the presentation i got some words i got the vocabulary and my pronunciation. the when we invest in clean energy and electric vehicles and reduced population, more of our children can breed clean air and drink clean water. the people tired be required to travel over potholes and bridges that are breaking down . it's expensive when you manage all your tires. you know, when you lose your, your, your tires are ended up being flat because of those roads and bridges we will continue to work forcefully. to protect our fellow countrymen and women and people the

and that is the next american president joe biden falls over and breaks the hip and calls it quit solve this life. yeah, good luck. that is a state of the world of affairs today. good luck with that. the, [000:00:00;00]

the welcome to was a part of it just reading and hunger for knowledge have a little bit of perceived as purchase and homeworks of procedures paving the way through higher consciousness. but what if i told you that one of history's most of the tory is dictate is joseph stalin was both a developed worshipper of the highest free stuff he's own library. in fact, this is where he died, surrounded by books and manuscripts, rather than his loved ones. how did spellings love of books informed his ruling style of to discuss it? i'm now and join by geoffrey roberts emeritus professor of history at the university college park and all sort 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 or 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 describe 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 things be trans, sounded by my book in the past on 1st that he was an 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 boxes, the socialist, you know, he was committed not just to the transformation of human societies, 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 it has a political right to con,

understand all the bad things that we associate with, with a lift 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 east, the most intimate source, the most from tying his full 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 we have some books manuscripts, p o because he is personal library was very, very extensive. i wonder if looking at him through the slides has, has changed your own opinion of him as a personality or perhaps

a may or your understanding of he's evil makes you a little bit more new. and yeah, absolutely. i thought it was the wrote this book as she was okay. i've written a number of books about style and not connected with stony bye. want to write a wide range in book about stormy. but i didn't really want to want, right. i, i by oversee. so it does seem to be an opportunity to see other kind of intellectual pull tre, intellectual box using this particular so 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 like to and the 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. 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, right? emotional that some power, all these audiology and politics, right? and it's not emotionality. the emotional falls, office or geology, these politics which enabled him to actually rule in the particularly falling 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 to me. but it also another point which i'd like to mention it because some they'll 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 he asked that question, i think is that it coming from stallings early christian upbringing before starting mostly developed monk safety 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 and socialist. yeah, well i mean, many scholars before, you know that, that the, 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 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 the truth is, you know, 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 soul says on the page is you can see a stalling and stalling stick feat savings. yeah. up. i suppose. the other thing is that in kind of on a geologically stalling definitively did you know, right. we have piece really just about bringing. yeah. stalling. didn't see. okay. is that the magic marxist? he believed in the intrinsic any tunnel 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 the question. installing this as a communist, but at the intellectual crew. 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 know just people's ideas and consciousness but human nature itself. he saw writers ends as a engineers and the human soul, which is the subject you have dedicate 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 is most likely in themselves. what do you think makes style and so banned 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 postal question. i'm 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 separation stuff, but 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 that he tokens, they genuinely kind of like, believe that this transformation of human nature, they're seeking. it's possible, of course they don't, the chief it because that's one of the fundamental use of the soviet project to solve it. so should the site 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 parents between the install is that still on my mind, to not do this human mind the task, he was the rather prospect for this idea of uh, his power uh, protective team from dallas. 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, then address it in yourself. yeah, i kind of agree with that, but let's don't forget the point i'm making earlier about the emotional basis of storage police. so these are joe sheet and politics and there's no salt and also um still it on the site to be pulled. and so kind of the rational for that,

this has things so it easy you believe this ideas and the rest of grandparent miracle brown is 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. this will just look at the are a function of these rationalist audiology and politics as well. can i ask you something because you are, you mentioned your book that you see him as what he would now call emotional intelligence. you don't believe that he's feelings or, you know, sensing 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. but 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 moved in terms of these library. yeah, that's the whole point of it. yeah, to punk style. his library has his private reading. yes, he's personal. well, yes. and 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 tension of people like me over our research is just like many becoming 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 um, simple and adam 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 he's putting on the chart. that's not the case when we talking about his personal event 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. so 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 spectrum is the parts village after roberts,

america's professor of history of the university college, of course, and also someone's library dictator and his books. professor roberts to in your book, you suggest the style in div north requests 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're consider wrong or adversarial. one needs to have a degree of, uh, flexibility versus a tailor to antola runs, which is not how styling is remembered. 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 to live tolerance in relation to style it, but certainly flexibility. okay. and the sale it's the opposite of us a bit

a so invested to that the 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 the stalling as an intellectual red ta 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 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 the boxes and a lot of these reading was boxes, stuff, so obviously stuff, comedy stuff. right. but. but he was prepared to read anything and as anyone. right . and he was prepared to learn from title ideas for me and i'm not in coming to tie still using the book is, is the study is his prostate trust the 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 of the wrist. practicality,

a strong will and persistence and carrying out his aims, but also devoid of creative imagination. restricted in his learning methods and political horizon since and stubbornly empirical in his mind and trust. he also wrote that style. it always seemed to interest humans based as a man who was destined to play 2nd or 3rd fit though i came playing 1st was not due to style in so 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 was surprisingly confident as an intellectual, he was his own mind. his own mom is just, you know, his own ptolemy as a person, as a political outcomes, not georgie. came from within himself as an and an intellectual. yeah. he didn't call talk to anyone. i mean, no need to present himself as being the lending people who got the best student of

land, but he didn't. yeah. he was a photo of lennox, but, but he yeah, he wasn't a prison of learning, unavailable. his personality called the, i think clearly demonstrates that then there was the bed. yeah. but, but trust is 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. yep. especially perhaps in the west, 5th across. absolutely. but, but that, that perceptions change even in the lesson. probably a function of the fact we felt the collapse, the sort of hearing in the open up as a rush, all cause historians and i was a much, much more materials. but you know, to work with. and this is your finding a completely different picture, not just a stalling but the house sort system from the one you get get from chelsea. and one of the discoveries that the, the post soviet period in the all cars has the, the extent to which time it wasn't intellectual, unintended guy,

simple ideas. my focus is part of that, that body of work. but of course, i have a particular and a sustain focus on strong things to actual take in relation to he sees life as a reader and use of his personal library as before. now it stands access to for him . books was limit that 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 style and had a high regard and diligence interest for his political contemporaries. like winston churchill or uh, franklin delano roosevelt. do you think that 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 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 originally. yeah. and this does no,

to look like respect that 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 right of the soviet constitutional commission that was tasked with drafting the soviet constitution of 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 which some millions of people to that death 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 overwriting the perotti was to defend socialism defend the revolution finally signed them. he sent it to wherever he could to contribute to socialism. and yep, the for pattern engaging all kinds of projects, activities, which he saw a suffering, the goals, including your, at the lake, 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 too. 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 of boxes, most of them was a big thing. police favorite topic was history and the on the list especially. yeah, you mentioned the constitution. i was very surprised about stallings interest in constitutional law and i'm finding a few minutes to do integration. it's an interest that seems to come when the discussing the new saw the constitution. he thought he's a, he's on research, there's no way very important point. strong always touches on research, always talk his own reading professor representing the display that i see here. or if his perceive is that he puts so much f for the interest in researching those patterns, you know, a constitutional, uh, governing, etc. but he doesn't have the strength, 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 as and realizing them. but it's almost like he, pursuits them. i'm damaging drops and reverts to the old methods that he's defending against the law. i think he possesses them as far as he can. but as i said, you know, he's prepared to do what can 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, you know, you know, it's the limitations, the limitations are okay of, of him. so as to how does that need to actual if i sit with century i to very serious read in song. sometimes it could 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. the reason you said because of the impact of these, so he's your disorder rule on society. i don't own i'm on millions 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 site to and t 's books. and from the 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 feeling, intellectual interest in many wise control. this bad stuff is more so now we talked before about this cause a religious added to the start and head towards the books and knowledge to 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 rational history of russian literature,

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 roster is concerned, started the closest very kind of look skeptical about all this stuff about, you know, the russian sold and the essential is a very, in some sense a very typical representative american, you know, its own way just the way out of that i'm doing things by yourself, exploring embarrassed temper and yeah, i feel good. i don't expect somebody to point to, i mean, i don't think strongly but so you can self that like, 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 one, you know, i think, you know, it's much more straightforward and, but to, to actually see stein for what he was because we saw him today. so as a communist,

as i'm all just as a political are 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 on the she says don't i thought that was on? so if education brought to my office, political, police and commitments, marxism company makes much more sense to locate stone cans that context. i think anyway, down it doesn't, you know, the context of the russian tradition. but maybe maybe that somebody speak to somebody speaking from, from my experience. so as we mentioned earlier in the, into, you know, as a young man, i was very large strong. except i was a passive, it's robin the live boy. that's but very, very lucky. the many ways as a political activity, some, some i'm speaking from my experience, right? but maybe from the russian perspective, stock and it's a very different. i don't want to get too close to contemporary politics, but i do think that they sort of alternate that know stick tendency coupled with a sense of the rushes,

this thing. destiny is very inherent to the russian that issue. and they said, look at why don't 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, no whole azure, but for governing in size. the only thing is that there are lots of very interesting on comparisons to me by between stalling and i, i don't think about that. see, pushing as an intellectual. i have to say in the same step, okay. purchasing guys of ideas, but i don't think the, i don't get the impression anyway. there was central, he's to his consciousness to is, is like being that they 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 fanatical about history as the only book actually, you know that,

that the 2 main comparisons ought to voice breach of my why i'm only thinking about stalling them. thirty's, 2 things. firstly, that was petra, it's a 2nd lead to the both devoted multinational. and that's the right content that the seat between the soviet union, the ssl and the russian federation that both both scientifically of multinational, multi ethnic studies, but stalling and polluted committee to defend the, the multiplan that multinational character of all of their respect, respect, just respect is but 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 for the wars with capital w, the ride to the worth and the ride to come up with your own thinking in your own

way forward for your country. i, i guess i would tend to agree with that in a way, you know, in the west you have to kind of what all the geological stuff that always breaks to my mind, the art you've loved to prefer both of the, the soviet period to self. 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 mock system and 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 box will fit super true. very true. you're getting an insightful laugh flush, i hope, hopefully it was also your pleasure. thank you for watching and hope to see her again on was a part of the

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