Stephen Kotkin

Former enemies who are allies, like Japan,

They are former allies who are now enemies who have done this magic sauce.

And now we're in the pickle that we're in as a result of this.

But the formula is this is where the communists deserve the credit that they never get, whereas they get credit for things that they didn't do.

So counterfactuals are really critical for historical thought.

A lot of historians are pedantic about this.

And they say we're against counterfactual.

It's just speculation.

But every single one of them is a practitioner.

Why?

If you say that Stalin caused collectivization...

That means without Stalin, there's no collectivization.

If you say Hitler caused World War II, you're doing the counterfactual.

You're saying no Hitler, no World War II.

This is a question about how do you become Stalin?

Could there have been another Stalin besides Stalin?

Yeah.

A lot of people will argue that you have this formative period when you're growing up, your parents, your schooling, the influences of your peers, and you become a certain personality.

Part of it is genetic, and then a lot of it is the environment.

And you have this then personality, and so you have to understand how the person formed, whether it's Picasso as a painter or Stalin as a dictator.