Dwarkesh

So the communists get to claim the prestige of fighting the Japanese with a fraction of the effort.

And this just seems like a brilliant move in Stalin's part in retrospect, because if they had killed Chiang Kai-shek, the nationalist forces might have dissolved.

Yeah.

there would be a public government installed by Japan.

It would be a terrible thing for Stalin.

It just seems like Stalin makes a lot of right calls in the theater in Asia at this time.

And what is he understanding big picture that lets him... Oh, hold on.

I think there's still something a little underexplained about... Probably.

Lots of things are underexplained.

But in the sense, look, Hitler's another dictator, and he does... Forget about having these moves where he decides who exactly... Don't kill this kidnapped person, because it'll be a bad idea in the long run.

In the opposite, he's declaring war against America, even when he doesn't have to.

He's just making these crazy moves.

Stalin is just a special thing to explain...

But how does like communism make you, I feel like it's not just communism.

It's like something else that's making him a deft geopolitical actor.

When you show the maps of China in 1850, Russia also in 1850, especially 1900, Russia and China are still big countries today.

But if you just look at Qing Dynasty China, it's overwhelmingly big.

Same with Tsarist Russia before the Brest-Litovsk Treaty.

It makes you think that it's... At various points through history, at most points through history, China was technologically dominant over the West.

Except during this