What is the one book by him one should read?he wrote a ton after all; some must be worth reading.The way "State and Revolution" by Lenin is the go to work for Lenin, what's the Stalin equivalent?
>>23557539I personally liked Marxism and The Problems of Linguistics.
>>23557539Foundations of Leninism in which he claims Lenin was a big guy
>>23557539Stalin only really wrote one book, _On Linguistics_, which is garbage. His name is attached to the Short Course because he was responsible for it in a collective sense, but it was written by others. Foundations of Leninism is collected newspaper writings grade.On Linguistics asserts that National Characters precede historical materialism and dialectics, it is nationalist bourgeois ideology.
>>23557539he was a rather simple guy so barely andthing he wrote is worth reading besides if youre interessted in the history of the soviet union. Read Foundations of Leninism if thats the case
>>23559138Or you could spend that time reading Andrle or Fitzpatrick who are actual historians of the soviet union.If you want to know about Stalin, I'd recommend Ðilas' conversations with Stalin. If you want anti-revisionist Marxist ideology, read Mao.
>>23559148reading the leaders own thoughts while studying a certain nation is still useful and enlightening. If you want to learn something about the reason of state of the third reich I would recommend to read Mein Kampf as well as historians
>>23559180Maybe, but given Fitzpatrick's findings on the centrality of regional lower party figures in the configuration of the 1930s, I think it is a dangerous tack of reading that leads people towards celebrating Stalin as a "great man," rather than a continuously endorsed delegate of a monstrous party. "If Stalin didn't exist, the party would have had to create him: in fact, they did." etc.Not sure Foundations of Leninism would be better than Short Course history of the RSDLP(b) there? But I take your point as valid. I'd preference reading translations of actual Political Committee meetings as primary sources, myself?
Stalin writing style was like "How do we call the transitional phase toward Communism? We call the transitional phase toward Communism "Socialism". But when is the transitional phase toward Communism we call Socialism going to be fully realized? The transitional phase toward Communism we call socialism is going to be fully realized when... "This is what happens when you shoot all your editors
