Stephen Kotkin: Stalin, Putin, and the Nature of Power

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. This conversation
is part of the Artificial Intelligence podcast. If you would
like to get more information about this podcast go to
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Episode Links: Stalin (book, vol 1): https://amzn.to/2FjdLF2 Stalin
(book, vol 2): https://amzn.to/2tqyjc3 Here's the outline of the
episode. On some podcast players you should be able to click the
timestamp to jump to that time. 00:00 - Introduction 03:10 - Do all
human beings crave power? 11:29 - Russian people and authoritarian
power 15:06 - Putin and the Russian people 23:23 - Corruption in
Russia 31:30 - Russia's future 41:07 - Individuals and institutions
44:42 - Stalin's rise to power 1:05:20 - What is the ideal
political system? 1:21:10 - Questions for Putin 1:29:41 - Questions
for Stalin 1:33:25 - Will there always be evil in the world?