Stalin at War - Stephen Kotkin

I think he is wrong to say Stalin lost because USSR collapsed nearly 40 years after his death all sorts of other things had happened

“Every order he wrote….was a command from god.”

Ahhhh. Now I see why they don’t want any religion!

Kotkin, from Belarous.

You might argue that the USSRs lower wealth was offset by the capital of its allies as well...

Having read the excellent first two volumes, I am anxiously awaiting the publication of the final volume.

What a masterpiece!

Massing troops on the border in 1941 was not idiocy on part of stalin’s commanders. He otherwise would not have kept those idiots all the way throughout the war and made them victory marshals. Stalin most likely was getting ready to attack himself but was outpaced by Hitler who attacked first

Can’t stop laughing

russians still throwing their men to the slaughter trying to invade Ukraine

His conclusion makes no sense. He says he’s focused on 1941-45 the war years then fast forwards to 1994 52 years after Stalin’s death and after Gorbachev disama toed the USSR.

Stalin is no match for Kotkin

That was awesome.

terrible audio

Joe Pesci the historian over here everybody.

We love him

Always, always eager to listen to Dr. Kotkin.

German officers made mistakes. The Germans were fighting on at least three fronts, four if one includes the Battle of the Atlantic.

Brilliant. Thank you.

Kotkin explains history in interesting and relevant ways. Easily digestible. He’s a gift to learning.

I can't help but think
Joe Pesci 😂😂😂

This is absolute gold and should be shown everywhere.

Sound sucks. Can't hear shit.

The reason that you aren't going to hear about those five topics listed at the beginning of the lecture is that they are all part of Volume II.

Есть на русском ?

An excellent lecture that acknowledged how complicated and contradictory history can be.

The Michael Jordan of historians

Whether you like Stalin or not the fact he was the most Influential person during WW2

X

Reserved Judgement on his appraisal of the subject matter in question. Then when he made his comment on Chicago O’Hare airport, he won me over completely!👍🏼

Kotkin is one of my favourite speakers on geopolitics and history. But the volume is too low. I wish there is another version.

Ummmm.....it's a kind of Great Man revisionist history here that I have issues with. Of course Stalin was the longest serving leader of all the Great Powers on the allied side because.....well I guess you all know the answer but for those who haven't paid attention...because it was not a democracy were they could vote him out. Roosevelt died then Truman was replaced by Eisenhower, Churchill was voted out of office for a number of reasons about the prosecution of the War, his age and health and the type of peace-time leader the British electorate wanted. Stalin had the luxury of certainty.
Also when lines were drawn on maps at Yalta or the subsequent meeting, Stalin could not believe how much territory was ceded to the Soviet sphere of influence. Churchill was furious that the US had allowed this and were prepared to retreat into a Monroe Doctrine stance regarding territory. The East European States were thrown under the bus and Stalin was clapping his hands literally. The Soviets didn't lose the peace, we did in West Europe. The Soviet peace was lost because they were yesterdays men forming authoritarian puppet states that few wanted to live in. Stalin lost the peace all on his own from a good position.
I won't go on but you see the reflections here with Stalin's protégée Putin. The wonder is that their prolls keep/ed taking the Kool Aid. Putin will find this exponentially more difficult that Starlin in a world of interconnected information.

Absolutely loved this

Brillliant and masterful!

BS!

T-34 superior of a Panzer???wtf :))) no way boss

Bullshit...Stalin was a stupid man..if was not USA UK And France,the war was won easy for the german army

This gentleman is a rockstar! ⭐️

This guy is awesome, and he knows his stuff too

This guy is so disingenuous, he leaves out so much about the soviets economy and just one example of Russian innovation is the fact they had the best tanks in the world at the time, only country in the world to have amphibious tanks etc. Soviets were gearing up to take over all of Europe, that's why they had the largest army and military equipment of any country. Most if not all of his conclusions are wrong. Don't listen to this guy.

What was not mentioned about the Soviet tanks is that the war planners studied the limited life expectancy of a Soviet tank and concluded that it would have been a waste of good materials to put quality parts made of quality materials into a tank that was going to have a severely limited life span so they used crappy parts made out of crappy materials on purpose. Not all T-34s were made alike.

Потрясающе поучительная лекция блестящего историка профессора Коткина.Огромное спасибо!

I was reading The 900 Days; The Siege of Leningrad by Harrison Salisbury and Salisbury COMPLETELY disagreed with the opinion of Prof. Kotkin about Stalin's culpability for the massive surprise of the Hitler invasion on their "ally". He blamed Stalin 100% for simply refusing to believe that Hitler would attack at that time, writing that Stalin was INUNDATED with information; from scores of sources; reports from excellent spies, diplomats, the military that a German attack on the USSR was imminent ... Stalin refused to even consider it, and further ordered his military to, basically, NOT prepare for such an eventuality, lest Hitler believe that the USSR was preparing instead to attack Germany.

If I recall correctly, Salisbury said that Stalin thought that EVENTUALLY Hitler would attack him, but not for another year or so.

Comrade Stalin sounds like he was on meth lol

The UK sent 1/2 of their 8,000 Valentine tanks to Stalin.

Brilliant and utterly fascinating exposition. Thank you, Professor Kotkin!

Can’t replace Stalin, who wants that job?

The first to use tanks en masse (i.e. blitzkrieg) were the soviets at Khalkhin Gol to defeat Japanese. So it’s incorrect to say Stalin did not understand that keeping his forces close to the border is dangerous. In fact, Germans, as allies of the soviets at that time, studied that battle in preparation to the invasion of France.

Stalin did not 'grow' as a leader, still being petty and paranoid at the end...but he did learn how to let the professionals take over. He even allowed Czarists like Zhukov lead, having shown his supremacy at Galkin Gol and every battle thereafter. Hitler, in contrast, questioned the loyalty of every general (with good cause) and ended up with a bunch of sycophants. Stalin, for all of his shortcomings and questionable behavior, made a mighty host which swept uninterrupted straight to Berlin.