Stephen Kotkin

And then if you understand their personality, you'll understand what they do in power.

The problem with that analysis is Stalin is not Stalin when he first gets into power.

It's the experience of being in power that makes Stalin, Stalin.

It's the building the dictatorship within the dictatorship, and it's the enacting that kind of power that makes Stalin who he is.

It's sitting in that chair.

It's being in the Kremlin, running a Leninist regime, and being responsible for Russian power in the world against Nazi Germany, the UK, the US.

So people say about Xi Jinping now,

You know, Xi Jinping, he's made a lot of mistakes.

If he had just kept to Deng Xiaoping's policies, China would be much better off.

We'd be still in a kind of detente or partnership with China.

And instead, we're at loggerheads and there's potential war.

And the problem with that analysis is, what would Xi Jinping have done if he were the number one guy under Deng Xiaoping instead of Deng?

Maybe he would have done Deng's policies just like Deng did.

More importantly, what would Deng do if he were alive today instead of Xi Jinping?

Would he do what Deng did in the 80s and 90s?

Or would he do what Xi Jinping is doing today?

In other words, how much is the personality and how much is the system?

How much is formation before you get into the position of power?

And how much is the circumstances and responding to those circumstances and the exigencies of the moment and the way the system operates and the place the system is and what the larger context in the world looks like?

So here you have...