“Stalin and the Struggle for Supremacy in Eurasia”

A talk with Alfred J. Rieber of Central European University about his new book. From the Harriman Institute:

In the wake of the collapse of the great multi-cultural dynastic empires of Eurasia (Romanov, Habsburg, Ottoman, Qajar and Qing, the emergence of the Soviet Union from revolution, civil war and intervention under Bolshevik rule required new forms of building the state and conducting foreign relations. In responding to this challenge, Stalin drew upon his experience as a Marxist revolutionary in the borderland of the South Caucasus and the struggle over the Eurasian borderlands during the civil war and intervention to construct a Weltanschauung unique among his rivals. In this study it is called Stalin’s ‘borderlands thesis.’