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Stalin, Volume II
- Waiting for Hitler, 1929-1941
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 49 hrs and 44 mins
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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.
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In 1946, Victor Sebestyen creates a taut, panoramic narrative and takes us to meetings that changed the world: to Berlin in July 1945, when Truman tells Stalin that we have successfully tested the bomb; to Ye'nan, China, in January 1946, when General George Marshall tells the Chinese Communist leader Mao Zedong that Americans won't send troops to China, assuring that the Communists will attain power.
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An education. Somber, detailed, many-faceted
- By Philo on 08-20-16
By: Victor Sebestyen
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Six Months in 1945
- FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman--from World War to Cold War
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- Narrated by: Bob Walter
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When Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill met in Yalta in February 1945, Hitler's armies were on the run and victory was imminent. The Big Three wanted to draft a blueprint for a lasting peace - but instead set the stage for a 44-year division of Europe into Soviet and western spheres of influence. After fighting side by side for nearly four years, their political alliance was rapidly fracturing. By the time the leaders met again in Potsdam in July 1945, Russians and Americans were squabbling over the future of Germany and Churchill was warning about an "iron curtain" being drawn down over the Continent.
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Totally Outstanding. Bravo !
- By Alan on 10-25-12
By: Michael Dobbs
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Mao
- The Unknown Story
- By: Jung Chang, Jon Halliday
- Narrated by: Robertson Dean
- Length: 29 hrs and 50 mins
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Based on a decade of research and on interviews with many of Mao's close circle in China who have never talked before, and with virtually everyone outside China who had significant dealings with him, this is the most authoritative biography of Mao ever written.
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Fills many gaps! Very good..but!
- By Jene on 08-07-06
By: Jung Chang, and others
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A Savage War of Peace
- Algeria 1954-1962
- By: Alistair Horne
- Narrated by: James Adams
- Length: 29 hrs and 56 mins
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The Algerian War lasted from 1954 to 1962. It caused the fall of six French governments, led to the collapse of the Fourth Republic, and came close to provoking a civil war on French soil. More than a million Muslim Algerians died in the conflict, and as many European settlers were driven into exile. From the perspective of half a century, it looks less like the last colonial war than the first postmodern one.
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Excellent history of France's Viet Nam
- By David on 04-10-16
By: Alistair Horne
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The Russian Revolution
- A New History
- By: Sean McMeekin
- Narrated by: Pete Larkin
- Length: 15 hrs and 3 mins
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From an award-winning scholar comes this definitive, single-volume history that illuminates the tensions and transformations of the Russian Revolution. In The Russian Revolution, acclaimed historian Sean McMeekin traces the events which ended Romanov rule, ushered the Bolsheviks into power, and introduced Communism to the world. Between 1917 and 1922, Russia underwent a complete and irreversible transformation.
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Great Book on the Russian Revolution
- By Nostromo on 09-02-17
By: Sean McMeekin
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Red Heat
- Conspiracy, Murder, and the Cold War in the Caribbean
- By: Alex von Tunzelmann
- Narrated by: Sarah Coomes
- Length: 19 hrs and 55 mins
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The Caribbean crises of the Cold War are revealed as never before in this riveting story of clashing ideologies, the rise of the politics of fear, the machinations of superpowers, and the daring of the brazen mavericks who took them on. The superpowers thought they could use Cuba, Haiti, and the Dominican Republic as puppets, but what neither bargained on was that their puppets would come to life.
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Interesting, not extraordinary.
- By History on 10-24-11
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Operation Snow
- How a Soviet Mole in FDR’s White House Triggered Pearl Harbor
- By: John Koster
- Narrated by: Michael Kramer
- Length: 6 hrs and 23 mins
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On December 7, 1941, the nation of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and prompted the United States’ entry into the bloodiest war in human history. Americans have long debated the cause of the bombing; many have argued that the attack was a brilliant Japanese military coup or a failure of US intelligence agencies or even a conspiracy of the Roosevelt administration. But despite the attention historians have paid to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the truth about that fateful day has remained a mystery - until now.
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PUT IT IN THE FILE BLAMING FDR FOR PEARL HARBOR
- By Ron on 11-21-20
By: John Koster
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Hitler
- Ascent 1889-1939
- By: Volker Ullrich
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- Length: 34 hrs and 46 mins
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For all the literature about Adolf Hitler, there have been just four seminal biographies; this is the fifth, a landmark work that sheds important new light on Hitler himself. Drawing on previously unseen papers and a wealth of recent scholarly research, Volker Ullrich reveals the man behind the public persona, from Hitler's childhood, to his failures as a young man in Vienna, to his experiences during the First World War, to his rise as a far-right party leader.
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Worthwhile if you haven't read a Hitler biography
- By Joshua on 11-03-16
By: Volker Ullrich
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The Pope at War
- The Secret History of Pius XII, Mussolini, and Hitler
- By: David I. Kertzer
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 17 hrs and 33 mins
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When Pope Pius XII died in 1958, his papers were sealed in the Vatican Secret Archives, leaving unanswered questions about what he knew and did during World War II. Those questions have only grown and festered, making Pius XII one of the most controversial popes in Church history, especially now as the Vatican prepares to canonize him.
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Intellectually dishonest
- By ReviewAmazon384 on 04-08-23
By: David I. Kertzer
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Last Hope Island
- Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of War
- By: Lynne Olson
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey, Kimberly Farr
- Length: 18 hrs and 46 mins
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A groundbreaking account of how Britain became the base of operations for the exiled leaders of Europe in their desperate struggle to reclaim their continent from Hitler, from the New York Times best-selling author of Citizens of London and Those Angry Days.
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Not What I Expected--More What I Needed to Know
- By DanD on 06-25-17
By: Lynne Olson
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The Brothers
- John Foster Dulles, Allen Dulles, and Their Secret World War
- By: Stephen Kinzer
- Narrated by: David Cochran Heath
- Length: 13 hrs and 28 mins
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John Foster Dulles was secretary of state while his brother, Allen Dulles, was director of the Central Intelligence Agency. In this book, Stephen Kinzer places their extraordinary lives against the backdrop ofAmerican culture and history. He uses the framework of biography to ask: Why does the United States behave as it does in the world?
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A duel biography
- By Jean on 09-26-14
By: Stephen Kinzer
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Overthrow
- America's Century of Regime Change from Hawaii to Iraq
- By: Stephen Kinzer
- Narrated by: Michael Prichard
- Length: 15 hrs and 9 mins
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"Regime change" did not begin with the administration of George W. Bush, but has been an integral part of U.S. foreign policy for more than one hundred years. Starting with the overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy in 1893 and continuing through the Spanish-American War and the Cold War and into our own time, the United States has not hesitated to overthrow governments that stood in the way of its political and economic goals.
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Looking at the dark side
- By Stanley on 08-02-06
By: Stephen Kinzer
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In 1929, Stalin plunged Soviet Russia into a coercive "revolution from above", a decade-long effort to amass military-industrial power for a new war. He forced 25 million peasant families into state-run collectives and transformed the Communist Party into a servile instrument. In 1939, he concluded the pact with Hitler that enabled him to grasp at Eastern Europe while Hitler made war in the West.
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What listeners say about Stalin, Volume II
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Prashant Chatterjee
- 07-27-19
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
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- Frank
- 06-14-23
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.
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- Boo McCoo
- 06-15-23
great
I love this book and narration. it’s perfect in every way; nothing more to say.
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- History For History’s Sake
- 06-29-18
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.
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- Arya Pourtabatabaie
- 06-07-21
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.
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- S. Walker
- 09-06-22
Brilliant
Massively erudite. Well researched, magisterial. I felt like I was in Satlin's clique attempting to anticipate Hitler and Churchill.
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- Brian Ankney
- 11-20-22
great listen
This is a great look into socialism leading to communism and what's next with Stalin.
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- Joseph
- 04-07-20
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.
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- Max Hydrogen
- 03-31-23
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.
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- Jim hines
- 12-06-23
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.
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