The Stalin archives, collections of the Soviet dictator’s personal papers and library, recently opened to Yale University Press, provide new insight into the psyche of the man who orchestrated some of the most terrible events of the twentieth century—and whose legacy is being rehabilitated today in Vladimir Putin’s Russia.

Stalin Listen to Audio
play pause

Download Audio as MP3 never intended for others to see the archives’ nearly forty thousand documents. The collection includes notes, annotated books, private letters, conversation transcripts, and other papers, from 1917 to 1952, and may well constitute the last great missing piece in understanding Stalin’s world view.

Stalin was a prolific writer of marginalia, and the ongoing analysis of his scribbles in some of the most important books of his time gives us a unique window into the tyrant’s thoughts and intentions. Jonathan Brent, editor at Yale University Press, is overseeing much of this research, and he will speak about ways in which the newly accessed documents may force us to reconsider at least some of what we thought we knew about Stalin. As the current Russian regime attempts to portray Stalin in a new, positive light, the revelations in Stalin’s own hand will play a role in contemporary Russia as well as in Western academies and governments.

Join us as Jonathan Brent, AEI’s Leon Aron, and the Hudson Institute’s Ronald Radosh discuss these questions and the long-term significance of the ongoing analysis of Stalin’s hitherto secret historical documents. AEI’s Michael A. Ledeen will moderate.