Stalin, Volume II

Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941

By: Stephen Kotkin

Narrated by: Paul Hecht

Length: 49 hrs and 44 mins

Publisher's summary

Pulitzer Prize finalist Stephen Kotkin continues his definitive biography of Stalin, from collectivization and the Great Terror through to the coming of the conflict with Hitler's Germany that is the signal event of modern world history.

When we left Stalin at the end of Stalin: Paradoxes of Power, 1878-1928, it was 1928, and he had finally climbed the mountaintop and achieved dictatorial power of the Soviet empire. The vastest peasant economy in the world would be transformed into socialist modernity, whatever it took. What it took, or what Stalin believed it took, was the most relentless campaign of shock industrialization the world has ever seen.

This is the story of the five-year plans, the new factory towns, and the integration of an entire system of penal labor into the larger economy. With the Great Depression throwing global capital into crisis, the Soviet Union's New Man looked like nothing so much as the man of the future. As the shadows of the '30's deepen, Stalin's drive to militarize Soviet society takes on increasing urgency, and the ambition of Nazi Germany becomes the predominant geopolitical reality he faces when Hitler claims that communism is a global "Judeo-Bolshevik" conspiracy to bring the Slavic race to power.

But just because they're out to get you doesn't mean you're not paranoid. Stalin's paranoia is increasingly one of the most horrible facts of life for his entire country. Stalin's obsessions drive him to violently purge almost a million people, including military leadership, diplomatic corps, and intelligence apparatus, to say nothing of a generation of artistic talent. And then came the pact that shocked the world and demoralized leftists everywhere: Stalin's pact with Hitler in 1939, the carve-up of Poland, and Stalin's utter inability to see Hitler's buildup to the invasion of the USSR.

Yet for all that, in just 12 years of total power, Stalin has taken this country from a peasant economy to a formidable modern war machine that rivaled anything else in the world. When the invasion came, Stalin wasn't ready, but his country would prove to be prepared. That is a dimension of the Stalin story that has never adequately been reckoned with before, and it looms large here. Stalin: Waiting for Hitler: 1929-1941 is, like its predecessor, nothing less than a history of the world from Stalin's desk. It is also, like its predecessor, a landmark achievement in the annals of its field and in the biographer's art.

©2017 Stephen Kotkin (P)2017 Recorded Books

Part 2 of an impartial biography of Joseph Stalin

Stephen Kotkin is the World's Premier scholar of the Soviet despot known to history as Joseph Stalin. Part 2 or 3 of this biography, Stalin, Waiting for Hitler is hard to describe accurately without cliche. This series will serve mankind as the baseline on Joseph Stalin.
Biographies, especially when they are concerned with controversial figures are necessarily impregnated with bias. Naturally it takes a minimum of several works by different authors, from different regions, generations with different sympathies. Kotkin's work offers us a unique and considering our subject an unprecedented achievement. Truly Kotkin is scholar, a historian par excellence. His works stand alone as they have none of odor of political science that taints objectivity. His works can be read without supplemental texts as they need not be balanced by an opposing ideological bias so often necessary when discussing the late Soviet Union.
You can form a good understanding of the world's ultimate despot with this complete biography. Kotkin is able to avoid being overly long-winded and sterile, this work comes across as Grand rather than extensive. The innumerable facts that give this history it's bleak atmosphere can benumb the most patient student.
Fortunately for his readers, Stephen Kotkin has the Muse within. This is a enjoyable study, with an air of expectation and excitement without dreary sections one would rather glance over than examine in detail.

Kotkin uses the word "cuckhold" a lot,,,

Paul Hecht is an iron work horse: I wonder how long it takes to record such a book? How many times must he re-do a line etc. He scares me when he reads the line: "Stalin ignored the request" (or something to that effect) when referring to a letter Bukharin sent Stalin.

Kotkin focuses more on Stalin in this volume than the first one but other than criticizing other biographies, doesn't really add anything that would help to further understand Stalin's unparalleled evil.

Excellent work. Worth every dime.

I really love the new information that I was never taught in college. What is also interesting is the items that were left out. Looks like the crap I was fed really was wrong.

Best biography of Stalin I have read...

And I have read many. Kotkin’s grounding in the political environment rather than in obscure personal episodes is refreshing and interesting. Very detailed but woven within a coherent story. A pleasure to read/ hear. Eagerly waiting for Volume 3

Brilliant and excellent narrative, realistic and consistent book work for.Dr. Kotkin he is a great historian.

I will recommend this book to be read for all people in government and in foreign relations, history always coming back in totalitarian systems. Look at Europe in middle of the Russian invasion to Ukrainian, shameful and criminal. Now we are waiting for the Stalin Volume III.

great

I love this book and narration. it’s perfect in every way; nothing more to say.

A Brilliant Biography of Stalin & the Soviet Regime

This is an utterly brilliant, even handed and well written biography of the late despot. Though you could also call it a comprehensive biography of the Soviet regime as well from 1929 - 1941. This is definitely not for those new to the subject, as it requires a lot of background knowledge. Yet for those in the know, it is stuffed full of both political and personal knowledge of Stalin that had never been brought to light prior. I wait patiently for volume three.

Sub-amateur narration

The narrator is horribly unprofessional and his constantly tripping over the fact that he is seeing the current passage for the first time can be distracting. Kotkin writes long chains of phrases to a fault and very few of them don't disorient Hecht mid sentence.
In the end though the book is good enough for the narration to still be tolerable at x1.10.

Brilliant

Massively erudite. Well researched, magisterial. I felt like I was in Satlin's clique attempting to anticipate Hitler and Churchill.

great listen

This is a great look into socialism leading to communism and what's next with Stalin.