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/lit/ - Literature

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4630385 No.4630385 [Reply] [Original]

What does /lit/ think of Joseph Stalin's literary taste?

>"He worked very hard to improve himself," said Molotov. His library consisted of 20,000 well-used volumes. "If you want to know the people around you," Stalin said, "find out what they read." Svetlana found books there from the Life of Jesus to the novels of Galsworthy, Wilde, Maupassant, and later Steinbeck and Hemingway. His granddaughter later noticed him reading Gogol, Chekhov, Hugo, Thackeray, and Balzac. In old age, he was still discovering Goethe. He "worshiped Zola."

>...The Bolsheviks, who believed in the perfectibility of the New Man, were avid autodidacts, Stalin being the most accomplished and diligent of all. He read seriously, making notes, learning quotations, like an omnipotent student, leaving his revealing marginalia in books varying from Anatole France to Vipper's History of Ancient Greece. He had "a very good knowledge of antiquity and mythology," recalled Molotov. He could quote from the Bible, Chekhov and, Good Soldier Svejk, as well as Napoleon, Bismarck, and Talleyrand. His knowledge of Georgian literature was such that he debated arcane poetry with Shalva Nutsibidze, the philosopher, who said, long after Stalin was no longer a god, that his editorial comments were outstanding. He read literature aloud to his circle.... He adored The Last of the Mohicans, amazing a young translator whom he greeted in faux-Red Indian: "Big chief greets paleface!"

>His deeply conservative tastes remained 19th-century even during the Modernist blossoming of the twenties: he was always much happier with Pushkin and Tchaikovsky than with Akhmatova and Shostakovich. He respected intellectuals, his tone changing completely when dealing with a famous professor.

Montefiore, Sebag. Stalin: The Court of the Red Tsar. New York: Knopf, 2004, p. 97

>> No.4630401

I need to read that book now.

>> No.4630444

I have a hard time trusting anything that is said about communist leaders. Well, any powerful/influential people, but particularly the communists.
Perhaps that's confirmation bias or something, but it is what it is.

>> No.4630560

At least he reads.

>> No.4630619

>>4630444
you have a hard time believing that a man who was the leader of the USSR read a lot and could debate well?

>> No.4630625

I think he was a smart, talented, courageous, handsome and incredibly competent piece of shit.

>> No.4630981

Didn't Hitler give Mussolini a first edition copy of Thus Spoke Zatharusta for his 60th birthday?
>tfw you'll never be a well read dictator discussing philosophy with your philospher king bros while remaking the world

>> No.4630998

>20,000 well-used volumes
>Died at the age of 74
He read 270.3 books a year starting from birth until death.

>> No.4631012

>>4630998

>well-used

and chances are he reread many of them time and time again

>> No.4631014

>>4631012
>you will never be Stalin.

>> No.4631015

>>4630998
people used to read much faster in those days

>> No.4631017
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4631017

>>4631014

>> No.4631024

patrician as fuck

>> No.4631175

I personally find it hard to believe anything said about deceased dictators by their myrmidons.

>> No.4631180

>>4630619
that's not what he said

>> No.4631205

>tfw no qt dictator bf

>> No.4631240 [DELETED] 
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4631240

The Father of Nations has excellent taste

>> No.4631244
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4631244

>He respected intellectuals
I believe you

>> No.4631254

>>4631244
>Implying he wasn't also a political opponent

>> No.4631262

>>4631015
Less distraction.

Anyway, it's not hard to read that many books in a year. In histories, particularly, you get a good view of the cross-referential, and the chances are that he wouldn't have needed to read most of them very closely-- after a certain point, the difference very much becomes tonal and it's a matter of allowing the tone and point of view to inform your own... and there aren't that many.

I'd be fine with believing he read half of them, but I seriously doubt that he read all of them / retained much beyond a few hundred salient books.

>> No.4631265

>>4631244
>implying he was an intellectual

>> No.4631290

Stalin actually has pretty decent writings as well, I would recommend checking them out on Marxist.org.

Like most of the Bolsheviks after the Civil War (and is the case with most civil wars sadly), paranoia poisoned his mind and made him do things that no sane man would do, like... killing off all the intellectuals and generals in your army even when you know Germany is going to shove her fist down your fucking throat.

I really do wish to see what the USSR would have been like if Lenin lived another 20 years.

>> No.4631292

>>4631244

>hurr if u dont no who dis is you r everythin wrong wif da world

>> No.4632413

>>4631015
>from birth til death

>> No.4632599

>>4630385
dat hair
despite being a huge piece of shit that nigga had some nice ass hair

>> No.4632622

>>4631244
>Muh Trotsky worship
Go fuck yourself with an icepick.