He's a good historian but he's firmly biased.

He is a member of the Hoover Institute, a Cold War era think tank dedicated to promoting "personal and economic liberty, free enterprise, and limited government." Kotkin makes no secret of his bias, stating plainly in the text that he believes the "construction of [a] political order on the basis of class rather than common humanity and individual liberty was (and always will be) ruinous." Though Kotkin admirably refrains from much overt political commentary, he does this by eliding an engagement with Bolshevik politics whatsoever.
As Kotkin sees it, Lenin was a "deranged fanatic" whose comrades were "obsessed." Bolshevism was less a proper political philosophy and more the creed of a millenarian cult. Consequently, Kotkin views most political disputes among the Bolsheviks as essentially meaningless; for instance, he writes nothing on the Machist controversy of 1908-09. That same bias leads him to dismiss the inter-party disputes preceding Stalin's rise to power as little more than factionalist infighting. In his view, Stalinism is Leninism is Marxism, and Trotskyism or Bukharinism in power would've been no different.

>>18691999
>biographer of Stalin doesn't know what the difference between him and Trotsky is
Bleak.

>>18691999
>As Kotkin sees it, Lenin was a "deranged fanatic" whose comrades were "obsessed." Bolshevism was less a proper political philosophy and more the creed of a millenarian cult.
Thats because objectively it was. I would love to see you articulate this same sort of criticism with literally any mainstream historians take on a topic like Nazi Germany or Hitler. Lenin created the 20th century dictator form of government, the same one that Hitler, Mussolini, Idi Amin, Gaddafi, Pol Pot, or Saddam all used.