Summary of O. V. Khlevniuk's Stalin

By IRB Media

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Book Preview:

#1 The dictator’s approach to exercising power through a combination of bureaucratic institutions and patrimonial power inspired Yoram Gorlizki to coin the phrase neopatrimonial state. Stalin maintained daily, hands-on control over this central node of power.

#2 The Kremlin movie theater was a 7. 5-by-17-meter space with twenty seats, installed in 1934 where Russia’s tsars had once enjoyed a winter garden. Stalin enjoyed watching movies with his comrades, and these viewing sessions became obligatory.

#3 The dacha near Moscow was Stalin’s favorite. It was an important epicenter of his life and rule. The house was a strange blend of the institutional and the pretentious. Stalin personally oversaw the many expansions and renovations.

#4 Stalin’s desire to shape the spaces around him led to the creation of a room that served as the dacha’s social nexus: a 155-square-meter hall. The food was simply placed on the table, and guests helped themselves to whatever they wanted and took their plates to any free seat.

• Language: English
• Publisher: IRB Media
• Release date: Jun 9, 2022
• ISBN: 9798822535329

IRB Media

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Insights on O. V. Khlevniuk's Stalin

Contents

Insights from Chapter 1

Insights from Chapter 2

Insights from Chapter 3

Insights from Chapter 4

Insights from Chapter 5

Insights from Chapter 6

Insights from Chapter 7

Insights from Chapter 8

Insights from Chapter 9

Insights from Chapter 10

Insights from Chapter 11

Insights from Chapter 12

Insights from Chapter 13

Insights from Chapter 14

Insights from Chapter 1

#1

The dictator’s approach to exercising power through a combination of bureaucratic institutions and patrimonial power inspired Yoram Gorlizki to coin the phrase neopatrimonial state. Stalin maintained daily, hands-on control over this central node of power.

#2

The Kremlin movie theater was a 7. 5-by-17-meter space with twenty seats, installed in 1934 where Russia’s tsars had once enjoyed a winter garden. Stalin enjoyed watching movies with his comrades, and these viewing sessions became obligatory.

#3

The dacha near Moscow was Stalin’s favorite. It was an important epicenter of his life and rule. The house was a strange blend of the institutional and the pretentious. Stalin personally oversaw the many expansions and renovations.

#4

Stalin’s desire to shape the spaces around him led to the creation of a room that served as the dacha’s social nexus: a 155-square-meter hall. The food was simply placed on the table, and guests helped themselves to whatever they wanted and took their plates to any free seat.

#5

Stalin’s dinners were not easy on his guests. They were required to attend, and if they did not, they would be threatened.

#6

Stalin’s anti-capitalism was extreme, and he believed that the state was the highest entity. He believed that all existence was completely and unconditionally subordinate to the state, and its highest personification was the party and its leader.

#7

The class war against foreign and domestic enemies was the primary tool used to compel submission to the state and suppress the individual and the social. It was a cornerstone of Stalin’s dictatorship.

Insights from Chapter 2

#1

Ioseb Jughashvili, Stalin’s birth name, was born in 1878. He knew when and where he was born, and he used that information to celebrate his fiftieth birthday in 1929. But he decided to become one year younger in the 1920s.

#2

Ioseb’s childhood was not difficult. He had a mother who was a hard worker, and he was able to attend school. His father, on the other hand, was a drunkard who sometimes beat Ioseb. But the family’s financial difficulties were eased by the help of friends and relatives.

#3

Stalin’s childhood was not easy, but it was not difficult either. He did not suffer from any physical defects, and he was able to get an education thanks to his mother.

#4

Ioseb Jughashvili, the future leader, spent almost six years at the Gori Theological School from 1888 to 1894. He was a model student and was even granted a stipend. The mother took care that her son would not feel inferior to his classmates.

#5

Ioseb Jughashvili’s academic success yielded a recommendation for entry into a theological seminary. He spent more than four and a half years in the Tiflis seminary, from the autumn of 1894 to May 1899. His behavior was assessed as excellent.

#6

While there is no specific moment when Ioseb Stalin left the path of the law-abiding and well-adjusted student, we do have two pieces of evidence that attest to the unbearable living conditions at the seminary. The first is a description by one of Stalin’s classmates of the seminary’s role in pushing him toward insurrection.

#7

Stalin’s fascination with romantic rebellion and Georgian nationalism led him to try his hand at poetry. He began reading books forbidden by the seminary, and his grades began to decline.

#8

Ioseb’s behavior during his final academic year at the seminary, when he was increasingly involved in the Social Democratic movement, clearly shows an intention to break with the past. He was caught reading excerpts from banned books