Amazing chat but with one glaring omission: psychopathy.  It is surely very likely that we might not even need explanations like "Stalin really believed in the cause of communism" so much that he became this monster. I think what is much more likely is that around the time when Stalin was coming of age, the bolsheviks presented a clear route to power for him. If capitalist revolutionaries were the flavour of the times, I imagine a character like him would have been just as passionate and determined to bring a capitalist society to Russia. Essentially, a total psycho might have looked at the current situation and thought "Which is the best vehice to ride me into absolute power?" Considering his absolute menacing evil and indifference to human life right from before even the revolution (when he would conduct murderous bank raids to swell revolutionary coffers), I think it much more likely that he was a pure cold psycho maniac prepared to pretend he was whatever he needed to be in order to achieve his evil ends.  The Russian aristocracy presented no route in; but the bolsheviks were something he could use to get him where he needed to be. <br><br>Same might be said about Putin to an extent. This speaker mentions the idea that such powerful people can start to believe that "more power for them is better for the strength of the nation"... or, again, they might just be pure psychopaths who never said a trustworthy word in their entire lives.   And tbh I do get the impression Putin has been behind the geopolitical reshaping of the world and is pulling the strings right now. Such fascinating, and terrifying people.