> It's also interesting to be reminded that Stalin was indeed a guy who could talk about ideas.
He was an very intelligent man who genuinely believed in what he preached. Which is precisely why millions paid for his idealism with their lives.
He was an very intelligent man who genuinely believed in what he preached. Which is precisely why millions paid for his idealism with their lives.
The reason the West survived the Axis onslaught is because Hitler and his cohorts, unlike Stalin, were morons. Only an imbecile would open a second front with a country with which you have a non-aggression pact [1].
This highlights the frailties of intelligence nicely. Stalin was so thoroughly convinced that this was such a profound stupidity, that he refused to believe it even after receiving intelligence reports confirming as much.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pact
So whatever else we can say about Stalin, there's every reason to expect that he'd be more than able to talk about ideas.
Millions of famine deaths under Stalin are attributed to some mix of malice and incompetence. I am not saying that he was totally incompetent. He helped usher in a ton of industrialization that helped the Soviet Union win WWII. He was also quite good at ruling through fear. But the utter incompetence of the agricultural collectivization makes me unable to label him competent on average.
Assume you're going to collectivize agriculture. How well do you think that will go? What's the best achievable outcome?
I think the more interesting questions here are, "how much power does the US president actually have?" and "how similar is becoming president to overthrowing the existing government and replacing it with yourself?"