stuff. yeah. we got up to why was the cost of what was he and the both is constantly gross. 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're seeking. it's possible, of course they don't, patrice it out because that's one of the fundamental use of the soviet project to solve it socially, the site you get to actually create that utopia that they're striving for. know, personally i can understand that because i will see you type in and i do this myself as a young man, so i understand that strong thing. and i also understand, you know, the personal emotional figure of the parents across something which you can't quite get there and you, you understand, you know, the difficulties you have to. so what doubts the 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 not do this, you remain the token he was the rather prospect for this is our uh, protective team from val. it's you 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 and 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 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 no, a rational grandparent miracle browser's belief. 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. combination of very typical steps,

human psychological tribes, this. so let's look at the, are a function of these rationalist audiology in 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, sensing abilities are split off from, he's called him def capacity. and i wonder if you've been able to track not only he's emotional reading of others, but he's own authentic 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 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, to punch stories library has his private reading. yes, he's personal. well, what do i say if 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 video. rather research is just like many a be coming in his ear. so i thought no, no but, but no to the actual quality of these markings. it's very spontaneous. it's very, it's very, very, very, very well. thank you. that's absolutely correct. there is an element of performance here, but it's a very, very simple and adam and i have a context with of a confidential context with style in you speak your 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 a shock. that's not the case when we talking about his personal life rent that's, that's the interest. that's the power of the soul. well, i tried 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, [000:00:00;00]

the on the back to the parts van geoffrey roberts ameritas, professor of history university college. of course i'm also saelens library, a dictator and his books. professor roberts, in your book you suggested selling div north, re quote from reading the works of his arch avenue. as likely on trust keisha was also very much interested in the history of desires times which soviet propaganda, the time official soviet propaganda 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 versa. tailored to and told her friends,

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 the commands of the office? i'm not sure the i'd, i'd used to live tolerance in relation to scarlet, but certainly flexibility. okay. and the sale it's the opposite of us a bit so invested to that. 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 stalling as an intellectual retina. yeah. he was a learning intellectual. that's not such a, no such a big, big, a big surprise to what did surprise me was how much engaged with his political opponents and how much he, he learned from his political, political opponents. 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 of that and then he

won. right. and he was prepared to learn from tell you taught this many. i'm not in coming to the case study are using the book is, is the study is trustee trust. the thought it was my it's martin, the image of trustee as an intellectual. yup. for quite a long time. let me quote with what the trust key wrote about style. and he describes him as a gift to the risk practicality, a strong well and persistence in carrying out his aims, but also devoid of creative imagination, restricted him, his learning methods and political horizons, and stubbornly empirical in his mind and trust. he also rode the style and always seemed to it to humans waste as a man who was destined to play 2nd or 3rd fiddle on him. playing 1st was not due to style until 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 styling most of probably confidence as an intellectual. he was his own mind. his own monks. it's just, you know, he's autonomy as a person, as a political outcomes. now geology came from leaving himself as an and an intellectual. yeah. he didn't call talk to anyone. i mean, no, you need to present himself as being the names of people who got the, the best student of land, but he didn't know he was the father of lenny. but, but he a, he wasn't a prison of learning, unavailable. his personality called the, i think clearly demonstrate that there was the bed setting up at the atrocities, denigration of stallings intellectual. very, very influential feeling. the select shaped perceptions are starting from many, many, many, many decades now. yep. oh yeah. especially perhaps in the west, 5th across. absolutely. but, but that, that perceptions change even in the what some po, possibly a function of the fact we thought the collapse this over here and you in the open 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 installed the house. so the system from the one you can get from trophy. and one of the discoveries of the, the post soviet period in the all cause has the, the extent to which talk it was an intellectual, unintended guy, simple ideas. a mindful piece is part of that, that body of work. but of course, i have a particular in the sustain focus on strong st. see actual thinking in relation to his life as a reader and his and his personal library. as before, now it's done is access to for in books was limited, not only because of the logistics, but also because he didn't know any other language, other than the russian and trojan. and he had to point out that's telling how the high regard and diligence, interest for his political contemporaries, like winston churchill or uh, franklin delano roosevelt. do you think that the interest was reciprocated?

j. thing they, they saw a nickel in him as he saw in them. oh boy, absolutely. i mean one of my other specialities is as you, as you are, you must know was the stone is will lead to stalling during the 2nd world war? i'm particularly the relationship between style in a churchill and was like, yeah, and this does no, to look like respect the rules of the contractual has this don't include respect for stallings no much. no, no they do. but let's see. and the profundity of the only thing thinking, what i found fascinating is that style in started the american constitution. and i think it was almost a known both in russian. and the west was that he was a, he presided over and was very much engaged in the works of the, of the soviet constitutional commission that was tasked with drafting b. so his constitutional 1936 that's at least in writing attempted to give uh or

a to encourage more active grass roots. political participation in the constitution was passed barely a year before the great terrors. we send millions of people to that desk or to the, to the gloves. and one thing that i, as a russian cannot understand is this either secrecy between putting so much time and effort into starting have various societies for government. because i think that was his key interest in all, but he is a reading pursuits i'm here verging 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 overwriting the perotti was to defend socialism defend the revolution from each sentiment assigned to do whatever he could to contribute to socialism and yep, the pattern guides in all kinds of projects,

activities, which he saw us to over the coals, including your link, you know, this new constitution, the once $36.00 constitutional kinds kinds of other things. but, but in the end, you know, he was prepared to do whatever was necessary to the play wherever funding the revolution at the, at the cost to and the huge cost of his society and his people. absolutely, because yeah, apps, because he was a utopia. yeah. he believed this action was necessary. believe you said that money funds, this actually is forced upon us by enemies. right? if we don't do this, our enemies all going to crush us dot. that is the less than history. it's. dawn is a read it. ok. it's times of boxes, most of them is a big thing. paste. favorite topic was history and the on the list especially. yeah, you too, you mentioned the constitution. i was very surprised about stallings interest in constitutional loan. and if you meant your integration, it's an interest, it seems to come when the discussing the new saw the constitution. he thought he's a,

he's on researchers normally very important point. strong always thought he's on research . always talk is on really professor representing the display that i see here, or at least perceive is that people so much of for the interest in researching those patterns, you know, a constitutional, uh, governing, etc. but he doesn't have the strength of the capacity, the patients 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, and them she drops and reverts to the old methods that he's defending against. yeah . well i think he has them 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 of many people and body to it in relation to style. it was just the note, the disjunction between his theory and his practice time. yeah, you know, it's been limitations, the limitations. okay,

of of him. so it's tons of intellectual, if i single, essentially i to very serious read in song. sometimes it can be quite profound and certainly that very effective. but in the end, you know, he says limits, it's good for the human being or the geology policy. so deeply, full drawn is political practice is usually kind of problem ethics. for the reason you said because of the date, the impact of these. so if he's your disorder real on society, i know i'm on, i'm on millions of people, folks. i'm not trying to cover anything off the month of yet for any points when it's time to switch to a force. here's any type of update sites and sees books and for the whole book, i mean, gauging with the questions your raising about strong as dick to, to lower rope. i'm trying to reply to some explanation, some of the come on. so to, to know why this kind of look actually quite sensitive feeling intellectual is in

many wise control of this bad stuff as well. now we talked before about this quantity of religious added to the, started and had towards the it's and knowledge to the office. 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 lenin who was also an out today. that was the inevitable. yeah . what as far as the russia is concerned, style courses for it kind of look skeptical about all this stuff about, you know, the russian so essential. but is it very, in some sense, a very typical representative of the, you know, its own way, just a way out of that i'm doing things by yourself exploring. yeah, i mean, very stubborn. yeah, i feel good. i don't expect somebody to points to, i mean,

i don't think strongly would say himself that way. i don't think he would accept your analysis and i don't think i do either. you know, i think i don't think you need to result to those kind of explanations. in over 20 i think it's much more straightforward, but to us you see stein for what he was he to us. we saw him today for as a communist, as a marxist, as a political act uh, product, 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 that he was fundamentally of product categories. um, did you say is going to die? that was on. so if education right, right off his political police and commitments, marxism company makes much more sense to locate stone in that context. i think anyway, down it does in the context of the russian tradition. but maybe maybe that somebody speak to somebody speaking from, from my experience. so as we mentioned earlier, needed to know as a young man, i was very likes talking except over the past with it's robin

b like boy that's but very like very lucky. the menu i so political activists some, some i'm speaking from my experience right up that may be from the russian perspective, stock and it's a very different see, i don't want to get too close to contemporary politics, but i do think that they sort of alter the adapt no sticks down and say, coupled with a sense of the rushes to 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 it. he reads history, books, northwell, azure, but for governing the insides. the only thing is that there are lots of very interesting um, comparisons to me by between installing a printer i, i don't think about that. see, putting as intellectual. i have to say in the same step. okay, put anything gates of ideas, but i don't think the,

i don't get the impression anyway. there was central, he's to his consciousness please. is like being that i would stalling. yeah. so so yeah. so, so to me, certainly in case of ideas with reading, with literature course of history. yeah, i mean, just poking is this for magical about history, stalling was actually, you know, the, the, to, to make comparisons ought to voice 3 to my why moment thinking about stalling them to change 2 things. firstly, that was petra, it's a 2nd lead to the both the voted multinational sir, and that's the break come to that, the seat between the soviet union, the saw and the russian federation that both of forensically multinational multi ethnic studies above, stalling and polluted committee to defend the that multi that multinational character of all of their respect, respect, just respect is but i have one last question and to be 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 low risk over of the wars with capital w, the ride to the worth and the right to come up 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 you've loved 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 id, logical for fanaticism, dogmatism, or style in 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 in. thank you. congratulations on this very intriguing and very insightful about move, super true,

very intriguing and insightful. my pleasure and hope hopefully it was also your pleasure. thank you for watching and hope to see her again on was a part the the acceptance. and i'm here to plan with you. whatever you do. do not watch my new show. seriously. why watch something that's so different little opinions that he won't get anywhere else. welcome to please or do the have the state department, the c i a weapons, bankers,

multi 1000000000 dollar corporations. choose your fax for you. go ahead. change and whatever you do. don't want my show state main street because i'm probably going to make you uncomfortable. my show is called direction. but again, we don't wanna watch it because it might just change the way you the, the

the the, [000:00:00;00] the hello and welcome to cross stuck where all things are considered 9 people about israel's assault on the people of god. so it continues unabated. and why wouldn't it is really, it's been given a blank check by the west to unilaterally and not be bound by any constraints to proceed as it wishes a 2nd month,

but is being carried out again against the palestinians.