Norman Naimark is a historian at Stanford, specializing in the history of genocide. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Coinbase: https://coinbase.com/lex to get $5 in free Bitcoin - Quip: https://getquip.com/lex to get first refill free - Eight Sleep: https://www.eightsleep.com/lex and use code LEX to get special savings - NetSuite: http://netsuite.com/lex to get free product tour - ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/lexpod and use code LexPod to get 3 months free EPISODE LINKS: Norman's Website: https://history.stanford.edu/people/norman-naimark Stalin's Genocides (book): https://amzn.to/3oO0Hzb Stalin and the Fate of Europe (book): https://amzn.to/3pLbWrk Books & resources mentioned: The Origins of Totalitarianism (book): https://amzn.to/3oNDSvA Man's Search for Meaning (book): https://amzn.to/3pMzs7d Radio Majdanek (Research Paper): https://bit.ly/3GxPEAb PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41 OUTLINE: 0:00 - Introduction 0:20 - Stalin and absolute power 14:17 - Dictators and genocide 38:43 - What is genocide 48:50 - Human nature and suffering 1:18:35 - Mao's Great Leap Forward 1:25:49 - North Korea 1:29:42 - Our role in fighting against atrocities 1:38:38 - China 1:42:47 - Hopes for the future and technology 1:57:40 - Advice for young people 2:00:27 - Love and tragedy SOCIAL: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman - Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/lexfridman - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman
In this lecture, military historian Sarah Paine explains how Russia—and specifically Stalin—completely derailed China’s rise, slowing them down for over a century. This lecture was particularly interesting to me because, in my opinion, the Chinese Civil War is 1 of the top 3 most important events of the 20th century. And to understand why it transpired as it did, you need to understand Stalin’s role in the whole thing. 𝐄𝐏𝐈𝐒𝐎𝐃𝐄 𝐋𝐈𝐍𝐊𝐒 * Transcript: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/sarah-paine-russo-chinese * Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/sarah-paine-how-russia-sabotaged-chinas-rise/id1516093381?i=1000734455820 * Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6Iz0Fi2wxLDpSEyfHft01E?si=quCUygx8Txq5r8VC1xZUJg 𝐒𝐏𝐎𝐍𝐒𝐎𝐑𝐒 * Mercury helps you run your business better. It’s the banking platform we use for the podcast — we love that we can see our cash balance, AR, and AP all in one place. Join us (and over 200,000 other entrepreneurs) at https://mercury.com * Labelbox scrutinizes public benchmarks at the single data-row level to probe what’s really being evaluated. Using this knowledge, they can generate custom training data for hill climbing existing benchmarks, or design new benchmarks from scratch. Learn more at https://labelbox.com/dwarkesh To sponsor a future episode, visit https://dwarkesh.com/advertise. 𝐓𝐈𝐌𝐄𝐒𝐓𝐀𝐌𝐏𝐒 00:00:00 – How Russia took advantage of China's weakness 00:23:46 – Reversal of the balance of power 00:34:39 – Russian imperialism 00:46:10 – China’s and Russia's existential problems 01:05:42 – Q&A: Sino-Soviet split 01:23:29 – Stalin's lessons from WW2
Stephen Kotkin is arguably the world’s foremost expert on Joseph Stalin and has written a massive 2-volume biography about him (with a 3rd volume in the works). No other individual had more of a profound impact on the 20th century than Stalin. He held the power of life and death over every single person across 11 time zones, and he killed tens of millions of people, utterly consumed by an ideology aimed at building paradise on Earth. And he was one half of the biggest and most consequential military confrontation in history (even if Hitler didn’t prove to be his match). Read the transcript: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/stephen-kotkin Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dwarkesh-podcast/id1516093381?i=1000716709877 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Wb7GWB1DmmO8Jw3ILPavW?si=2bcf0bfa96b442ba ---------------------------------------- SPONSORS * Lighthouse is THE fastest immigration solution for the technology industry. All they need is your resume or LinkedIn profile to tell you which visas you’re most eligible for, and they’ll send you this eligibility document for free, no commitment required. Get started today at https://www.lighthousehq.com/ref/Dwarkesh. To sponsor a future episode, visit https://dwarkesh.com/advertise ---------------------------------------- TIMESTAMPS 00:00:00 – Was the tsarist regime the lesser of 2 evils? 00:24:38 – The peasants brought Lenin to power, then he enslaved them 00:38:31 – Why did so many go along with enforced famine and the Great Terror? 01:03:19 – Today's leftist civil war 01:13:54 – Doesn’t CCP deserve credit for China's growth? 01:36:06 – Why didn't somebody just kill Stalin? 01:53:38 – Overcoming the pathologies of communism with tech: USSR vs China
Stephen Kotkin is arguably the world’s foremost expert on Joseph Stalin and has written a massive 2-volume biography about him (with a 3rd volume in the works). No other individual had more of a profound impact on the 20th century than Stalin. He held the power of life and death over every single person across 11 time zones, and he killed tens of millions of people, utterly consumed by an ideology aimed at building paradise on Earth. And he was one half of the biggest and most consequential military confrontation in history (even if Hitler didn’t prove to be his match). Read the transcript: https://www.dwarkesh.com/p/stephen-kotkin Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/dwarkesh-podcast/id1516093381?i=1000716709877 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/0Wb7GWB1DmmO8Jw3ILPavW?si=2bcf0bfa96b442ba ---------------------------------------- SPONSORS * Lighthouse is THE fastest immigration solution for the technology industry. All they need is your resume or LinkedIn profile to tell you which visas you’re most eligible for, and they’ll send you this eligibility document for free, no commitment required. Get started today at https://www.lighthousehq.com/ref/Dwarkesh. To sponsor a future episode, visit https://dwarkesh.com/advertise ---------------------------------------- TIMESTAMPS 00:00:00 – Was the tsarist regime the lesser of 2 evils? 00:24:38 – The peasants brought Lenin to power, then he enslaved them 00:38:31 – Why did so many go along with enforced famine and the Great Terror? 01:03:19 – Today's leftist civil war 01:13:54 – Doesn’t CCP deserve credit for China's growth? 01:36:06 – Why didn't somebody just kill Stalin? 01:53:38 – Overcoming the pathologies of communism with tech: USSR vs China
Stephen Kotkin is a historian specializing in Stalin and Soviet history. Please support this podcast by checking out our sponsors: - Lambda: https://lambdalabs.com/lex - Scale: https://scale.com/lex - Athletic Greens: https://athleticgreens.com/lex and use code LEX to get 1 month of fish oil - ExpressVPN: https://expressvpn.com/lexpod and use code LexPod to get 3 months free - ROKA: https://roka.com/ and use code LEX to get 20% off your first order EPISODE LINKS: Stephen's Website: https://history.princeton.edu/people/stephen-kotkin Stalin: 1878-1928 (Vol 1): https://amzn.to/3NvokpC Stalin: 1929-1941 (Vol 2): https://amzn.to/3wIYqsT PODCAST INFO: Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/podcast Apple Podcasts: https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 RSS: https://lexfridman.com/feed/podcast/ Full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 Clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41 OUTLINE: 0:00 - Introduction 2:19 - Putin and Stalin 13:09 - Putin vs the West 36:01 - Response to Oliver Stone 47:07 - Russian invasion of Ukraine 1:26:35 - Putin's plan for the war 1:34:33 - Henry Kissinger 1:40:28 - Nuclear war 1:51:01 - Parallels to World War II 2:13:47 - China 2:21:55 - World War III 2:29:24 - Navalny 2:33:41 - Meaning of life SOCIAL: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman - Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/lexfridman - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman
Full episode with Stephen Kotkin (Jan 2020): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCkkjnpS2f8 Clips channel (Lex Clips): https://www.youtube.com/lexclips Main channel (Lex Fridman): https://www.youtube.com/lexfridman (more links below) Podcast full episodes playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOdP_8GztsuKi9nrraNbKKp4 Podcasts clips playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLrAXtmErZgOeciFP3CBCIEElOJeitOr41 Podcast website: https://lexfridman.com/ai Podcast on Apple Podcasts (iTunes): https://apple.co/2lwqZIr Podcast on Spotify: https://spoti.fi/2nEwCF8 Podcast RSS: https://lexfridman.com/category/ai/feed/ Stephen Kotkin is a professor of history at Princeton university and one of the great historians of our time, specializing in Russian and Soviet history. He has written many books on Stalin and the Soviet Union including the first 2 of a 3 volume work on Stalin, and he is currently working on volume 3. Subscribe to this YouTube channel or connect on: - Twitter: https://twitter.com/lexfridman - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lexfridman - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lexfridman - Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/lexfridman - Medium: https://medium.com/@lexfridman - Support on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/lexfridman