Trotsky and other critics of Stalin’s regime also asserted that his triumph reflected no special abilities, just special circumstances. This is manifestly false. Still, we must be careful not to err in the opposite direction and lionize him. He was brilliantly adept at administration and manipulation, but we shall observe Stalin learning on the job, and often failing. That was not merely because of his plentiful shortcomings but also because Lenin had helped conjure into being both an ideologically blinkered dictatorship and a costly global antagonism. Managing the severely difficult challenge
...more
