Erik van Ree's profound book will, surely, become a standard reference in Soviet studies not only because it is the first narrowly focused and truly comprehensive treatment of Stalinist political thought as such. It is also an exceptionally dense and well-structured investigation that, moreover, attempts to situate Stalinism within the wider context of radical nationalist tendencies in European nineteenth- and twentieth-century left-wing thought. In fact, van Ree starts his study with a chapter on Jacobinism which, in his interpretation, gives birth to a peculiar, distinct strand within the radical left that reached its apex in Stalinism. Van Ree's main argument is that the sources of Stalinist nationalism are to be found not only or not so much in various pre-revolutionary societal and governmental russophile ideas and policies, ranging from Slavophilism to Black Hundredism. Instead, Stalinism was part and parcel of a development that had taken and was taking place relatively autonomously within the European left-wing movement, including its Russian section. While van Ree thus agrees with those interpretations that see the nationalist (or patriotic) element within Stalinism as a core feature of Stalin's outlook, he refuses to locate Stalinism within the conventionally nationalist Russian tradition. Van Ree, in particular, shows that, although Stalin was well-read, he had not much interest in non-leftist political thought and had only scant knowledge of the ideas of the pre-revolutionary Russian right.
Van Ree's study will not only be appreciated by researchers. It also provides a very good text-book for advanced under-graduate and post-graduate seminars. It provides a useful alternative to the numerous biographies of Stalin that, while often making interesting reading, mix freely historical, psychological, economic, political, etc. analysis. Van Ree's study, instead, focuses on what Stalin said and wrote, and addresses, in a systematic and straight-forward manner, scholarly debates on the various contradictions in Stalinist rhetoric ("socialism in one country," nationalism vs. internationalism, the withering away vs. strengthening of the state, pro-Nazi and anti-fascist tendencies, etc.). The book will, therefore, be appreciated by Russian history teachers as an excellent complementary text for the period of 1917-1953, by political theorists as a unique addition to the scholarly literature on Bolshevism, and by East European area studies specialists as a good addition to further reading lists on the nature of politics in the former Soviet bloc. It is to be hoped, therefore, that the study will be soon reprinted as a paper-back in order to be affordable for students.
