Interview
Stephen Kotkin — How Stalin became the most powerful dictator in history
- Stalinist systems are predicted to endure internal purges of intellectuals, scientists, elites, and police forces, resulting in a regime more unjust than the preceding Tsarist autocracy.
- Constitutional revolutions attempted between 1905 and 1926 in Mexico, Iran, China, Russia, and Portugal are expected to fail, triggering leftist, social-oriented revolutionary processes that are viewed as antithetical to future prosperity and the rule of law.
- Autocratic refusal of political participation is forecasted to force a dichotomy between a leftist overthrow leading to radicalization or a rightist path toward fascism, while peasant land seizures in Russia and China are anticipated to inadvertently empower the Bolsheviks before the peasantry faces annihilation and re-enslavement in collectives.
- An unresolved internal conflict on the left regarding the eradication versus evolution of capitalism is expected to persist indefinitely.
- Khrushchev's denunciation of Stalin is predicted to ironically sustain the system's legitimacy through Gorbachev, a trend where Xi Jinping is expected to attribute Mao-era failures to specific mistakes rather than systemic faults.
- Jiang Zemin's "three represents" policy intended to integrate millionaires into the party is forecasted to fail by encouraging party members to form businesses and expropriate property, prompting a shift where the party reasserts control by placing officials as directors and CEOs in the private sector.
- The Communist Party's monopoly on power is expected to survive provided it successfully suppresses political alternatives, even if all other functions fail, as entrepreneurialism is now viewed as a threat to rule.
- Regimes are predicted to pursue tech-driven surveillance and prediction to make dictatorships immune from challenges, though this approach has a poor track record.
- Economic growth is not considered a permanent source of political legitimacy; instead, stability is viewed as dependent on power rooted in the people with real freedoms and voting rights.
- Authoritarian regimes failing to deliver a higher standard of living are expected to resort to repression since citizens cannot seek legal recourse, with system collapse predicted to occur if the repressive apparatus refuses to shoot, similar to a political bank run.
- Political legitimacy is deemed decisive because citizens are unwilling to die for causes they no longer believe in, creating a vulnerability in Iran where Russian or Chinese support cannot provide the necessary legitimacy despite offering technology or military hardware.
- Short-term risks include a potential World War III resulting in deaths multiple of the 55 million lost in World War II, whereas the long-term outlook suggests a Cold War dynamic allows for competition without hot war.